Humanities Staff Directory

 

Alene Terzian-Zeitounian (Department Chair)

 

Alexa Dimakos

Prof. Alexa Dimakos has been teaching at COC since 2009 and, in addition to teaching several English courses, she teaches Humanities 115, where she engages students in the study of the art, culture, music, literature, philosophy, and history of various groups of people from antiquity to the late 15th century. She loves helping students explore the beauty and complexity of each time period and culture.

Chase Dimock

Dr. Chase Dimock teaches in the English Department and specializes in American and World Literature. He earned his PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois, where he focused his research on 20th century American, French, and German Modernism and LGBT Studies. His research and literary criticism have been published in College Literature, Western American Literature, The Lambda Literary Review, and several academic anthologies. His poetry has been featured in New Mexico Review, Faultline, The Northridge Review, The Santa Ana River Review, Flyway, and other literary magazines. Since 2017, he has served as the Managing Editor of As It Ought To Be Magazine. In his spare time, Dr. Dimock is an enthusiastic karaoke singer, a die-hard Clippers and Dodgers fan, and a collector of rare succulents.

Michael McMahan

 

Caitlin Newcomer

Dr. Caitlin Newcomer, Associate Professor of English, holds a Ph.D. in post-1900 American Literature and Culture, and an M.F.A. in creative writing. Now in her fourth year at COC, she teaches courses in writing, literature, and the humanities. She enjoys teaching humanities courses because they allow us to put the past and the present in conversation and see connections between different cultures, time periods, and mediums, so that we can ask questions like, what does hip hop have in common with 17th century poetry? (A lot! Really!). She lives in the San Fernando Valley with her husband, son, and cat, where she likes to read mysteries, go hiking, and watch RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Anne Powell

I am Anne Powell, and I grew up in a family of teachers--my parents were teachers, my grandparents were teachers, two of my aunts were teachers, both of my sisters are teachers, my brother-in-law is a teacher--so I absolutely knew that I did NOT want to teach.Life is full of irony! Fortunately, I like it--both teaching and irony. :)

In addition to teaching Humanities, I teach English at COC and have been working here since 2008. I am a big art fan and used to be a docent at The Huntington Library and ran a blog about women artists -- 365WomenArtists.com. Whenever I travel, I like to visit museums. I also love fountain pens and classical music and sing alto in a choir which is probably a maximum of weird hobbies. Of course, I watch TV as well and have binge-watched more than a few shows in my time.

One of the reasons I love the Humanities is because art, music, literature--they all communicate something fundamentally true. Not THE TRUTH, necessarily, but a truth--even is an abstract or postmodern work does not necessarily represent anything, they do communicate something about a culture or an emotion that gives the object in a work of art (if there is one) voice.

Tracey Sherard

My name is Tracey Sherard, and I teach Humanities 100: Introduction to the Humanities. The course theme is “Voices and Ventriloquism: The Question of Agency in Postcolonial Thought.” It studies creative works of literature and visual culture by writers from and who address Africa, Jamaica, and India in the aftermath of global decolonization in the mid twentieth century.

Here's little bit about me:
I grew up in Fresno, California, and graduated from Hoover High School there before earning my BA in English at CSU Fresno. I spent 5 years living in San Francisco and got my MA in English at San Francisco State University, ultimately earning my PhD in English at Washington State University, where I taught for three years under a teaching fellowship before being hired full time at College of the Canyons in 2001. As well as traditional and in-person classes, I have been teaching online and hybrid classes for most of my teaching career and find them to be a very fulfilling learning and surprisingly social experience.
I have lived in Ventura with my husband and stepson for 13 years now. I love to eat sushi and travel, having been to various locations in the U.S., as well as Europe, Australia, and Korea.

My hobbies include reading, yoga, dancing, and photographing my calico Norwegian forest cat, Sophie. Something surprising about me? I am a licensed Zumba instructor.