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JOHN A. MITCHELL

Fall 2008 Schedule

 Office Hours: [G-115]

Mondays & Wednesdays:	12:00 –1:oo PM 5:00 – 6:00 PM
Tuesdays:	5:00 – 6:00 PM

Classes

I joined the English faculty at the Orchard Ridge campus in September of 2002.  I worked for several years as faculty in the Royal Oak IIC and prior to that I was an adjunct instructor for many years in the Oakland University Rhetoric Department.  I teach in the literacy program (ENG 1060 mostly) and also the Shakespeare classes.  I would like to try to revive the British Literature class at some point and perhaps work on The Witness at some point as well ( I worked for several years as an editorial assistant for Modern Fiction Studies).  I have a master’s from OU in English (I was a history major as an undergraduate) and am ABD on a PhD. in English from Purdue University.  I also have an MLS from Wayne State University in Library and Information Science.  My ABA (All But Abandoned) dissertation was on Chaos Theory and the Fiction of John Fowles.  I went into graduate school just when postmodernism and literary theory were all the rage and thus accrued permanent aesthetic damage via heavy doses of Foucault, Derrida, and Heidegger.  Fortunately, my second area of specialization in British Literature kept me grounded, as did the great good fortune of having the late Jim Berlin as a trainer and mentor for the writing classroom.  Outside the classroom, I cultivate decidedly non-mainstream tastes in music and independent/foreign films. I read fiction and non-fiction voraciously and omnivorously.  I like French painting, Mediterranean food, minimalist architecture, punk rock, Icelandic history, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer.  I have an obsession for Beethoven’s music that almost rivals that of Alex in A Clockwork Orange and I am eager to work with students of writing and literature.

Last Updated 08/25/2008 by R.J. Willey( rjwilley@oaklandcc.edu )