Featured Alumni

Ralph Bauer, PhD '97: Ralph Bauer arrived at Michigan State University from the University of Erlangen/ Nuremberg in 1991. He worked under the direction of Professor Stephen Carl Arch (English) on his Ph.D. dissertation, a comparative history of the colonial literatures of British and Spanish America. His dissertation committee included also Professors Edward Watts (English), Christine Daniels (History), and Aníbal González Pérez (Spanish). Since leaving MSU in 1997, he has taught in various appointments at Yale University, New York University, The Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany, and the University of Maryland, College Park, where he is currently an associate professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. His first monograph, The Cultural Geography of Colonial American Literatures: empire, travel, modernity, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2003. He has also published several (co-) edited collections of essays, anthologies, and translations, as well as numerous essays in edited collections and journals specializing in American and Latin American literary and cultural studies. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, an older suburb of Washington DC, with his wife Grace, his aging dog Turk (still of MSU fame), and his cats Simba and Missy.

Stephen A. Jones, MA '93, PhD '03, has produced African Americans in Congress: A Documentary History with co-author Eric Freedman. The reference book, published in October 2007 by CQ Press, combines original narrative and more than 120 important historical documents to trace the political experience and contributions of African Americans in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The book is the first single-volume reference to provide a comprehensive picture of the development of African American political empowerment in the nation’s preeminent political institution. Jones lives in Detroit and after extensive work as a journalist and as a high school English teacher, is currently an assistant professor of history at Central Michigan University. Freedman is an associate professor of journalism at MSU.

Anthony Shiu, PhD '03: After teaching English for two years at Springfield College, MA, Tony is now an assistant professor teaching Asian American and African American literature at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Recently, he's published articles on turntablism in CR: The New Centennial Review, the future of Asian American Studies in MELUS, and the relation between music and political theory in REAL: Yearbook of Research in English in American.

April Herndon, PhD '03: After graduating from Michigan State, April spent a year teaching Women's Studies and Biology courses at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN. From 2005-2006, she served as the Director of Programming for the Intersex Society of North America. Because she missed teaching, April accepted a position as Assistant Professor of English and Women's and Gender Studies at Winona State University in Winona, MN. She also directs the Women's Initiative for Learning and Leadership (WILL) program at Winona State, which is a program that aims to give young women in a co-ed environment a single-sex educational experience by helping them develop their skills as scholars and campus leaders. April's scholarly work focuses primarily on fatness in America and has most recently been published in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. She and a co-author have an article on the movement for intersex rights that is forthcoming from Gay and Lesbian Studies Quarterly. Currently, April is working on a book manuscript about the childhood obesity epidemic.