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

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

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

Michael Caldwell

Lecturer, 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.

Matthew Crum

Lecturer, Humanities Program
matthewstephencrum.com
mscrum@ucsd.edu

Matthew Crum received his BA in History at the Ohio State University, and his PhD from the University of California, San Diego. He has taught for the Revelle Humanities program since 2017.

Research Interests: Ethnicity and identity in the Roman state, East Roman literature, representations of the "Other"; Classical reception, and the archaeology of Medieval Greece.

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.

Patrick Patterson

Professor, History
patrickpatterson@ucsd.edu

Patrick Patterson received his PhD from the University of Michigan and his JD from the University of Virginia. He taught in Eleanor Roosevelt College's Making of the Modern World Program before teaching with the History Department and the Humanities Program.

Research Interests: The history of 20th-century Eastern Europe and the Balkans, with major emphases on everyday life and consumer culture and on the interplay of Islam, Christianity, and secular society.

Niyati Shenoy

Lecturer, Humanities Program
nshenoy@ucsd.edu 

Niyati Shenoy earned her BA in History and Politics at Pomona College and earned her PhD in Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University. Prior to joining Revelle College's Humanities Program she taught at Columbia University.

Research Interests: Colonial South Asia, sociolegal history, caste, labor and mobility, and gender and sexuality studies.

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

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

Lecturer, Humanities Program
gswest@ucsd.edu

Geoffrey West earned his PhD 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 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.

Tatiana Zavodny

Lecturer, Humanities Program
tzavodny@ucsd.edu

Tatiana Zavodny received her PhD in Literature from UC San Diego. Before joining the Humanities department as an instructor, she was a student in Revelle College, too.

Research Interests: Literature of the Italian Risorgimento and the influence of religious rhetoric in nationalist movements more broadly. 

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