Faculty and Staff

French

Dianne Guenin-Lelle, Department Chair
Professor of French and Associate Provost for Advising and Assessment

Dianne received her B.A. from the University of New Orleans, M.A. from University of Louisiana, Lafayette and her PhD from Louisiana State University, and has been teaching at Albion College since 1987. A specialist in 17th century French literature, Dianne currently focuses her research on Francophone Louisiana. Her latest book is The Story of French New Orleans: History of a Creole City (University Press of Mississippi). Incorporating language learning and cultural studies, her teaching is built on the belief that learning must be relevant for students in order to transform their lives. Dianne teaches all levels of French and Francophone studies, including courses on Québec, Louisiana, “Multicultural” France, and the history of French Women’s Writing. She travels with students to France, Cameroon, Québec and Louisiana regularly. An active member of Albion’s French Sister City Committee for Noisy-le-Roi and Bailly, France, she keeps her students very connected to life and opportunities in these two very special cities. Currently, she also serves as Associate Provost for Assessment and Advising. She can be reached at .

Phone: 517/629-0335
Office: 117 Vulgamore Hall

Emmanuel Yewah
Professor of French

Emmanuel Yewah holds a Licencié –es- Lettres and a Maîtrise from the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon, as well as a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He came to Albion College in 1986 where he currently serves as Professor of French and Comparative Cultural Studies. His teaching covers the French and Francophone worlds as well as Honors and a First Year seminar on Africa: Myth and Reality. As a Comparatist, his wide-ranging interests in research include, African Literature and politics, detective fiction, filmic adaptations of literary texts, postcolonial theories, visual cultures (Photography), migration, and Human Rights discourses. He has published extensively in these areas and in a variety of avenues. His recent co-authored book is Across the Atlantic: African Immigrants in the United States Diaspora (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Press). His current research deals with the cross-examination of literature and law, literature and medicine, political cartoons, Colonial Court Interpreters, and World Fairs. Since 2000, he has traveled with over one hundred students to Cameroon and France. He can be reached at .

Phone: 517/629-0314
Office: 105 Vulgamore Hall

German 

Perry W. Myers
Professor of German
Research fellowship to the Institut d'Études Avancées de Paris for the 2020-21 academic year.

Perry Myers received his B.A. and M.B.A. from Baylor University and then pursued a career in investment banking, where he worked for Merrill Lynch Capital Markets and J.P. Morgan Global Markets in Frankfurt, Germany for 11 years. After returning to the US he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in German Studies from the University of Texas Austin., and came to Albion College in 2004, where he is currently Professor of German Studies. His teaching not only encompasses history and culture during the Enlightenment, but also extends to the Modern era to include ever-evolving relevant themes on multiculturalism in Germany, Vergangenheitsbewältigung and Crime Novels, and German film. Alongside his full load of course offerings, he actively publishes articles as well as books. Some of his past work includes articles on Thomas Mann, Max Weber, and German travelers to India. His books include The Double Edges Sword. The Cult of Bildung in Fin-de-Siécle German (Rudolf Steiner and Max Weber) (Lang, 2004). And he most recently published German Visions of India, 1871 -1918. Commandeering the Holy Ganges during the Kaiserreich (Palgrave, 2013). His newest book that is nearing completion is a comparative research project on cosmopolitan religious movements in England, France, Germany, and India (1871-1932), with the tentative title Prophets and Partisans during the Long Fin-de-Siécle (1871-1932): Cosmopolitan Religion in Europe and India. He can be reached at .

Phone: 517/629-0357
Office: 115 Vulgamore Hall

Susanne Myers
Adjunct Instructor (German and French)
(Leave of Absence 2020-21 academic year)

B.A., University of Texas, Austin. Study of Law, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt, Germany.

Email

Spanish

Elizabeth Barrios
Assistant Professor of Spanish

Elizabeth received her B.A. from Knox College, and her Ph,D. from the University of Michigan. That same year she began teaching at Albion.

Her research straddles several fields: Latin American literary and cultural studies, film studies, and the environmental humanities, particularly in the burgeoning field of energy humanities. She is currently working on a book that examines 70-years of Venezuelan oil narratives, environmental art, and oil industry propaganda in Venezuela. Entitled Failures of the Imagination: Reckoning with The Times of Oil in Venezuelan Cultural Production, the project argues that the creation of societies that do not run on oil will not simply involve economic and technological change--it will require cultural work: the retelling of established histories/stories, the disruption of habits, and the reshaping of the imagination itself.

Within the Modern Languages and Cultures Department, Elizabeth teaches various levels of language instruction, including Spanish for Heritage Speakers. Her literature and cultural studies courses have explored the intersection between new-media remixes and established forms of Latin American artistic production, the legacies of diasporas in and from Latin America, as well as Afro-Latinx literatures. She also teaches interdisciplinary courses about environmental art and the political history of climate change. She can be contacted at .

Phone: 517/629-0333
Office: 106 Vulgamore Hall

Kalen Oswald
Associate Professor of Spanish

Kalen received his B.A. from Utah State University, and his M.A. and PhD from the University of Arizona in Tucson. He has been teaching at Albion College since 2002. A specialist in 19th- to 21st-century Spanish literature and culture, Kalen currently focuses his research on Post Franco narrative fiction. Kalen teaches all levels of Spanish language in addition to advanced literature and culture courses focusing on several aspects of the Spanish-speaking world. Some of these classes include: the history and cultures of Spain; an introduction to the analysis of literature, film and painting from the Spanish-speaking world; cultural artifacts representing the Spanish Civil War; the genre of the short story written in Spanish; the classic novel Don Quixote de la Mancha; detective fiction; and Spanish cities. He can be reached at .

Phone: 517/629-0369
Office: 116 Vulgamore Hall

Marcie Noble
Visiting Instructor of Spanish

Marcie Noble joined the Albion College faculty as a visiting instructor in 2009. She completed her Ph.D. at Western Michigan University, specializing in Eighteenth through Twenty-first Century Spanish American Literature and Culture, and Medieval and Golden Age Spanish Literature and Culture. Her research interests include twentieth and twenty-first century Latin American literature and cultures and their intersections with globalization, migration, race, and gender, and her dissertation—Nationalism, Universality, and Globalization: Notes on the narrative of three Guatemalan authors—explores a trajectory from a nationally focused literature to one that is increasingly global. Marcie teaches all levels of Spanish language as well as courses on the literature and cultures of the Spanish-speaking world, including Introduction to Hispanic Studies, South American Identities and Cultural Perspectives, a survey of Central American Literature, and courses focused on women and gender in the Spanish-speaking world and culture, identity and globalization in Latin America. She can be reached at .

Phone: 517/629-0209
Office: 107 Vulgamore Hall

Staff

Linda Clawson
Department Secretary

B.A., 1979, University of California at Santa Barbara

Department Office: Vulgamore 207
Phone: 517/629-0207
Email: