Faculty

BA, San Diego State University; MA, San Francisco State University

Samantha Bankston received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Purdue University, an M.A. in Philosophy from The New School for Social Research, and a B.A. in French from the University of Colorado.  Previously, she taught graduate and undergraduate courses in philosophy, English, and French at Purdue University and the University of Grenoble in France.  She is fluent in French and her work has appeared in New Perspectives on Anarchism, at http://www.webdeleuze.com, and her translation of Anne Sauvagnargues’ book, Deleuze et l’art, is forthcoming from Continuum Press.  Her research interests include contemporary Continental philosophy, feminist philosophy, critical theory, literature, and modern art.  This year she was Smith College’s Mortimer Scholar, having conducted research in their Sylvia Plath archives for a project on poststructuralism and The Bell Jar, which she is preparing for publication.  She is currently turning her dissertation, Becoming and Time in the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, into a book for publication, and is writing an article on Simone de Beauvoir’s concept of ambiguity and the future of the Humanities, which she presented this summer at the 20th International Simone de Beauvoir Society Conference, hosted by the University of Oslo and The University of Science and Technology, Norway.  A Colorado native, Bankston loves snowboarding and wandering in the mountains.  This fall she will be teaching the following courses: Existential Literature, Eco-Psychology, French 1, and English Composition 2: Image and Writing.

B.A., Pomona College; M.A., Stanford

• B.S., University of California, Davis
• M.A.,  University of California, Berkeley
• Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley

Christina M. Frederick teaches psychology courses ranging from the introductory level to courses with more specialized emphases such as cognitive/behavioral, neuroscience, sensation and perception, social psychology, developmental, and research methods.  Although her background is cognitive, her teaching and research experience has taken her far outside the cognitive domain.  Christina’s research interests range from human memory, to human perception, to undergraduate plagiarism.  Her non-academic interests revolve around her family, with whom she is dedicated to living life to the fullest.

• B.A., English Literature, University of Florida
• M.A., Literature, Theory, and Cultural Studies, Purdue University
• Ph.D., Philosophy, Purdue University

Robert Drury King is an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Sierra Nevada College (NV, USA) and a research fellow with the Centre Leo Apostel at the Free University of Brussels.  Robert earned his B.A. in English Literature at the University of Florida and his M.A. in Literature, Theory, and Cultural Studies at Purdue University.  He went on to complete his Ph.D. at Purdue University within their dual Ph.D. degree program in Literature and Philosophy.   His doctoral dissertation, “System Individuation in Differential and Dialectical Ontology: Deleuze, Hegel, and Systematic Thought,” received the 2011 College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Dissertation Award.  Robert has published chapters and essays in a variety of books and journals and is currently preparing a co-edited volume of essays entitled, Main Traditions of Systems Theory: Figures and Developments, which is forthcoming with Routledge.  Robert has studied in the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University; at the Collegium Phaenomenologicum in Città di Castello, Italy; within the Unseld Lecture Series at the University of Tübingen, Germany; as a visiting fellow of the World Congress Summer School in Glasgow, Scotland, with the Association for Social Economics; as a visiting scholar under the National Endowment for the Humanities’ 2012 Summer Institute in Experimental Philosophy at the University of Arizona; and in the National Humanities Center’s Summer Institutes in Literary Studies at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, in the seminar, “Form and Politics in the Work of J.M. Coetzee.”

• B.A., Political Science, University of Vermont
• M.S., Hydrology, University of Nevada, Reno
• Ph.D., Hydrology, University of Nevada, Reno

Andy teaches in the Science and Humanities departments at Sierra Nevada College. His primary research interests include the physical, chemical, and biological constraints on attached algae in Sierra Nevada streams. He is active in his research and supervises student research at Sierra Nevada College. Andy teaches a wide range of classes including Ecology of Aquatic Ecosystems, Environmental Systems, Introduction to Sustainability, Lake Tahoe Basin Ecosystems, Environmental Engineering, Introduction to Outdoor Skills, Fundamentals of Environmental Education, and Introduction to Geology. Outside of SNC, you are most likely to find Andy enjoying the rock, water, sun, and slopes of the Sierra Nevada with his family.

• M.F.A., Creative Writing, Bowling Green State University

June Sylvester Saraceno is originally from Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Her work has appeared in various journals including American Journal of Nursing, California Quarterly, The Pedestal, Silk Road, Smartish Pace, Southwestern American Literature, Tar River Poetry and others; as well as several anthologies including A Bird as Black as the Sun: California Poets on Crows and Ravens; Intimate Kisses: the poetry of sexual pleasure; Passionate Hearts: the poetry of sexual love, and Tahoe Blues. Her chapbook Mean Girl Trips was published in fall 2006 by Pudding House Press. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Altars of Ordinary Light, was released by Plain View Press in 2007. She is currently English Program Chair at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe, founding editor of the Sierra Nevada Review and Director of Writers in the Woods literary reader series.

• http://www.junesaraceno.com

• M.F.A., University of Oregon

Brian Turner is the author of two collections of poetry: Here, Bullet (Alice James Books, 2005; Bloodaxe Books, 2007) and Phantom Noise (Alice James Books, 2010; Bloodaxe Books in October of 2010). Both collections were published in Swedish by Oppenheim forlag and his poetry has been translated into several languages. Turner earned an MFA from the University of Oregon before serving for seven years in the US Army. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division (1999-2000). His poetry and essays have been published in The New York Times, National Geographic, Poetry Daily, The Georgia Review, Virginia Quarterly Review and other journals. Turner was featured in the documentary film Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which was nominated for an Academy Award. He received a USA Hillcrest Fellowship in Literature, an NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry, the Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship, the Poets’ Prize, and a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. His most recent book, Phantom Noise, was short-listed for the T.S. Eliot Prize in England. Most recently, Turner was awarded a Fellowship in the NEA/Japan-US Friendship Commission Creative Artist Program (2012). His work has appeared on National Public Radio, the BBC, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Here and Now, and on Weekend America, among others. He is the Director of the new Low Residency MFA program at Sierra Nevada College.

• Brian Turner interviewed on Here & Now—WBUR, Boston NPR | Additional News & Notes