Regular Faculty
Caroline Heldman, Chair
Professor, Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies
B.A., Washington State University; M.A., Ph.D., Rutgers University
Caroline Heldman specializes in the presidency, media, gender, and race in the American context.
Advisory Committee
Mary Christianakis
Professor, Critical Theory and Social Justice
B.A., UCLA; M. Ed., UCLA; M.A., Loyola Marymount University; Ph.D., UC Berkeley
Mary Christianakis is a professor of language, literacy, and culture. She studies literacy development, language, and discourse from a critical sociocritical perspective.
Michael Gasper
Associate Professor, History
B.A., Temple University; M.A., Ph.D., New York University
Michael Gasper teaches courses on the History of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, the History of the Ottoman Empire and the History of Islam and the Muslim World.
Affiliated Faculty
Bevin Ashenmiller
Associate Professor, Economics
B.A., Princeton University; Ph.D., UC Santa Barbara
Bevin Ashenmiller is an Environmental Economist whose research falls into three areas: recycling, evaluation of environmental programs, and energy and climate policy.
Erica Ball
Professor of Black Studies
B.A., Wesleyan University; M.A., Ph.D., The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Erica L. Ball is a historian who specializes in nineteenth and twentieth-century African American history.
Alexander F. Day
Professor, History & Asian Studies
B.A. Colby College; M.A., Ph.D. UC Santa Cruz
Alexander Day studies the intellectual, social, and cultural history of peasants, food, and agrarian change in China. He teaches Chinese, East Asian, and world history. Read his Oxy Story profile.
Allison de Fren
Professor, Media Arts & Culture
B.A., Grinnell College; M.P.S., New York University; Ph.D., University of Southern California
Allison de Fren is a media maker and scholar whose research-practice falls at the intersection of sexuality/gender, film/media, and science/technology, often tracing a line from contemporary representations to earlier conceptual histories and audiovisual practices.
Sharla Fett
Robert Glass Cleland Professor in American History
B.A., Carleton College; M.A., Stanford University; Ph.D., Rutgers University
Sharla Fett teaches courses on early U.S. and African American history, including the Atlantic World, Slavery and the Antebellum South, U.S. Women’s History, and Collective Memory and Slavery’s Legacies. Read her Oxy Story profile.
Susan Grayson
Professor, Spanish and French Studies
A.B., M.A., Ph.D., UCLA; Ph.D., Wright Institute Los Angeles Attestation d’études, Université de Bordeaux
Grayson has taught the 18th- and 19th-century French novel, French feminism, women's studies, literary criticism, and French grammar and composition at all levels.
Laura Hebert
Professor, Diplomacy and World Affairs
B.A., University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee M.A., University of Oregon Ph.D., University of Denver
Hebert's research interests center on gender, human rights, international law, and international organizations, with a geographic emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia and a thematic focus on gender-based violence.
Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa
Associate Professor, Religious Studies & Asian Studies
B.A., Victoria University of Wellington; Ph.D., Australian National University
Areas of specialization: Buddhism in Tibet, the East and South Asian Himalayas, and beyond.
Mary J. Lopez
Professor, Economics
B.A., UC Riverside; M.A., Ph.D., University of Notre Dame
Professor Lopez's research is in the areas of labor economics, applied micro, and demography.
Heather Lukes
Associate Professor, American Studies
B.A., UC Berkeley; M.A., Ph.D., UCLA
Heather Lukes teaches courses on queer theory, queer color critique, queer L.A., and psychoanalysis.
Amy Lyford
Arthur G. Coons Professor in the History of Ideas
B.A., Pomona College; M.A., Boston University; Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley
Amy Lyford’s research centers on twentieth-century American and European artistic practices, with a special interest in the histories of photography and sculpture.
Viviana MacManus
Associate Professor, Critical Theory & Social Justice
B.A., Occidental College; Ph.D., University of California, San Diego
Viviana Beatriz MacManus’s research and teaching focuses on Latin American and Latinx feminist theory, literature, film, and cultural studies.
Malek Moazzam-Doulat
Resident Associate Professor, Critical Theory and Social Justice
B.A., Occidental College; Ph.D., State University of New York, Stony Brook
Prof. Moazzam-Doulat teaches courses on social and political philosophy.
Richard Mora
Professor, Sociology
B.A., Harvard College (Sociology); M.A., University of Michigan (Education); M.A., Harvard University (Sociology); Ph.D., Harvard University (Sociology & Social Policy)
Dr. Mora teaches courses on masculinities, youth cultures, education, immigration, violence, and social inequality.
Clair Morrissey
Professor, Philosophy
B.A., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; M.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Clair Morrissey is a moral philosopher who specializes in practical ethics and political philosophy.
Julie Prebel
Professor, American Studies; Director of Writing Center
B.A., UC Berkeley; M.A., Cal State San Francisco; Ph.D., University of Washington
Julie Prebel is Professor of American Studies and Director of the Writing Center.
Erica Preston-Roedder
Resident Associate Professor, Philosophy
B.A. Stanford University; M.S., UNC Chapel Hill; Ph.D., New York University
Erica Preston-Roedder specializes in applied ethics. She also has interests in philosophy of race/gender, public philosophy, and philosophy of psychology. In recent work with Occidental College…
Lisa Sousa
Norman Bridge Professor, History
B.A., M.A., Ph.D., UCLA
Sousa specializes in the histories of colonial Latin America, indigenous peoples and languages of Mexico, and women, gender and sexuality.
Kristi Upson-Saia
Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs; David B. and Mary H. Gamble Professor of Religious Studies
B.A., University of Washington; M.Div., Princeton Theol. Sem.; Ph.D., Duke University
Areas of specialization: late ancient Mediterranean religions; dress and performativity; history of medicine, health, and healing
Yurika Wakamatsu
Assistant Professor, Art and Art History
B.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; A.M., Harvard University; Ph.D., Harvard University
Yurika Wakamatsu teaches East Asian art history, including pictorial narratives, woodblock prints, comics and anime, and gender and visual culture. Read her Oxy Story profile.