Experts: Arts + Humanities

Clark is an associate professor in the Department of Classics. She focuses on the history and historiography of the Roman Republic, with a particular interest in the third and second centuries B.C.E. Her research interests also include Latin epic poetry, Roman military history and women and gender in the ancient world.

Corrigan is an expert on religion in America and religious violence, including how American religion has changed in a post-Sept. 11 environment.

Dr. Gerber has been a practicing art psychotherapist, educator, researcher, and innovator for the past 40+ years. Her expertise spans clinical, academic, and research domains.  As a   clinician for over 22 years, her expertise has been in using art psychotherapy to help adolescents and adults facing psychological challenges and trauma.  More recently, Dr. Gerber’s expertise has been in higher education and specifically doctoral education. She created, developed, and directed one of the first doctoral programs in Creative Arts Therapies while also directing and teaching a master’s degree program in art therapy.

Alongside her commitment to doctoral education is her research expertise in the areas of arts-based research and mixed methods research. Aligned with her interest and expertise in ABR, she co-founded the Arts-Based Research (ABR) Global Consortium. The ABR Global Consortium is a group of global arts-based research scholars who are working towards increasing the visibility, accessibility, valuation and aesthetic impact of research that can elucidate and communicate major global issues through aesthetically powerful socially engaged arts-based investigation and dissemination.

Michelle Kazmer is a leading American researcher in applying theories on information to Golden Age crime fiction and aligns with the community of Agathologists who study the work of Agatha Christie. She has contributed the chapter “Christie’s Clues as Information” to “The Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie,” been interviewed by the BBC on the topic twice and co-hosted an episode of the All About Agatha Podcast. Most recently, she was the first American to give the keynote speech at the Agatha Christie and Golden Age of Crime international conference.

As the recipient of numerous state and national grants and a reviewer for multiple public and private donors, Meredith Lynn has expertise in public funding for the arts and related policy.

Dr. Pericolo is an international expert in Renaissance and baroque art, particularly that of Italy, Spain and France. Dr. Pericolo has authored and edited dozens of publications in his field and is considered a leading scholar on Caravaggio, having mononymously published a book on the Italian painter in 2011: Caravaggio and Pictorial Narrative: Dislocating the Istoria in Early Modern Painting.

Pericolo is fluent in English, Italian, Spanish and French.

G. Kurt Piehler is a World War II scholar who directs the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience at Florida State. As founding director of the Rutgers Oral History Archives, he conducted more than 200 interviews with veterans of World War II. His televised lecture, “The War That Transformed a Generation” which drew on the Rutgers Oral History Archives, appeared on the History Channel in 1997.

Diane Roberts is a professor of English. She specializes in Southern culture and is an author, columnist, essayist, radio commentator and reviewer. She earned her doctorate at Oxford University.

Romanchuk is a Slavist, with interests ranging from the middle ages to the present, the peoples of former Yugoslavia to those of the former USSR, and philology to psychoanalysis. Among other topics, he has lectured on Ukrainian culture in various periods (including the contemporary), and has published on Ukrainian and Russian cross-cultural perceptions and on Ukrainian culture in periods of revolution.

Aaron C. Thomas is an assistant professor in the School of Theatre and director of the School’s BA program. His course on the history of theatre covers more than 2500 years of theatre and performance. Thomas’ major research area is theatrical discourse surrounding sexuality and violence, and he writes primarily about images of violent masculinity in contemporary culture. He also writes extensively in the field of musical theatre studies. His recently published book “Love Is Love Is Love” explores the conjunction between Broadway musicals, LGBTQ politics, theatre, and film.

Williamson’s expertise is on modern Europe, particularly German cultural and intellectual history. His research interests also include religious history and other aspects of European history from 1750 to present. He is an award-winning author with work published in the Journal of Modern History and the “Oxford Handbook of Modern German History.”