The Prairie Landscape

People Involved: The Odyssey Project

Instructors

First Year - Chicago's North Side:

  • Adam Davis is the lead facilitator and coordinator of The Meaning of Service (MoS), a social-justice oriented seminar series for AmeriCorps volunteers; the Executive Director of Camp of Dreams, a non-profit organization providing year-round programming for underserved 9-15 year olds in Chicago; and a Research Associate with the Project on Civic Reflection. He is the co-editor of The Civically Engaged Reader (2006). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (2003), his M.A. from Boston College (1996), and his B.A. from Kenyon College (1993). He has spent several years as a lecturer in political philosophy at the University of Chicago and a backcountry trail crew leader for the United States Forest Service.
  • Toni Gilpin, a historian and specialist in the history of American labor, earned her Master's degree and a Ph.D. in American History from Yale University. She has published several scholarly articles including "Labor's Last Stand" in Chicago History, the journal of the Chicago Historical Society. She also co-authored the book On Strike for Respect: The Clerical and Technical Workers' Strike at Yale University, 1984-85. She has taught courses at Lake Forest College and the Newberry Library on topics ranging from American social history to the history of technology to her latest interest, the history of food in American society.
  • Darrell Moore, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University was educated at Northwestern University. He teaches and conducts research in the areas of aesthetics, political philosophy, and critical race theory. He is interested in the ways in which philosophy's project of modernity contributed to the idea of race as well as the ways in which race is at work in modern and contemporary political theory and aesthetics. He is also interested in the tensions created by the confluence of Black diasporic thought with the major texts and arguments of modern political and aesthetic theory. He was a Fellow at the Frederick Douglass Institute at the University of Rochester in 1998-1999. At present he is finishing a manuscript entitled Aesthetics and Agency: On Beauty, Race, and the Practices of Freedom.
  • Hilary Strang is currently finishing her Ph.D. in the Department of English at the University of Chicago. Her dissertation is on representations of the politics of equality in English literary and political writing from 1789-1850. Hilary has been teaching college courses in literature and literary history, writing, and cultural theory since 1995. Her particular areas of interest and specialization are British literature from 1789-1900; the novel; feminist theory; marxism; histories of radicalism; the language of politics; and teaching. She has a BA in Literature and Society from Brown University and an MA in Literary and Cultural Theory from Carnegie Mellon University. Hilary was born and raised in Chicago.
  • Catherine Zurybida received a B.A. from Reed College in Portland, Oregon and her M.A. from the University of Chicago. She has taught a DePaul University since 1990 including classes in the areas ancient and medieval art history. Her interests at the moment include the architecture and function of early Christian basilicas.

First Year - Chicago's South Side:

  • Danielle Allen is Dean of the Humanities Division at the University of Chicago and Professor of Classics and Political Science. She holds degrees from Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Cambridge. She is the author of The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (2000) and Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education (2004) and numerous articles on topics ranging from ancient poetry to Plato to bees to Ralph Ellison and September 11th.Allen is a 2001 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship.
  • Amy Thomas Elder holds degrees in biology, Classics and Religious Studies. She has taught a wide array of subjects to audiences ranging from sixth grade through seminarians. Her research at the University of Chicago Divinity School dealt with textual interpretation in early Christianity. She currently teaches in the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults at the University of Chicago. She is Director of the Chicago Odyssey Project, regional manager of the Bard College Clemente Course, and coordinator and Critical Thinking and Writing instructor of the South Side course.
  • Charles Thomas Elder received his B.A. degree from the University of Kansas, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. He has taught for a number of years in the Social Science Core at the University of Chicago and, beginning in 1999, in the Basic Program of Liberal Education. Though trained as a scholar of religious studies and psychology, his interests have moved progressively in the direction of social theory and philosophy. He is the author of a work on Freud and philosophy, entitled The Grammar of the Unconscious: The Conceptual Foundations of Psychoanalysis.
  • Curtis Hansman is visiting Professor of Art History at DePaul University. She holds an M.PH. and Ph.D. in the history of Chinese art from the University of Kansas, with a specialization in Chinese and Japanese painting, Buddhist arts of Asia, and bronze age China. She has lived and traveled extensively in Asia and made climbing pilgrimages to many of the sacred peaks of China and Japan. She has also taught Art History in Japan and in the U.S. from Vermont to Arizona. Her current research interests involve word/image, text/ illustration relationship in traditional and modern China and rethinking approaches to the study of art history.
  • Julie Saville, Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago, received her Ph.D. from Yale. Her specialties include United States History, African-American and Caribbean History, and Comparative Slavery and Emancipations. She is especially interested in how broad historical changes during the era of trans-Atlantic slave emancipations are related to daily life, the social relations of labor, and popular forms of political expression. She is author of numerous publications, including The Work of Reconstruction: From Slave to Wage Laborer in South Carolina, 1860-1870.
  • Robert von Hallberg was raised in Los Angeles and, after leaving school early, attended Lost Angeles City College, then the University of California, Berkeley, where he received the A.B. He did an M.A. at U.C.L.A. and a Ph. D. at Stanford. He has taught since 1973 at the University of Chicago, where he is Professor of English, German, and Comparative Literature. He is author of Poetry, Politics, Intellectuals, which is published in volume eight of the Cambridge History of American Literature, and of other books on American poetry. He is now writing a book on African-American poetry.

First Year - Springfield (Classes will not be offered in 2007/2008 season):

  • Ethan Lewis, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English at University of Illinois Springfield, received the Ph.D. in English from Boston College. His teaching concentration includes Shakespeare, seventeenth-century literature, modern and contemporary poetry. Dr. Lewis was a 1996 recipient of the University of Illinois Scholar Award. He is co-author with Robert Kuhn McGregor of Conundrums for the Long Weekend: England, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Dorothy L. Sayers (Kent, 2000), for which they won The Edgar Award. Lewis's book Modernist Image: Imagist Technique in the Work of Pound and Eliot (University of Mississippi Studies in English) is forthcoming, as are essay collections on Modernism and on Shakespeare. Dr. Lewis has taught in the Odyssey Project for the last three years.
  • Isaac Martin "Marty" Morris has studied Philosophy at the Diocesan Seminary of the Immaculate Conception, Mac Murray College, and received the M.A. in Religion and Philosophy from Butler University. He did post- graduate work at the Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis. He has worked for the state of Illinois since 1979 and in that context he has written and published professional articles in various insurance publications. He also writes articles and book reviews on a freelance basis. Since 1982 he has been an adjunct instructor in Philosophy and Humanities at Lincoln Land Community College. Mr. Morris has taught in The Odyssey Project since 2005.
  • William Siles, Ph.D., Associate Professor of American History and History Department Chair at University of Illinois Springfield, received the Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His teaching concentration includes Public history, American Westward Expansion, and American Religious, Urban, and Agricultural History. His research interests include American frontier settlement and community development, nineteenth-century American material life. Dr. Siles taught in the Odyssey Project during the past year.
  • Robert Sill, Curator of Art and Assistant Director of Art at the Illinois State Museum, has 15 years of curatorial experience engaging museum audiences through scholarship, permanent and rotating exhibitions, educational programs, and community outreach. He has taught courses at the University of Illinois Springfield and served as juror and guest lecturer at a variety of venues, including the Springfield Art Association; the Old State Capitol Art Fair; the University of Nevada, Reno; and the University of Missouri, St. Louis. His most recent project is Fresh from Julieanne's Garden, part of the city-wide exhibition Bearing Witness: The Art of Preston Jackson. Mr. Sill has taught in the Odyssey Project for the last three years.

First Year - Urbana:

  • James Barrett (History) – James Barrett specializes in U.S. and comparative working-class history and class, race, and ethnicity in 20th-century U.S. social history. In addition to numerous articles, he is the author of William Z. Foster and the Tragedy of American Radicalism and Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago's Packinghouse Workers, 1894-1922. His current research interests focus on racial and ethnic identity and relations in working class communities and the relationship between personal and historical experience.
  • John Marsh (English) – John Marsh is the editor of You Work Tomorrow: An Anthology of American Labor Poetry, 1929-1941. In addition to articles and reviews published in Legacy, American Literature, Pedagogy, Workplace, and Inside Higher Ed, he is currently working on a book entitled Red Scare: The Anti-Marxist Origins of Modern American Poetry, which examines the role workers and the poor played in the development of early 20th-century American poetry. He is also the Coordinator of the Champaign-Urbana Odyssey Project.
  • Timothy McDonough (Educational Policy Studies) – Tim McDonough has defended a dissertation entitled "Teaching Symbolic Rhetoric for Multicultural Education" and will receive his Ph.D. in the fall. His research areas include the philosophy of education and the development of online education. He has published an article entitled "The Fools' Pedagogy" and has forthcoming articles on rights pedagogy and the course of "culture" in multiculturalism. He is currently serving as the Coordinator of the Ethnography of the University Initiative at the U of I.
  • Audrey Petty (English) – Audrey Petty's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in several journals, including African American Review, StoryQuarterly, Callaloo, Massachusetts Review, and Louisville Review. Her poetry has been published in Crab Orchard Review and her essay, Late-Night Chitlins with Momma, recently featured in Saveur Magazine, was selected for inclusion in Best Food Writing 2006. She has been awarded a Hedgebrook Residency and the Tennessee Williams Scholarship at the Sewanee Writers' Conference.
  • Dana Rush (Art History) – While broadly covering ancient to contemporary African art history, Dana Rush's current research merges African and African Diaspora art and thought focusing on transatlantic strategic creativity based on field research in Bénin Republic and Togo, with comparative work in Haiti, Brazil, and Cuba. Her most recent articles include "Contemporary Vodun Arts of Ouidah, Bénin," in African Arts and "The Idea of 'India' in West African Vodun Art and Thought" in ART: AsiaPacific. In addition, she has authored numerous book and exhibition reviews.

Bridge Course - Chicago:

  • Adam Davis is the lead facilitator and coordinator of The Meaning of Service (MoS), a social-justice oriented seminar series for AmeriCorps volunteers; the Executive Director of Camp of Dreams, a non-profit organization providing year-round programming for underserved 9-15 year olds in Chicago; and a Research Associate with the Project on Civic Reflection. He is the co-editor of The Civically Engaged Reader (2006). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (2003), his M.A. from Boston College (1996), and his B.A. from Kenyon College (1993). He has spent several years as a lecturer in political philosophy at the University of Chicago and a backcountry trail crew leader for the United States Forest Service.
  • Charles Thomas Elder received his B.A. degree from the University of Kansas, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. He has taught for a number of years in the Social Science Core at the University of Chicago and, beginning in 1999, in the Basic Program of Liberal Education. Though trained as a scholar of religious studies and psychology, his interests have moved progressively in the direction of social theory and philosophy. He is the author of a work on Freud and philosophy, entitled The Grammar of the Unconscious: The Conceptual Foundations of Psychoanalysis. Mr. Elder has taught philosophy in the Odyssey Project since its inception.

Bridge Course - Springfield (Course will not be offered in 2007/2008 season):

  • Isaac Martin "Marty" Morris has studied Philosophy at the Diocesan Seminary of the Immaculate Conception, Mac Murray College, and received the M.A. in Religion and Philosophy from Butler University. He did post- graduate work at the Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis. He has worked for the state of Illinois since 1979 and in that context he has written and published professional articles in various insurance publications. He also writes articles and book reviews on a freelance basis. Since 1982 he has been an adjunct instructor in Philosophy and Humanities at Lincoln Land Community College. Mr. Morris has taught in The Odyssey Project since 2005.

Spanish Language Course - El Proyecto Odisea :

  • Irena Cajkova is the Coordinator of the Spanish Language Odyssey Project.
  • Emilio H. Kouri, Associate Professor of History, The University of Chicago
  • Elisa Martí-López, Ph.D. New York University, Associate Professor Martí-López's field of specialization is Catalan and Spanish literature and culture, with emphasis on the literature and culture of the nineteenth century, literary history and the novel. Her recent research addresses an apparent paradox that underlies the processes of cultural production and consumption in mid-nineteenth-century Europe-- nations at different narrative stages became contiguous literary markets. She has challenged prevailing views of the development of the novel in nineteenth-century Spain by demonstrating how translations and imitations of foreign literary models became the foundation for the development of the bourgeois novel in Spain. Her book Borrowed Words: Translation, Imitation, and the Making of the Novel in Nineteenth-Century Spain (Bucknell UP, 2002) shows how the Spanish novel originated in those foreign texts, how the Spanish writers appropriated and borrowed from the original works to create the beginnings of the novel in Spain. She is currently working on a book that questions the metaphorical value assigned to the capital (of a state) and, specifically, to the literature written about and from the capital as privileged referent for the nation. In this study she is also analyzing literary representations of the city in nineteenth- century Spain, especially in the narrative of Narcís Oller.
    Some of her scholarly work has appeared or is forthcoming in "Bulletin Hispanique", "Catalan Review", "Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos", "Siglo diecinueve", and "The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel" from 1880 to the Present.
  • Daniel Lorca
  • Maria Cecilia Lozada, Senior Lecturer and Spanish Language Coordinator, The University of Chicago

Additional Support Staff

  • Riza D. Belen, Student Support Specialist
    Belen holds a BA from Concordia University and an MSW from Loyola University. She has worked in domestic violence programs and hospital social work, including end of life issues. Her experience includes managing a hotline, legal advocacy, transitional housing, running support groups, and one-on-one counseling as well as community education. She is also active in volunteer theater work with Pintig Cultural Group.

Funders and Partners