College of Humanities Newsletter

Spring 2012, Volume 6, Issue 2

In This Issue

Departments and Programs

  • Asian American Studies
  • Chicana/o Studies
  • English
  • Gender & Women’s Studies
  • Liberal Studies & Humanities Interdisciplinary Program
  • Modern & Classical Languages & Literatures
  • Philosophy
  • Religious Studies
  • Office of Interdisciplinary Studies:
    • American Indian Studies
    • Central American Studies
    • Jewish Studies
    • Linguistics
    • Queer Studies
    • Russian Studies
    • Sustainability Studies

Not quite the PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE . . .
Part Three

Nathaniel Mills
Assistant Professor, English

Nathaniel Mills
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Nathaniel Mills

Dr. Mills earned his Ph.D. in English language and literature at the University of Michigan. His primary interests are 20th-century African-American and U.S. literatures, African-American radicalism, U.S. communism and the mid-century U.S. literary left, Black Power and 1960s/70s Black nationalism, Marxist theory, and authors Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Being in love.

What is your greatest fear?
The denial of personal, political, or intellectual freedom.

Which living person do you most admire?
Angela Davis.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Every academic’s weakness: self-questioning and self-doubt.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Any lack of compassion and empathy when passing judgment on others or when forming political or moral opinions. In other words, the attitude F. Scott Fitzgerald described as “I’m sorry but business is business.” Or “You ought to have thought of that before you got into this trouble.” Or “I’m not the person to see about that.”

What is it that you most dislike?
Anti-intellectualism

Danielle Spratt
Assistant Professor, English

Danielle Spratt
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Danielle Spratt

Dr. Spratt earned her Ph.D. in English at Fordham University. Her fields of specialization include 18th-century British literature, the novel, the history of science, gender studies, cultural studies, early modern bio-medical writing, and satire. She is also interested in writing pedagogy and service learning/community engagement.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Unlimited time for reading, movie watching, and hiking/walking around/exploring new areas.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Since I’m recently out of graduate school, nearly everything seems like an extravagance still! Probably going out to eat a fair amount.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
Maybe a painting in a museum. Assuming that as an object I could still hear, it would be fun to hear conversations from the range of people who go to museums—from kids who are dragged there by parents or classes, to serious art students, to general patrons.

What is your most treasured possession?
This isn’t just *one* possession, but any older family photos that I’ve been given—a picture of my 91-year-old grandmother from when she was about 11, for example.

What is it that you most dislike?
In general, I dislike polemical rhetoric that positions itself as being fair and representative—as we see too often in public and political discourse, people are increasingly unable to have constructive conversations or debates. No one wins in situations like this, especially in politics. I like to think that the classes we teach in the university setting, and especially in the humanities, help to counteract this tendency.

Which talent would you most like to have?
I would like to be more musically adept, and I would like to be better at math. Either or both of those would be excellent talents to acquire.

Anna Joaquin
Assistant Professor, Linguistics/TESL Program

Anna Joaquin
Photo courtesy of
Anna Joaquin

Dr. Joaquin earned her Ph.D. in applied linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her areas of specialization include primary and secondary language acquisition, neurobiology of language learning, and the role of interaction in language proficiency.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Being content and grateful in the present.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Being apathetic.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Apathy.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Getting a massage and then spending a day by myself at a coffee shop with a book.

When and where were you happiest?
Not sure, but I’m certain it was sometime in elementary school before 7th grade.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
I don’t think I’ve done it yet.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
A book.

What is your most treasured possession?
The relationships that I have with people and my 1998 Toyota Corolla with nearly 200K miles.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Feeling like I haven’t done my best.

What is it that you most dislike?
I don’t like being poked to get my attention.

Which talent would you most like to have?
I wish I could play any instrument—preferably the piano.

What is your motto?
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he can’t lose.” —Jim Elliot