|
ROGER BRESNAHAN
Professor
Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures
517/355-3507 (office); 517/353-5250 (fax)
courses: WRA 125 Writing: The American Ethnic and Racial Experience; WRA 130 Writing: American Radical Thought;
IAH 211-B: Arts and Humanities of Asia
Roger Bresnahan received his B.A. in Philosophy and Classics from Boston College, his M.A. in English literature from New York University, and his Ph.D. in American literature from the University of Massachusetts where he was a student of Sidney Kaplan, one of the founders of the African American studies movement. Upon completion of his studies in 1974, Bresnahan became a faculty member at Voorhees College, a historically black institution in South Carolina. There, he taught literature, became chairperson of the Humanities division, and was a member of a team that created an Afro-centric humanities curriculum.
Serving as a Fulbright Professor at the University of the Philippines in 1976-77, Bresnahan developed an intense interest in Philippine history and literature. He joined the faculty of the Department of American Thought and Language at MSU in 1978. Bresnahan then came under the influence of Distinguished University Professor David D. Anderson and developed a complementary interest in the literature of the Midwest. At this time, he also maintained his interest in Philippine literature, being elected to the core faculty of MSU's Asian Studies Center and becoming an associate faculty member of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan. He also continued to develop his expertise in rhetoric and led the group of ATL faculty who designed MSU's freshman placement system and its developmental writing program.
In his teaching, research, and public service, Bresnahan has sought to balance these four areas of expertise-—racial and ethnic studies, Philippine history and literature, the culture of the Midwest, and the study of rhetoric. With Maggie Chen-Hernandez, he offered MSU's first course in Asian American Studies. He is the author or editor of four books, including two volumes of oral histories with Filipino writers, a project funded by the Luce Foundation. He has authored more than 200 papers, journal articles, and book reviews in his four areas of expertise, and since early 2001 has been a book review editor of The Journal of Asian Studies.
Bresnahan has a special interest in teaching writing at the undergraduate level. He seeks to help students understand and improve upon their own processes as thinking writers, focussing particularly on helping students bring vague notions into clearly articulated ideas.
|
