Humanities

Dr. Diamond-Nigh earned the Master's Degree and Doctorate from the University of Oregon.  During her undergraduate years at Rutgers she spent a year studying in France. 

Dr. Diamond-Nigh's major interest is the experimental novel since 1950, novels written not only in Spanish and French, but in many other languages as well; she is currently working on her second book about the Canadian writer, Robertson Davies.  In 1993 she founded the New Novel Review, a trilingual journal focused on innovative narrative.

Her courses include beginning to advanced French and Spanish language courses; literature from medieval to contemporary times; and other Humanities and Women's Studies courses.  Terms III finds her in Paris (sometimes Florence or Barcelona) with large groups of students.

Dr. Diamond-Nigh loves to travel, read, and dance.  Her life is inextricably bound up with that of her husband John, a poet, sculptor and designer, her daughter Justine (who has deserted to live in Scotland), and Papier, Siofra, and Portland Paris, her three cats.

Dr. Dierckx earned the Ph.D. in 1992 from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and her B.A. and M.A from the University of Durham, England. Her areas of interest include Minoan Archaeology, Classical Archaeology and lithics. At Elmira College, she teaches courses in the areas of ancient history, art and archaeology as well as ancient Greek and classical mythology.  She also regularly teaches archaeological excavation methods at the 19th century site of Mark Twain’s summer home outside Elmira. 

Dr. Dierckx specializes in the analysis of chipped and ground stone implements from various archaeological sites in East Crete.  She has published in a variety of international publications of classical archaeology, including two festschrifts and chapters in excavation volumes.  Most recently Dierckx has been examining the procurement of raw material for the Minoan ground stone implements.  A preliminary article is published in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece (2007).

Dr. LaPointe holds the B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross, the M.A. from Boston College, and the Ph.D. from Case-Western Reserve University, all in English literature.  He joined the Elmira College Faculty in 1982 and has taught over forty different courses.  He was, for twenty years, Coordinator of the College’s first-year Core Program.

Dr. LaPointe’s range of interests includes literature (chiefly British and American but also classical, ancient, and modern continental), baseball, and music, especially classic rock and traditional bluegrass, folk, and blues.  Originally from Manchester, New Hampshire, he spends his summers traveling in the American West and Midwest. 

He has located, visited, and photographed some 1200 railroad depots, in use and otherwise, in twenty-two states and three Canadian provinces, as well as in the United Kingdom; and maintains two sizable websites on railroad stations in New Hampshire and in Massachusetts. 

Dr. LaPointe has authored and presented twenty scholarly papers on Arthurian romance, and has published a dozen or so poems in several journals.

Dr. Lewis earned the Ph.D. in English from the University of Oklahoma and joined the Humanities faculty at Elmira College in 2003.  His teaching and research interests include twentieth century British fiction, modernism, fin de siécle culture, science fiction, gothic fiction, and literary and cultural theory.  Among his recent publications are “J.G. Ballard: Psychopathology, Apocalypse, and the Media Landscape” and “Science Fiction and Fantasy: Beyond Pulp Fiction,” both of which are to appear in The Blackwell Companion to the British and Irish Short Story.  He has also co-authored an article on U.S. cultural studies in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (2004). 

His regularly offered courses include Science Fiction and Fantasy; Horror, Gender, and Sexuality; Twentieth Century British Women Writers; and Contemporary British Fiction.

Dr. Mahoney earned the doctorate in creative writing at the University of Houston, and the MFA in that field at Sarah Lawrence College.  Before pursuing her dream as a poet and writer, she had been a Registered Nurse.

She teaches a full range of Creative Writing courses at Elmira College and advises The Sibyl, the oldest continuously published college literature magazine in the United States.

Dr. McCall earned the Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University in 2005 and arrived at Elmira College in 2006.  His teaching interests range widely, from the ancients to twentieth-century European philosophy, and from logic to aesthetics.  His research focuses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century European philosophy and American Pragmatism, with various topics in ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics at the forefront of his concern.  He has published articles and presented scholarly papers on figures such as Michel Foucault, John Dewey, Stanley Cavell, and Martin Heidegger.

Dr. Nurmi joined the Humanities faculty at Elmira College in 2012. He holds a doctorate in English and American Literature from the University of Arizona, with particular focus on the geographic imagination in nineteenth-century American writing. Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches to the study of narrative, he teaches courses in early American literatures with attention to their ethical, legal, and geographic dimensions. Emerson and Melville are his favorites. Dr. Nurmi is currently working on his first book, The Inverted Compass: Geography and the Ethics of Authorship in Nineteenth-Century America. He is also affiliated faculty with the Center for Mark Twain Studies.

Dr. Schwartz earned the B.A. in English at Mount Saint Mary's College,  the M.A. at Washington Statue University, and the Ph.D. at Bowling Green State University.

Dr. Schwartz’s principal academic interests include Medieval Literature, Shakespeare, American Literature of the Twenties and Thirties, Native American Literature, and the adaptation of literature into film; he has received the College's Josef Stein and McGraw-Rock awards.

He has presented papers at various professional conferences and has published in the College Consortium of the Finger Lakes Journal.  Some of his recent presentations are "Barbarians, Warriors, Knights: The Evolution of Malory's Chivalric Code in Le Morte D'Arthur," and "Villains and Varlets:  Malory's Lowlife."  In addition, he has sponsored twenty student conference presentations. 

Off campus, Dr. Schwartz is a husband, father, farmer, and lector, and have been a school board member and president, a parish council member, a construction worker, and a community, travel, and high school soccer coach.

Dr. Shaw received her Baccalaureate with Honors in Spanish and a Master’s Degree in Spanish Literature from the University of Connecticut. She later received a Master’s Degree in Modern Dance at Wesleyan University, after which she performed as a modern dancer and worked as Company Manager for Meredith Monk in New York City. She completed her Ph.D. in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. 

Dr. Shaw’s scholarship focuses on contemporary Cuba -- specifically a group of poet musicians who chronicle life on the island from the 1980s to the present. She has published articles and has presented scholarly papers on Cuba as well as Hispanic film, feminist theory, and immigration.

 Dr. Shaw brings her love of the performing arts to her classes, incorporating film, music, and dance whenever applicable.  Passionate about her field, Dr. Shaw teaches courses in Spanish language and Hispanic literature and culture.  In addition, she is also very concerned about environmental and social justice issues that impact the globe.  Dr. Shaw practices yoga and is a certified yoga instructor offering yoga classes at EC.

She and her son reside in Elmira after having lived in the Hudson Valley for a number of years.