Full-Time Faculty
Dr. Jennifer Backman
Professor, Writing Center Director
B.A. University of California, San Diego
M.A. The University of Chicago
Ph.D. Purdue University
Born the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, Professor Backman thus possesses the rare gift of “third sight” (like “second sight,” only better). She prides herself on infusing every moment with her own brand of neo-punk joie de vivre while still adhering rigidly to three laws of thermodynamics (she thinks the zeroth law is BS). Before landing at Palomar, she worked as a gravedigger, a saucier chef, and the personal assistant of a major Hollywood celebrity (ask her no questions and she’ll tell you no lies). She reads and writes about Thomas Pynchon for fun and has been known to Tweet about the lives of moles.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg – Room 302I Email: jbackman@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2397
Dr. Russell Backman
Associate Professor
B.A. University of California, Berkeley
M.A. University of Chicago
Ph.D. University of California, Davis
Professor Backman's teaching and research focus is on narrative, contemporary literature, transmedia storytelling, aesthetics, and critical theory. He has written on the history of the epic and the novel, especially works that attempt to encompass and embody cultural identities. His interest in storytelling and serialization includes the study of fiction, television, film, comic books, video games, and the various adaptations between them. From an emphasis on form and media, his work touches on aspects of Science and Technology Studies and the Digital Humanities. He also has an abiding interest in classical Greek myth, literature, and philosophy.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 301M Email: rbackman@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2835
Dr. Melissa Haickel Bagaglio
Associate Professor
B.S. University of Evansville (IN)
M.A. University of Memphis
Ph.D. University of Memphis
Professor Bagaglio's teaching is influenced by her multicultural background and interest in science and politics. In her research, she focuses on the early modern British literature and the relationship between literature, politics, and justice. She explores ideas about law, mercy, and equity and their relation to royal prerogative in literary works and the authors' attempt to influence a shift towards reduced prerogative powers and legally limited sovereignty. Understanding the relationship between power and justice is an important contemporary issue, and Professor Bagaglio's experiences growing up in Brazil during the military dictatorship greatly influences her perspective. Her other research interests are in early sci-fi and fantasy works and how they influenced scientific discoveries as well as in questions of identity as they relate to language acquisition.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 301G Email: mbagaglio@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2685
Dr. Abbie Cory
Professor
B.A. California State University, Long Beach
M.A. University of California, San Diego
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego
Professor Cory’s academic interests include British and Irish literature, literature by women and LGBTQ authors, and poetry. Her composition classes are often taught through the lens of social justice issues and popular culture. Professor Cory is the Director of the Palomar College Pride Center and the Chair of the Palomar College Committee to Combat Hate and also serves on the Student Services Planning Council. She has published in the journals Intertext, Women’s Studies, and New Hibernia Review.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 301O Email: acory@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 3637
Dr. Richard Hishmeh
Professor and Department Chair
B.A. University of California, Riverside
M.A. University of California, Riverside
Ph.D. University of California, Riverside
Professor Hishmeh’s teaching and research interests include Rhetoric, American Literature, Poetry, and Film and Visual Culture. His scholarship has appeared in journals including, Modern Language Studies, The Journal of American Culture, and the Hemingway Review. Professor Hishmeh is co-editor of Pacific Coast Philology, the official journal of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA), a regional branch of the Modern Language Association. He has served as a member of PAMLA’s Executive Committee (2014-2017), and he is the recipient of Palomar’s Faculty Senate Award for Scholarly and Professional Achievement, 2016. With Jason Spangler of Riverside City College, Hishmeh is co-author of the textbook, Writing Up: Reading and Writing for College Readiness (BVT 2016). His latest publication, a chapter entitled, “Claiming Their Place: Contemporary Arab American Poetry and Poetics,” appears in the Bloomsbury Handbook of Contemporary American Poetry (2022). In addition to his critical work, Professor Hishmeh has authored an unpublished collection of poems focusing on Southern California’s Inland region, entitled About Forty Miles Inland. For his complete CV and additional information, please visit his website (see link above).
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 302P Email: rhishmeh@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 3638
Dr. Martin Japtok
Professor
M.A. Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany
Ph.D. University of California, Davis
Professor Japtok is the author of Growing Up Ethnic: Nationalism and the Bildungsroman in African American and Jewish American Fiction (2005), editor of Postcolonial Perspectives on Women Writers from Africa, the Caribbean, and the U.S. (2003), and, with Professor Rafiki Jenkins, editor of Authentic Blackness/”Real” Blackness: Essays on the Meaning of Blackness in Literature and Culture (2011) and of Human Contradictions in Octavia E. Butler’s Work (2020). He has published essays in scholarly journals (such as African American Review, MELUS, The Journal of Caribbean Literatures, and others) as well as in essay collections and encyclopedias, mostly on African American and Afro-Caribbean literature. He was Professor of the Year at West Virginia State University from 2000-2003 and is also co-author of the 8th edition of Inside Writing and the 6th edition of The Writer’s Response: A Reading-Based Approach to Writing. His essay “Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist, the Internet, and Techno-Utopianism” (African American Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 , 301-317) received the 2021 Weixlmann Prize for African American Review’s best essay on 20th and 21st century literature.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 302H Email: mjaptok@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 3994
Dr. Jerry “Rafiki” Jenkins
Professor
B.A. University of California, San Diego
M.A. University of California, San Diego
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego
Professor Jenkins is Professor of English and Multicultural Studies at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. He teaches courses in composition, critical thinking, literature, African American Studies, and Multicultural Studies. His research focuses on African American speculative fiction and film. He has presented papers at the annual conventions of the Pacific and Ancient Modern Language Association, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, National Association of African American Studies, and the Popular Culture Association. His articles have been published in Screening Noir and African American Review, and he is the co-editor (with Martin Japtok) of Authentic Blackness/Real Blackness: Essays on the Meaning of Blackness in Literature and Culture (Peter Lang, 2011).
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 301L Email: jjenkins@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2287
Dr. Kevin Kearney
Associate Professor
B.A. Union College
M.A. University of California, Santa Barbara
Ph.D. University of California, Santa Barbara
Professor Kearney’s teaching and research interests focus on contemporary literature and queer theory. His work has explored representations of futurity and apocalypse, speculative fiction, and (most importantly) how the humanities inspire creativity, demand discipline, and hone critical thinking. He is active with the Palomar Faculty Federation, the Committee on Political Education, the English Majors Group, the Basic Skills Initiative, and the Gender and Sexuality Alliance.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 301E Email: kkearney@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2379
Dr. Lisette Ordorica Lasater
Associate Professor
B.A. California State University, San Marcos
M.A. University of California, Riverside
Ph.D. University of California, Riverside
Professor Lasater’s teaching is informed by her research interests, which include contemporary Chicana/Latina literature and cultural studies, Chicana feminism, twentieth century American literature, and theater and performance studies. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and a first-generation college student. Her educational journey began at Palomar College, and she is thrilled to return as faculty to teach the next generations of students.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 301H Email: llasater@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 3410
Dr. Michael James Lundell
Associate Professor
Visit the Puente Program website
B.A. University of California, Berkeley
M.F.A. San Diego State University
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego
Professor Lundell teaches composition, literature, film, and creative writing. Recent themes for his courses have been contemporary Latino/a literature, US/Mexico border studies, and Puerto Rican literature, film, and music. Each one of his classes is approached through the lens of critical race theory and social justice for historically marginalized and under-recognized communities. His research on The 1001 Nights, literary theory, and adaptation studies has been published widely. He is also currently the English Professor and Co-Coordinator for the Palomar College Puente Project.
It was his own experiences as a student at two California Community Colleges (West Valley College & Berkeley City College) that helped him realize academic and personal successes that he never thought were possible. As such, he is especially grateful to be giving back here at Palomar.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 302M Email: mlundell@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2719
Melissa Martinez
Assistant Professor
B.A. University of California, San Diego
M.A. University of California, San Diego
Professor Martinez’ teaching and research interests examine contemporary Mexican and Caribbean literatures and cultures, and specializes in postmodern identities, gender, racial and class issues in Mexico, the Caribbean, and the U.S. Other areas of interest include Tattoo narratives, Science Fiction, Latin American detective fiction, and Environmental Humanities.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 301I Email: mmartinez5@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2970
Dr. Leanne Maunu
Professor (currently serving as Interim Dean of Languages & Literature)
B.A. University of California, San Diego
M.A. Indiana University
Ph.D. Indiana University
Professor Maunu specializes in British literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with an emphasis on Romanticism and its connections to French writers from the same time period. She has published articles on Frances Burney, Charlotte Smith, and Mary Shelley, and her book, Women Writing the Nation: National Identity, Female Community, and the British–French Connection, 1770-1820 (Bucknell University Press, 2007), explores the role of nationalism in the works of female Romantic writers. Some of her more recent research interests include exploring the role of violence in literature and the contemporary Gothic novel. Besides teaching Palomar's composition classes, she also teaches Survey of British Literature I and II, Introduction to Shakespeare, Women and Literature, Literature through Film, and Violence and Literature. She is also one of the advisors for the English Majors Group.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg – Room 301N Email: lmaunu@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2288
Dr. Adam Meehan
Associate Professor
B.A. University of California, Berkeley
M.A. San Diego State University
Ph.D. University of Arizona
Professor Meehan specializes in twentieth-century literature, modernism, the novel, and critical theory. He has published in Journal of Modern Literature, Studies in the Novel, and elsewhere. His first book, Modernism and Subjectivity: How Modernist Fiction Invented the Postmodern Subject, was published in 2020 by Louisiana State University Press.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg – Room 302N Email: ameehan@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2723
Dr. Vartan Messier
Assistant Professor
B.A. University of San Diego
M.A.E.E. University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez
Ph.D. University of California, Riverside
Professor Messier’s teaching and research interests are contemporary fiction, gender studies, film and media studies, postcolonial studies, and continental philosophy. His work has appeared in New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, The Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, Atenea, and Interdisciplinary Film Studies. His book, Errancies of Desire, examines the propensity for aggression and violence embedded in cultural configurations of masculine identity in contemporary fiction.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 302J Email: vmessier@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 3330
Dr. Hannah Nahm
Assistant Professor
A.A. Santa Monica College
B.A. University of California, Los Angeles
M.A. California State University, Northridge
M.A. University of California, Los Angeles
Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles
Professor Nahm’s teaching and research interests include 19th through 21st century U.S. literatures, especially works by Black, Asian Pacific Islander Desi American, and Latinx writers. She is also passionate about creative writing, particularly, narrative fiction. Professor Nahm’s short fictions have appeared in Amerasia, CUNY Forum, The Northridge Review, and others. Her critical essay on Black-Asian American relations was published in philoSOPHIA, and her chapter on Zora Neale Hurston and the trope of subversive motherhood was published in a critical volume. She is currently serving as Coeditor of a special issue of Literature, an international, peer-reviewed journal.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 302K Email: hnahm@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 3650
Dr. Clare Rolens
Associate Professor
B.A. University of California, Santa Barbara
M.A. University of California, San Diego
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego
Professor Rolens has served as one of the faculty advisors for Bravura, Palomar College’s literary journal, since 2019, and she thinks you should submit that poem/story/essay you’ve been polishing (go on, take the leap: bravurajournal.org). Her teaching interests include crime and detective fiction, cross-dressing in literature and film, and prison writing. Her writing--both academic and creative--has appeared in Callaloo, Arizona Quarterly, symplokē, American Book Review, Clues: A Journal of Detection, Vestal Review, Litbreak Magazine, and Bright Flash Literary Review. She serves on the Advisory Board of Cambridge University Press’s Elements in Crime Narratives series, and in 2024 she will be the book review editor for Clues: A Journal of Detection.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg – Room 302L Email: crolens@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2710
Dr. Amy Shen
Assistant Professor
B.A. University of California, San Diego
M.A. Pennsylvania State University
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley
Professor Shen’s teaching and research interests intersect numerous fields, including multiethnic U.S. and world literatures, cultural studies, environmental sustainability, social transformation and peace activism, holistic wellness, and equity-based pedagogies. She completed a B.A. degree at UCSD in Literatures of the World with emphases in literatures in English, Spanish, and Chinese, an M.A. degree at Penn State University in Comparative Literature, and a Ph.D. degree at UC Berkeley in Ethnic Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. She has been teaching for over fifteen years and has received a UC Berkeley outstanding teaching award. Drawing from her research, teaching, and mentoring experience, she has helped build three different education and writing programs that support diverse first-generation, underserved, and underrepresented students. She has presented her research at annual conferences of the Modern Language Association, American Comparative Literature Association, and International Comparative Literature Association.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 302O Email: ashen@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2399
Dr. Stacey Trujillo
Associate Professor
A.A. Chaffey College
B.A. San Diego State University
M.A. University of California, San Diego
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego
Professor Trujillo’s teaching and research interests focus on multi-ethnic and underrepresented voices in U.S. American Literature. Specifically, she specializes in multi-ethnic Latino/a literatures of immigration and migration and the diverse literature of U.S. empire. These areas of literature specialization also inform how she approaches critical thinking and composition courses. As a whole, her courses emphasize primary source analysis and she encourages students to push their analysis to engage with larger questions of privilege/oppression, race/ethnicity, and gender/sexuality.
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg – Room 301K Email: strujillo@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2572
Dr. Rocco Versaci
Professor
B.A. University of Illinois
M.A. Indiana University
Ph.D. Indiana University
Professor Versaci has been a member of the English Department at Palomar since 1997. From 2000 - 2018, he served as Co-advisor for Bravura, the college's award-winning literary journal, and is currently active with the English Majors Group. He also works with Palomar's Transitions/Rising Scholars Program, which serves students who have been formerly incarcerated; this work has involved teaching composition at the Vista Detention Facility as well as for Transitions/Rising Scholars cohorts. In addition to teaching literature, composition, and critical thinking courses, his academic interests are creative writing, 20th Century American literature, memoir, film, comics/graphic novels, and issues relating to mass incarceration. He is the author of This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature (Bloomsbury, 2007) and That Hidden Road: A Memoir (Apprentice House, 2016). More information is available on his website (see link above).
Contact Information
Location: Humanities Bldg - Room 301F Email: rversaci@palomar.edu Phone: (760) 744-1150 ext. 2971
Sue Zolliker
Professor
B.A. Michigan State University
M.A. San Diego State University
Professor Zolliker teaches composition and humanities and is particularly interested in integrating firsthand experience with reading, writing, and traditional research. Her travel-related projects include walking several hundred miles along medieval pilgrimage routes in France and Spain and, most recently, traveling around the Mediterranean, mostly on sailing ships, exploring Homer’s Odyssey.