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People Involved for The Odyssey Project

  • Instructors

    First Year - Chicago's North Side:

    • Robert Buerglener is visiting Professor of History at DePaul University. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago, where his research focused on the early history of the automobile. His areas of research include nineteenth and twentieth century social and cultural history of the United States, history of technology and transportation, gender and sexuality, business and marketing, landscape, and environment and architecture, with a special interest in urban history. This year he will be an NEH summer fellow at the Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts in New York City.
    • 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.
    • 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:

    • Kelly Austin is Assistant Professor in Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. She majored in Spanish and Oxbridge English Language and Literature at William Jewell College and spent a year abroad at Oxford University. That year she also studied at the University of Cordoba for a summer and, as a pilgrim, walked 500 miles from Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. She holds graduate degrees from Claremont Graduate University in English Literature, Univerisity of Cambridge in European Literature, and UCLA in Comparative Literature. She was a visiting graduate student at Universidad de Chile and Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. She loves and writes about Literature of the Americas. She adores poetry and translation. She was an American Association of University Women American Fellow from 2007 to 2008.
    • 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 Odyssey Project at the Illinois Humanities Council and serves as coordinator and Critical Thinking and Writing instructor for 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.
    • Hana Layson received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago where she specialized in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American culture and taught in the M.A. Program in Humanities. She currently teaches history, literature, and theory in Northwestern University's School of Continuing Studies and the Newberry Library's Teachers' Consortium in addition to the Odyssey Project. She was previously an English professor at Northern Illinois University. Her research and teaching interests include gender and sexuality, citizenship, and national identity. Hana also works as a freelance editor and writer.
    • Hamza Walker is director of education and associate curator for the Renaissance Society, whose mission is to encourage the growth and understanding of contemporary art. He currently teaches at The School of the Art Institute and has taught at the University of Chicago. He is on the boards of Noon, a literary annual publishing short fiction, and Lampo, a new and experimental music presenter. In addition, he has served on numerous panels locally and internationally, and is the recipient of the 1999 Norton Curatorial Grant, the 2004 Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement, and the 2010 Ordway Prize, one of the art world's most prominent awards, for recognition of his "significant impact on the field of contemporary art."

    First Year - Champaign-Urbana:

    • Michael Burns (Critical Thinking and Writing) earned his master's degree in Language and Literacy in 2007 from the City College of New York. Currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Center for Writing Studies at the University of Illinois, his research interests include studenthood; student/teacher discourse; embodiment and space; orality and literacy; and modern American literatures.
    • James Barrett (History) 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.
    • Dale Bauer (English Department) earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of California-Irvine in 1985. She is the author of Sex Expression and American Women Writers, among numerous other publications. Her research interests include 19th- and 20th-century American literature and gender studies. She is the recipient of numerous teaching awards and honors.
    • Todd Kukla is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He specializes in the history of modern philosophy, especially, 18th and 19th century German idealism. He has ten years of teaching experience, which encompasses four-year universities, community colleges, and a Johns Hopkins summer program for pre-college students. After defending his dissertation in Spring 2010, Todd plans to continue his teaching career in philosophy. 
    • Sarah Ross (Art History) is an educator and artist whose works examine the visual culture of anxiety and conflict that manifests in everyday architecture and landscapes. She has taught studio and seminar classes at The School of the Art Institute Chicago, Illinois State University and at a state prison. Ross has co-curated exhibitions and works collaboratively with artists and neighborhood groups to produce public projects. Ross is the recipient of grants from the Graham Foundation, the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts and the Illinois Art Council. She has exhibited work at the Armory, Pasadena, CA; Gallery 727, Los Angeles; PS122, New York; Columbia College, Chicago; Pinkard Gallery, Baltimore; META Cultural Foundation, Romania and the Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal. 
    • Springfield Champaign Park District Staff: Childcare providers

    Spanish Language Course - El Proyecto Odisea :

    • Irena Cajkova recibió su licenciatura en Español y Alemán de la Universidad de DePaul y la maestría en Español y la Literatura Española y Latinoamericana de la Universidad de Chicago. Actualmente trabaja en la Universidad de Chicago como instructora y coordinadora del programa de Español. Desde noviembre del 2007, Irena coordina el Proyecto Odisea en español. Irena también es miembro del Comité de Praga de la Organización Internacional de Ciudades Hermanas y participa activamente en la vida cultural de la comunidad checa en Chicago, enseñando la lengua checa a los niños en la Escuela de T. G. Masaryk en Cicero y trabajando como traductora e intérprete.
      Irena Cajkova, Spanish Language Coordinator, received her B.A. in Spanish and German from DePaul University and her M.A. in Spanish and Latin American Literature from the University of Chicago. She currently works at the University of Chicago as a lecturer and assistant coordinator in the Spanish Language Program. She joined the Odyssey Project in the fall of 2007 as a coordinator of the Bard College Clemente® Course in Spanish. Irena is a member of the Prague Committee of Chicago Sister Cities International and is very active within the Czech community – she teaches the Czech language to children at the T. G. Masaryk School in Cicero and often volunteers as a translator and interpreter.
    • Emilio H. Kouri, Associate Professor of History, The University of Chicago
    • Juana Goergen (Puerto Rico), doctora en Filosofía y Letras por SUNY, Stony Brook, es especialista en estudios coloniales y postcoloniales de América Latina. Se desempeña como profesora de lengua, literatura y teoría crítica en DePaul University (Chicago), donde además es coordinadora de la sección de español y fue directora del Programa de Estudios Latinoamericanos de 1995-2000. Como ensayista ha publicado: Literatura fundacional americana:El espejo de paciencia (1991), Heroínas del Bronx (historia oral, 1998) además de artículos y reseñas en libros y revistas de crítica literaria. Su labor poética incluye La sal de las brujas (finalista del premio Letras de Oro y publicado por Betania 1997), La piel a medias (2001), Las Ilusas (2008) y poemas publicados en antologías: Astillas de luz/Shards of Light (1998), Nosotros los otros (1996) Between the Heart and the Land/Entre el corazón y la tierra (2001), Generación (2001) y en diversas publicaciones, como Tameme (2001) y Calabash (2002) y la más reciente Contratiempo (2006-07).
      Juana Goergen (Puerto Rico). Professor of Spanish, Latin American and U.S. Latino Literature at DePaul University, Chicago.  Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies program at DePaul University from 1995-2000.  Fulbright Scholar at the University of Tuebingen, Germany 2002.  As a literary critic she has published: Literatura fundacional americana: El espejo de paciencia (1991), Heroínas del Bronx (oral history, 1998) and academic articles in several journals, such as El Centro Journal of Puerto Rican Studies. As a poet she has published La sal de las brujas (finalist at Letras de Oro and published by Betania 1997) and La piel a medias (2001), Las Ilusas (2008), as well as poems published in anthologies: Astillas de luz/Shards of Light (1998), Nosotros los otros (1996), Between the Heart and the Land/Entre el corazón y la tierra (2001), Generación (2001).
    • 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
    • María Cecilia Lozada es una bioarqueóloga peruana que realiza investigación en los Andes desde hace 20 años. Nació en Arequipa, Perú y tiene un bachillerato en arqueología por la Universidad Católica Santa María de Arequipa. En 1987 empezó su programa graduado en el campo de la bioarqueología en la Universidad de Chicago. Con la finalidad de reconstruir el pasado Lozada hace un estudio multidisciplinario que combina la arqueología, osteología humana y la etnohistoria. Su libro “El Señorío de Chiribaya en la Costa Sur del Perú (2002) muestra la integración de estas disciplinas en la reconstrucción de  sociedades del pasado. Además de su carrera en antropología, Lozada ha venido trabajando en el departamento de Romance Languages and Literatures de la Universidad de Chicago desde hace 15 años. Como profesora en este departamento, ha realizado estudios relacionados con la variabilidad lingüística y cultural de los países hispano hablantes. En 2006 empezó a enseñar con el Proyecto Odisea e imparte la clase: Curso de Redacción Académica.
      Dr. María Cecilia Lozada is a Peruvian bioarchaeologist who has been conducting research in the South Central Andes for the last 20 years. She is a native from Arequipa, Perú and holds a BA degree in Archaeology from La Universidad Católica Santa María de Arequipa. In 1987, she started her graduate program in bioarchaeology at the University of Chicago. She uses a multidisciplinary approach to study the past, combining archaeology, human osteology and ethnohistory, which is exemplified in her book: "El Señorío de Chiribaya en la Costa Sur del Perú" (2002). In addition to her career in Anthropology, Lozada has been working in the department of Romance Languages at the University of Chicago for the past 15 years. As a Senior Lecturer in this department Lozada has conducted research regarding the linguistic and cultural variability in Spanish speaking countries. In 2006 Lozada joined the Odyssey Project where she teaches the Curso de Redacción Académica.

    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.

    First Year - Springfield (Course currently on hiatus):

    • 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.

     Bridge Course - Springfield (Course currently on hiatus):

     

    • 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.

    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