Faculty
Xochitl Alvizo, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies
HUM 510: The Sacred: What is it? What Makes Us Seek It?
Alvizo earned a Ph.D. Practical Theology and a Master of Divinity from Boston University School of Theology. In HUMA 510 she takes students through the study of a key way people make meaning, form their worldviews and develop their social practices: their individual and collective understanding of the sacred. It is a study of what humans hold with the highest regard. It shapes their lives, both consciously and subconsciously.
Alvizo’s education, research and writings delve into this issue, giving her in-depth expertise about emerging trends in the concept of the sacred. Her research focuses on current embodiments of churches that are re-imagining their organizational, leadership and economic practices. Her recent research projects include a study of current Wesleyan congregations that practice a form of economics that could be considered radical, and a qualitative research study of the ecclesiology practiced by the Emerging Church in the U.S. from a feminist perspective. She is working on a co-authored piece, "The Emerging Church Movement: Possible Futures and Trajectories" to be included in upcoming co-authored volume, The Emerging Church, Millennials, and Religion Volume 2: Curations and Durations, with Rachel Schneider and Terry Shoemaker. She also co-founded "Feminism and Religion" – an online project that brings together feminist voices from around the world to dialogue about feminism in religion.
Aimee Carrillo Rowe, Ph.D., MFA
Professor, Department of Communication Studies
HUMA 600: Identity, Meaning and Culture
HUMA 696: Directed Comprehensive Studies
HUMA 697: Comprehensive Exam
Rowe enjoys teaching and connecting with her students to meet them where they are. She brings a critical theoretical lens to their lives that frames everything they see and do, and that reshapes how they think and communicate. She also brings a rich theoretical background to the classroom, which she uses to analyze real-world experiences. She has a background as a writing coach, which is helpful to orient students to the program and for passing their comprehensive exams. With a Ph.D. Communication Studies, a Certificate in Women Studies and an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in memoir, she has years of writing experience that benefits students.
Rowe works across writing genres as a memoirist, feminist theorist and culture critic. She has been widely published in the field. She is currently working on a book titled Queer Xicana: Performing the Sacred, and a memoir about queer single motherhood. She also worked as a writing coach for the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity.
James Craine, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, CSUN
HUMA 610: Space, Place and Geography: How, Where (We Think) We Are Defines Who We Are
Craine’s expertise in geography gives students new ways of thinking about the concept of space and place on cultural understandings of the human condition. He earned his Ph.D. Geography from the San Diego State University/University of California Santa Barbara Joint Doctoral Program. He holds a Master of Arts Geography from CSUN and a Bachelor of General Studies Film Studies from Ohio University. His education, research and writing enable him to expand students’ thinking about the effects of space, place, and use and control of land among societies. He also addresses topics related to the diversity of global culture and the creation of identity through power structures. Craine has published extensively and teaches classes related to cultural geography and spatiality of identity and place. He has taught courses that include Cultural Geography, World Regional Geography, and a Political Ecology graduate seminar.
The Association of Pacific Coast Geographers – an organization that promotes geographical education, research and knowledge – recognized Craine with a Distinguished Service Award in 2016.
Ronald A. Davidson, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies
HUMA 630: Nation and Empire, Law and Government
Dr. Davidson is a cultural geographer with research interests in humanistic geography, nationalism in East Asia, and public spaces and landscapes. His recent publications investigate gender, sexuality, and historical memory in East Asia and Tokyo, Japan.
Dr. Davidson received a B.A. in Geography and Rhetoric from UC Berkeley (1989), an M.S. in Geography from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1996), and a Ph.D. in Geography from UCLA (2003).
Sid Hansen, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Philosophy
HUMA 640: Norms and Knowledge
Sid Hansen, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy in CSUN's Humanities department. Dr. Hansen's research focuses on bodies and their connection to questions of power, knowledge, and identity. They are especially interested in how understandings of scientific knowledge and practice shape discourse around queer and trans identity.
Dr. Hansen's writings have appeared in Transgender Studies Quarterly, Philosophy Today, philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism, Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, and the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics. Dr. Hansen is also co-editor of New Forms of Revolt: Essays on Kristeva’s Intimate Politics (State University of New York Press, 2017) and co-founder and co-director of The Kristeva Circle, an academic organization dedicated to promoting research on the work of Julia Kristeva.
They received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University (2010) and a B.A. in Philosophy from Grinnell College (2004).
Krystal Howard, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies and Liberal Studies, College of Humanities
HUMA 530: Family and Life Cycle
Krystal Howard, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies and Liberal Studies at CSUN, where she teaches children’s and adolescent literature, early literacy, and comics in the Humanities department. Her research focuses on form and cultural studies in literature for young readers, and her areas of interest include poetry for young readers, comics studies, and multicultural children’s literature.
Dr. Howard's interests include poetry for young readers, comics studies, and multicultural children’s literature. She is a contributor and Associate Editor of Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, a contributor and Poetry Award Editor of The Lion and the Unicorn, and has contributed to Graphic Novels for Children and Young Adults and Bookbird: An International Journal of Children’s Literature.
Dr. Howard earned her Ph.D. in English Literature from Western Michigan University, where she also received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Writing, Women’s Studies, and Religion from Drake University.
Joel Lemuel, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies
HUMA 501: Gateway to the Humanities
Dr. Joel Lemuel joined CSUN's HUMA faculty in 2022, where he teaches HUMA 501: Gateway to the Humanities, introducing graduate students to interdisciplinary methods and critical theory. He has been a member of the CSUN faculty since 2016. Dr. Lemuel's research examines public controversies in health and medicine, focusing on power, identity, and inequality. Drawing from rhetorical studies, disability studies, and the medical humanities, he explores how legal and policy debates shape lived experience and access to care.
He earned his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California (2016), his M.A. from Georgia State University (2010), and his B.A. in Political Science from Georgia State University (2008).
Sheena Malhotra, Ph.D.
Professor & Chair, Gender and Women’s Studies
Academic Lead, M.A. Humanities, CSUN
HUMA 600: Identity, Meaning and Culture
Dr. Malhotra’s expertise in communication studies gives students new ways of thinking. The emphasis in her doctoral work on intercultural communication provides the framework for HUMA 600, which she designed and taught for 15 years. The course covers how cultures produce ideas, and how ideas are the foundation of power, purpose and struggle for control. Malhotra received her Ph.D. in Communication Studies with an emphasis on gender, media and intercultural communication, from the University of New Mexico. She earned her Master of Arts Communication Studies from Pepperdine University, and Bachelor of Arts Communication Studies from DePauw University. A published author and expert in this field, Malhotra’s research and writings focus on the intersections of gender, media, technology and global culture. She gives students new perspectives to examine the creation of meaning through the lens of the identities and frameworks that shape culture.
Dr. Malhotra serves as the Academic Lead for the MA in Humanities program. Students may contact her for any academic issues and concerns throughout their time in the degree.
Pavithra Prasad, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies
HUMA 650: Capstone: The Good Life
Pavithra Prasad, Ph.D., is a professor of communication studies whose expertise lies at the intersection of intercultural communication, performance studies, and postcolonial studies. Dr. Prasad is a scholar and creative practitioner, combining critical cultural inquiry with narrative performance and experiments in sound installation. She earned a Ph.D. In Performance Studies from Northwestern University.
Khanum Shaikh, Ph.D.
Professor
HUMA 600: Identity, Meaning and Culture
Khanum Shaikh, Ph.D., brings a gender studies lens to thinking about how culture creates meaning and shapes our individual and collective identities. She earned a Ph.D. in Gender and Women’s Studies from UCLA in 2009 and has since been teaching in the Gender and Women’s Studies department at CSUN. Her research has focused on gender, culture and urban transformation in Pakistan, the politics and practices of feminist knowledge production; gender-based struggles and interventions within Islam; and the gendered and racial underpinnings of Islamophobia. She sees the classroom as an exciting space of learning, engaged dialogue, and transformation.
Weimin Sun, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Philosophy, CSUN
HUMA 520: Self: Body and Mind: Who Are You? How Do You Know?
What is the nature of human existence? Who are you? How do you know? Sun brings an international education in philosophy and 20 years of studying and teaching experience to answering these questions, posed in HUMA 520. Sun earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, and his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from Beijing University. He has a broad interest in research, including the philosophy and history of science, philosophy and history of mind, philosophy of biology, philosophy of language, Chinese philosophy and early modern philosophy. The expertise he brings to HUMA 520 enables students to better understand key issues concerning the human person, including body, mind and self. He provides expanded perspectives to think through these issues.
Claire White, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Religious Studies, CSUN
HUMA 620: Science and Magic: The Varied Modes of Knowing and Believing
White’s expertise in the cognitive science of religion – a new field of research – gives students expanded approaches to questions such as: Why are religion and magic so common around the world? Is religion a product of nature, nurture or a combination of both? Why do religious practices and beliefs take on similar features in different cultures? Can science prove or disprove religion? White earned her Ph.D. in Cognition and Culture from Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. She also holds a Bachelor of Science Psychology and Post-Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching from Queen’s University. White wrote the first-ever introductory textbook to the field of cognitive science and religion. Her training in both psychology and anthropology, and her current research, focus on investigating the natural cognitive foundations of religious ideas and practices. Students will get the benefit of her multidisciplinary approach to this field. She provides students with many avenues to address fundamental questions about religion, science and magic.
