Faculty
Staff
Kagan Arik received a Ph.D.in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization and Anthropology from the University of Washington in 1999, where he specialized in Turkic and Central Asian Studies and Anthropology, an M.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization from there also, and a B.A. in Oriental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. He teaches Turkish at Northwestern University, and Uzbek, Kazak and other Central Asian Studies courses at the University of Chicago. His academic interests include the cultural and linguistic anthropology of Inner Eurasia, with particular interests in oral tradition, traditional medicine and healing, and pre-Islamic religions among the Turkic peoples.
Edna Grad holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Texas-Austin.
She is a native speaker of Hebrew, and established the Hebrew language
program at Northwestern beginning in 1979. She also served as director
of PAAL from 1980-1983. Edna teaches courses in Hebrew language and
literature, and has also taught courses in applied linguistics. Her
publications include textbooks for beginner and for intermediate-level
learners of Hebrew.
Licheng Gu was born and grew up in Beijing, China. He received his B.A.
at the the No. 2 Foreign Language Institute, Beijing, China; his M.A.
at Canberra University in Australia; and his Ph.D. at the University
of Oregon. He has taught different levels of Chinese language courses
both in China and in the USA. Licheng is especially interested in designing
Chinese courses for students who come from Chinese language speaking
families in the US. In these "accelerated" classes he has
taught here at Northwestern, he has gained a lot of experience in helping
such students improve their reading and writing skills. His primary
research interest is language pedagogy and testing theories. As a recent
US citizen, Licheng is also interested in Chinese-American history;
he has published in this field as well. He is the coordinator of instruction
in the Chinese program, and the director of the NU summer study abroad
program in partnership with Tsinghua University, Beijing.
Hong Jiang (M.Ed, University of Cincinnati), Senior Lecturer in Chinese Language. Hong began teaching Chinese in the Program of African and Asian Languages in 1994. Currently she is teaching first and second year Chinese. Her research interests focus on learner motivation and proficiency-oriented approach in foreign language instruction.
Eunmi Lee launched the Korean language program at Northwestern in 1994.
Since the beginning, she has been teaching and developing the Korean
curriculum for all levels -- first and second year and a special course
for Korean heritage students with good oral proficiency. She received
an M.A. degree in East Asian Studies from Indiana University and attended
Yonsei Graduate School of International Studies in Korea, where she
studied modern Korean and Chinese history. She holds the Senior Lecturer
rank and her research interests are cultural studies and bi-lingual
education.
Richard Lepine (B.A. Texas-Austin; M.A., Ph.D, African Languages and Literature, Wisconsin-Madison) has been teaching Swahili language and verbal arts since 1981, first at Wisconsin, then in the Program of African & Asian Languages (PAAL) at Northwestern beginning in AY 1986. His field research in Kenya and Tanzania (including Zanzibar) has been concerned with the modern Swahili-language publishing industry and popular culture, particularly prose fiction in the language. He also teaches in the Program in Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern, most recently offering a course yearly on African oral performance arts and film. He was the director of PAAL from 1992-2005; he also served as Master of the International Studies Residential College (ISRC) from 1999-2004, and continues as a Fellow; he has been a Weinberg College freshman advisor for over fifteen years.
Phyllis I. Lyons (Ph.D. Chicago) Associate Professor, African and Asian
Languages and Comparative Literary Studies. In the Comparative Literary
Studies Program, Lyons teaches a three-quarter introduction to Japanese
culture through its literature, from the eighth century to the present;
and single-quarter courses on such topics as women in Japanese literature.
She also teaches reading courses in Japanese at advanced levels. Lyons'
area of specialization is modern Japanese fiction; she has published
a study of the novelist Dazai Osamu (1909-1948), and is currently working
on the novelist Tanizaki Jun'ichirù (1886-1965).
Rami Nair grew up as a multilingual in India and
Poland. She completed her high school education in
New Delhi, India. She then proceeded to pursue a five
year integrated M.A. degree in Applied Linguistics at
the University of Warsaw in Poland, which she
received in 1992. In 1998 she completed her Ph.D. in
Linguistics at Northwestern University, the same year
that she started the Hindi language program within
PAAL at NU. She currently teaches first and
second-year Hindi classes, and has developed a "true beginners" and
"accelerated" version of the first-year
course, teaching both each academic year. Her
research interests include language pedagogy, second
language acquisition, phonetics and phonology.
Junko Sato (M.S.Ed. Massachusetts-Amherst). Senior Lecturer in the Japanese
program. Sato taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst as
a teaching assistant for six years before coming to Northwestern in
academic year '96-97. Her scholarly work is focused on second-language
acquisition and curricular development following proficiency-oriented
pedagogical principles. She has taught and developed courses at all
four year-levels of PAAL's Japanese language program.
Yumi Shiojima (M.S.Ed., Univ. of Pennsylvania), Senior Lecturer in the Japanese
Language Program, PAAL. Shiojima has been teaching at Northwestern since 1996.
She has extensive experience in both classroom teaching and the coordination of
instruction, both in the U.S. and Japan--including at Rhodes College, the
Japanese School at Middlebury College and the Summer Intensive Program at the
Japan Center for Michigan Universities in Hikone. Shiojima is a Fellow at the
International Studies Residential College. Her scholarly interests include
second language writing instruction and teacher development. Shiojima has
developed and taught courses at all four year-levels in the Japanese Language
Program. Intrigued by the notion of “Learning Across the Curriculum,” she is currently developing courses on Japanese Writing for Academic Purposes, Functional Writing and Japanese through the Media.
Dr. Jili Sun received her B.A. in French literature in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in P.R. China (previous Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages). She received her Maîtrise in Teaching French as Foreign Language in University Jussieu (Paris VII) and her M.A. (DEA) of Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy at University of Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III) - thesis title: "Comparison of Narrative Cohesion in French and in Chinese in the Case of first and second Languages". Dr. Sun received a Ph.D in linguistics with honors in 2006 at University Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III) - thesis title: "The Acquisition of Temporality (tense and aspect) by Chinese Learners of French as second language and by French Learners of Chinese as second language". She conducts research in second language acquisition and pedagogy, interaction between language and culture, and analysis of narration. She is also interested in religious studies and has received a DEUG degree in studies of Christianity in Institute Catholic of Paris.
Lynn Whitcomb recently completed her Ph.D. in Linguistics at
NU. Her research and dissertation concerned Arabic
language teaching methodologies in the USA. In
addition to coordinating the Modern Standard Arabic
program in PAAL--designing and offering courses in
three year-levels in the language--Lynn also teaches
Arabic in NU's School for Continuing Studies and is
an active member of the Program of African Studies.
She is a fluent speaker of the Egyptian dialect of
Arabic besides the Standard version used in mass
media and higher education throughout the
Arabic-speaking world.
Judith Wilks holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. Her research interests include Turkic and Persian literature, especially heroic traditions, folk literature, and mystical poetry. She has also done various projects in Tajik, Azeri, and other languages of the former Soviet Union. Judith has taught the elementary and intermediate levels of both Turkish and Persian at Northwestern. Currently she teaches Persian.
Noriko Taira Yasohama, College Lecturer, Coordinator of Japanese Language Program (M.Ed., University of Massachusetts at Amherst) Taira has extensive training in foreign language education and curriculum development. Taira contributed to several chapters/sections of textbooks on Japanese language, English culture and intercultural communication. Taira was in a team of a CIC-sponsored computer-assisted materials development project and worked with professors at Purdue University and the University of Michigan. She took leadership on two projects for developing the online Japanese language placement tests at Northwestern. Taira is a certified tester of the Japanese Oral Proficiency Interview Test for the American Council on Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).
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