Skip to main content

Instructors

  • Antony Lyon

    Antony Lyon

    Director, Humanities Program
    antonylyon.com
    alyon@ucsd.edu

    Antony Lyon received his PhD in Political Science from UC San Diego. He joined the Humanities Program in 2010 and has taught all five courses in the sequence.  

    Research Interests: Political representation, democratic theory, responsibility, suffering, and human experiences in nature. Contemporary poetry. Engaged teaching and teaching of writing.

    Office: GH 188

  • Kristina Markman

    Kristina Markman

    Associate Director, Humanities Program
    kristinamarkman.com
    kmarkman@ucsd.edu

    Kristina Markman received her PhD in Medieval History from UCLA. Before joining the Revelle College Humanities Program she taught at UCLA, Loyola Marymount University, and West Los Angeles Community College. 

    Research Interests: High Middle Ages, crusade culture, intellectual history, frontier interactions; student-centered pedagogy, engaged teaching, experiential learning, teaching of writing. 

    Office: GH 186

  • Bretton Rodriguez

    Bretton Rodriguez

    Associate Director, Humanities Program
    bsrodriguez@ucsd.edu

    Bretton Rodriguez earned his PhD in Literature from the University of Notre Dame. Prior to joining the Revelle College Humanities Program, he taught a wide range of courses in the humanities at the University of Nevada, Reno; Boğaziçi University in Istanbul; Indiana University, South Bend; and Notre Dame.

    Research Interests: Medieval literature, religious identity in medieval lberia, ideas of history and writing history, engaged teaching, teaching of writing and rhetoric.

    Office: GH 184

  • Nancy Caciola

    Nancy Caciola

    Professor, History
    ncaciola@ucsd.edu

    Nancy Caciola received her BA at Wesleyan University, and MA and PhD at the University of Michigan. She has been teaching at UCSD since 1996. She also teaches courses on Pagan Europe and its Christian Aftermath, Europe in the Middle Ages, as well as sieminar courses in Medieval history.

    Research Interests: The religious and social construction of identities in the later Middle Ages, the boundary between life and death in medieval thought, and the varieties of ways of imagining return from the dead.

  • Michael Caldwell

    Michael Caldwell

    Instructor, Humanities Program
    macaldwell@ucsd.edu

    Michael Caldwell received his BA in Humanities and English at Valparaiso University, and his MA and PhD in British Literature from the University of Chicago. He has been associated with Revelle in some fashion or other since 2000. He is also a full time lecturer at SDSU.

    Research Interests: 18th century political journalism; jazz; the literature of passing; the possibilities of humane discourse and transformative justice in the age of cancel culture.

  • Stanley Chodorow

    Stanley Chodorow

    Professor Emeritus, History
    schodorow@ucsd.edu

    Stanley Chodorow, Professor Emeritus of History, received his PhD from Cornell University in 1968. He came to UC San Diego that year and has taught Humanities since 1970. He also teaches a writing course for graduate students.

    Research Interests: Medieval legal history and eccliastical politics.

  • Denise Demetriou

    Denise Demetriou

    Professor, History
    Director, Center for Hellenic Studies
    dedemetriou@ucsd.edu

    Denise Demetriou received her PhD in Classics from Johns Hopkins. She joined UCSD's History Department in 2015, after teaching at Michigan State University for nine years. She also teaches courses on ancient Greek history, ancient empires, migration in the ancient Mediterranean, and Athenian democracy and imperialism, among others.

    Research Interests: mobility and migration in the ancient Mediterranean; cross-cultural interactions in antiquity; ancient Mediterranean ethnicities and identities, and ancient Mediterranean religions.

  • Todd Kontje

    Todd Kontje

    Distinguished Professor, Literature
    tkontje@ucsd.edu

    Todd Kontje received his PhD in German Litearture at Princeton University before coming to UC San Diego in 1991. He teaches undergraduate courses in German and European literature, and the ocassional seminar in critical theory. 

    Research Interests: German and Comparative Literature; especially surrounding national identity and the Bildungsroman.

  • Eric Watkins

    Eric Watkins

    Distinguished Professor, Philosophy
    ewatkins@ucsd.edu

    Eric Watkins received his PhD in Philsophy from the University of Notre Dame, and has been teaching at UC San Diego since 2001. He also teaches courses on Kant and German philosophy.

    Research Interests: Kant's theoretical philosophy and its place within modern philosophy and science; early modern philosophy (especially Leibniz), German idealism and the history of philosophy of science.

  • Edward Watts

    Edward Watts

    Professor, History
    ewatts@ucsd.edu

    Edward Watts received a BA in Classics at Brown University, and received his PhD in History from Yale University in 2002. He came to UCSD in 2012 after 10 years at Indiana University. In addition to HUM 2, he teaches courses on Byzantine History, Roman History, Late Antique Christianity, Roman numismatics, and the history of the Medieval Mediterranean.

    Research Interests: The intellectual, political, and religious history of the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire. 

  • Geoffrey West

    Geoffrey West

    Instructor, Humanities Program
    gswest@ucsd.edu

    Geoffrey West earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of California San Diego. Prior to that he worked first with prominent investment banking firms and then as a pastry chef, both in New York City. Prior to joining Revelle’s Humanities Program, he taught intellectual history, general humanities, and world religions at San Diego State University as well as within the San Diego Community College System. He also teaches in UCSD’s Analytical Writing Program. He is in the process of turning his dissertation into a monograph entitled Tallgrass Empire: Aspirational Citizenship, Martial Service, and the Creation of Subjects in the Northern Great Plains – 1876-1898.

    Research Interests: The intellectual history of imperialism and citizenship, the history of gender and sexuality particularly in an imperial/transnational context, and the history of the American West.

Staff

  • Alexandra Vargas

    Alexandra Vargas

    Coordinator, Humanities Program

    Alex Vargas received her BS in General Biology and minor in Humanities from UC San Diego. As an undergraduate, she taught for Biology, Revelle's First Year Experience Program, and OASIS. She also served as a Peer Advisor, Resident Assistant, Orientation Leader, and mentor for the Global Ambassador's Program. After working for Revelle Academic Advising, she joined the Humanities Program in 2019.

    Contact Alex through the Virtual Advising Center for questions about scheduling, enrollment, transfer courses, OSD accomodations, and majors and minors in Humanities.

    Office: GH 180A