Faculty and Staff

Chair

Dr. Lesley Pleasant

Professor of German

Room 355, Olmsted Hall
812-488-2967
lp84@evansville.edu

Lesley C. Pleasant received her BA in German Studies from Dartmouth College and an MA and PhD in German Literature from the University of Virginia. She teaches all levels of German language, literature, and culture, as well as International Film, First Year Seminar, and the senior capstone course for language majors. Her research interests include 19th - 21st century German theater/drama (Büchner, Heiner Müller, Franz Castorf), the divided Germany (Sarah Kirsch, Christa Wolf, Wende texts and films), film (especially diasporic cinema), the image of the US in German literature and film, as well as Animal Studies and Environmental Humanities.

Faculty

Dr. Cindy Crowe

Assistant Professor of Spanish

Room 352, Olmsted Hall
812-488-1029
cc109@evansville.edu

Cindy Crowe, a native of Evansville, received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UE. She additionally holds a doctorate degree as well as a professional, life license in Spanish. Previously she taught English at a state business college in Mexico and worked as a language trainer for global businesses. Her research and teaching interests include the individual and societal advantages of foreign language learning, factors that influence students’ choice of major, Mexican immigration and Chicano influence in the US, community engagement pedagogies, and servant leadership. She serves on the board of directors for two nonprofits and is the local coordinator for the national Wreaths Across America project to honor veterans.

Dr. Diana Rodríguez Quevedo

(she/her/hers)

Associate Professor of Spanish
Director of the Eykamp Center for Teaching Excellence

Room 58, Schroeder School of Business Building
812-488-2457
dr130@evansville.edu

Diana Rodríguez Quevedo received her PhD in Spanish – Latin American Literature from the University of Toronto. Prior to coming to the University of Evansville, she taught at the University of Toronto and was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for one year. She has taught a wide variety of courses that include elementary to advanced Spanish, Latin American culture and civilization, Spanish conversation, business Spanish, and Latin America literature. Her research focuses on non-canonical texts of Latin America, such as testimonio narratives and songs. Her dissertation examined texts dealing with the phenomenon of forced internal displacement in the 20th and 21st centuries in Colombia.

Adjunct Faculty

Mr. Nicolas Costeur

Adjunct Instructor of French

nc135@evansville.edu

Nicolas Costeur is a native Frenchman, born and raised outside of Lille, France, near the Belgian border. He earned his “Baccalaureate” in literature, philosophy and languages, with a focus on Latin, Spanish, Italian and English, and then his Bachelor’s (“Licence”) and Master’s Degrees at the University of Lille. He has been teaching French in the United States for fifteen years, including twelve at Castle High School. He is passionate about travel and loves spending time with family in Corsica.

Ms. Katrina Seibert-Costeur

Adjunct Instructor of French

kc98@evansville.edu

Katrina Seibert-Costeur graduated from Butler University with Bachelor's Degrees in International Studies and French. She earned her Master's in Education at Indiana University where she studied language acquisition, Special Education and French. After teaching in Washington State for several years, she left for France, where she taught for five years, two years in a private school and three years at the University of Lille. She has enjoyed travel to other Francophone places, including Quebec and Cameroun in Africa. Her family is bicultural/bilingual French and English. In addition to teaching French at the University of Evansville, she is an ESL teacher in the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation.

Dr. Justyna Czader

Adjunct Instructor of French

jc732@evansville.edu

Dr. Justyna Czader received her BA in French, legal studies, and political science from IUPUI. She earned a Ph.D. in French literature and MSEd in Literacy and Language Instruction from Purdue University. She holds a double MA from Purdue University and Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland. She also received her MBA from Université de Rennes 1, Rennes, France, and the University of Economics and Business, Poznan, Poland. She has taught a wide variety of courses that include elementary to advanced French, culture, French and Francophone literature and cinema as well as the old French language at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her research interest includes 18th-century carceral literature, French Revolution, cognitive studies, Digital Humanities and emerging technologies in learning design and technology.

Mr. Sean Hughes

Visiting Assistant Professor of Languages and Culture

sh493@evansville.edu

Sean Hughes is a doctoral candidate in applied linguistics at Teachers College, Columbia University. He holds bachelor's degrees in German and anthropology and master's degrees in TESOL and applied linguistics. Sean has taught elementary, junior high, and high school in the U.S. and Japan, as well as at universities in South Korea, China, Oman, Vietnam, and the United States. He also served as an English Language Fellow with the US Department of State, where he is currently an English Language Specialist.

Dr. Anna Martija Perez

Adjunct Instructor of Spanish

am984@evansville.edu

Dr. Martija-Perez has a Ph.D. in Spanish Language and Literature from Florida International University, in Florida. Her research dissertation is in representation of domestic violence in Contemporary Spanish and Latin-American Literature and cinema from the 20th and 21st century predominantly, with a special interest in transnational and transgenerational approaches to feminist theories and literatures. Dr. Martija has extensive experience teaching Spanish language, culture, and literature at different universities in the United States. She was also the director of the Department of Spanish belonging to the Defense Critical Languages and Cultural Program at the University of Montana.

Dr. Ramón Muñiz

Adjunct Instructor of Spanish

rm336@evansville.edu

Ramón Muñiz earned his PhD in Spanish at Florida International University (FIU) where he worked as an instructor of Spanish for four years at lower and upper division classes. Dr. Muniz started his academic career in the Universidad de Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, teaching Peninsular Literature (from Middle-Ages to 21st century) for two years after his graduation with a Hispanic Philology major. He received the Doctoral Year Fellowship (DYF) from FIU to complete and defend his dissertation: Primitivism and Women Poetry in the Southern Cone: Gabriela Mistral, Juana de Ibarbourou and Alfonsina Storni. His most recent publication is the chapter “Gabriela Mistral y Concha Méndez: experiencias de la maternidad” (Poéticas comparadas de mujeres, Brill, March 2022), co-authored with Dr. Renée Silverman. His research interests include Southern Cone literature, Latin American women writers, Latino women writers in the United States, Primitivism, and the critique to modernity in Latin American literature and art, and Spanish film.

Emeriti Professors

Dr. John Meredig

Assistant Professor Emeritus of Russian and German

jm3@evansville.edu

Dr. Meredig recently retired after 25 years of teaching Russian and German at UE, but he just couldn't stay away.

Staff

Mrs. Marisa Patterson-Knox

Administrative Assistant for Languages and Cultures, Archaeology, and First Year Seminar

Room 350, Olmsted Administration Hall
812-488-2165
mk52@evansville.edu

Academic Programs Languages and Cultures