Presidential Teaching Fellows in Honors

Professor Rita Keresztesi’s research and teaching focus on African and African diaspora literary and cultural studies. She was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso during the academic year of 2010-2011. She has been a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Alumni Ambassador since 2016: https://cies.org/article/introducing-2016-fulbright-us-scholar-alumni-ambassadors

She is the author of the recent book Literary Black Power in the Caribbean: Fiction, Music and Film (Routledge 2020); and Strangers at Home: American Ethnic Modernism between the World Wars (Nebraska University Press 2005 and 2009), and co-editor (with Ellie Higgins and Dayna Oscherwitz) of the book The Western in the Global South (Routledge 2015). Her recent publications focus on West African cinema and music and Caribbean literature and film.

Prof. Nair's work approaches the body and corporeal experience through both history and anthropology. Her research interests include disability studies/history, colonial medicine, the histories of public health (quarantine and vaccination in particular) with more recent interests in the relationships between disability studies/history and animal studies/history through the figure of the guide/service dog. She is also interested in the ways in which disability and difference are represented in popular culture.

Her forthcoming book, “Fungible Books” (under contract with the University of Illinois’ Disability Histories series) is an examination of the relationship between disability and colonialism in British India from 1850-1950 and explores these relationships through the following historical figures: the “normal” body, the “lusus naturae” or the “monster” in colonial medicine; the amputee; the “infirm” subject in the imperial censuses; the “defective child” and the disabled/sick sepoy.

Prof. Nair teaches courses on disability, history of public health, science and Empire and hope to be able to teach courses in the future on Animals, Science and Society and War, Medicine and the Body. For the History department, she also teaches History of India and History of South Asia.

Prof. Nair serves on the Board of the Disability History Association and managse their twitter feed: @DisabilityHistr.

Jill Hicks-Keeton is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at OU. She teaches courses on biblical literature and ancient Judaism and Christianity. She is the author of Arguing with Aseneth: Gentile Access to Israel’s Living God in Jewish Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2018), which was awarded the 2020 Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise, an international first book award. She co-edited The Museum of the Bible: A Critical Introduction (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019) and The Ways that Often Parted (SBL Press, 2018) and has written for Religion & Politics, Ancient Jew Review, The Revealer, and The Bible and Interpretation. Hicks-Keeton was a 2018 recipient of the Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar Award and has previously served as a Humanities Forum Fellow and a Risser Innovative Teaching Fellow at OU.

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Michael Soreghan is a James Maxey Associate Professor in Geosciences at the University of Oklahoma. He obtained his M.S. at Indiana University in Geology in 1988 and his PhD in Geoscience at the University of Arizona in 1994. His research centers broadly on using sediments to document climatic change in Earth’s deep past, and also how recent climate and land use change alter modern environments. For the former, he studies the “redbed” deposits of the western U.S. to document Earth’s climatic transition from an Icehouse to a Greenhouse world. For the latter, he studies sediment from East African lakes to document: 1) short term changes in climate; 2) the impact increasing sediment input induced by land-use change has on the nearshore biology and on local fishing villages that rely on artisanal fishery for subsistence. He has authored or co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers on these topics.

Dr. Soreghan teaches gen-ed courses that include: Physical Geology, Natural Resources of Africa, The Geology of Oklahoma, Earth System History, and has co-instructed the Journey to Tanzania course for the College of International Studies three times.

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Ellen Greene is a Joseph Paxton Presidential Professor of Classics at the University of Oklahoma. She received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1992. Her research specialization is Greek and Roman lyric poetry, with an emphasis on issues in gender and sexuality.

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My laboratory conducts research (both in the field and in the lab), examines both criminal and civil case evidence and trains criminal justice professionals in Medicocriminal Forensic Entomology.  

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Justin Wert is the Associates Second Century Presidential Professor & Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma. He is also the Director of the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage.

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Professor Anderson studies the poetry and drama of the English Renaissance and the relationship between literature and religion. His first book, titled, “Martyrs and Players in Early Modern England: Tragedy, Religion, and Violence on Stage,” was published by Ashgate Press in 2014. Anderson’s next project will explore the theological implications of the pre-Christian setting of Shakespeare’s Greco-Roman plays.

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Professor Mitra is director of the Advanced Program in Economics teaching both honors and non-honors sections of Intermediate Microeconomic Theory, Labor Problems, and Economics of Discrimination. Mitra co-taught a Presidential Dream Course on “Economics of Discrimination” in 2009, and in 2013, she received the Patten Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences.

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Professor Gaffin joined the OU faculty in 1995. Former dean of University College, Gaffin has received the Outstanding Freshman Advocate Award from the National Center for the First-Year Experience, the Regents’ Award for Superior Teaching and the David Ross Boyd Professorship. Gaffin’s research focuses on understanding the special sensory abilities of scorpions and insects.

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Professor Hertzke is an internationally-recognized scholar of religion and politics. His most recent publication is Religious Freedom in America: Constitutional Roots and Contemporary Challenges, with the OU Press.  He has taught honors seminars on Religion and Freedom; Challenges of Modern Democracy; Global Religion and Politics; Justice, Liberty, and the Good Society; and Religion and the Constitution.

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Professor Landis is the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies. He writes “Syria Comment,” a daily newsletter on Syrian politics that attracts over 100,000 readers a month. He frequently travels to Washington, D.C., to consult with government agencies and speak at think tanks. Most recently he has spoken at the Woodrow Wilson Institute, Brookings Institute, Middle East Institute, and Council on Foreign Relations.

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