Department of Humanities Faculty
Kevin Murphy, PhD
Chair, Department of Humanities
Associate Professor of History
k.murphy@usp.edu | 215.596.8903
Dr. Murphy earned his MA and PhD from University of Maryland and his BA from Towson State University.
Robert Boughner, PhD
Professor of Classics
r.boughn@usp.edu | 215.596.850
Dr. Boughner earned his PhD and MA from Johns Hopkins University and his BA from Duke University.
Michael Brody, MA
Instructor in Art History
Professor Brody holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA from the New School.
Ruth K. Crispin, PhD
Associate Professor of Spanish
r.crispin@usp.edu | 215.596.8587
Dr. Crispin received a PhD and MLS from Vanderbilt University, an MA from the University of Wisconsin and a BA from Brandeis University. Her main area of interest and expertise is Spanish literature. She has published extensively on the 20th-century Spanish poet Pedro Salinas and is currently concentrating principally on literary translation, both of poetry and of prose. Dr. Crispin has been the recipient of three National Endowment of the Humanities summer fellowships and was a panelist for the awarding of similar NEH grants.
Michael Dockray, MA
Lecturer in English
m.dockra@usp.edu | 215.596.8907
Mr. Dockray holds two master’s degrees and a BA from West Chester University.
Anne Marie Flanagan, PhD
Associate Professor of English
a.flanag@usp.edu | 215.895.1132
Dr. Flanagan holds a PhD, MA and BA from Temple University. Her current research concerns the relationship of Henry James’s The Bostonians to anti-suffrage literature. Dr. Flanagan also studies modern British and American literature, film studies, feminist art history, rhetoric and interdisciplinary pedagogy.
Christine Flanagan, MFA
Assistant Professor of English
c.flanag@usp.edu | 215.596.8899
Ms. Flanagan received an MFA from Emerson College and a BA from the University of Rochester.
Paul Halpern, PhD
Professor of Mathematics and Physics
Fellow in Humanities
p.halpern@usp.edu | 215.596.8913
Dr. Halpern holds a PhD and MA from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a BA from Temple University.
Peter T. Hoffer, PhD
Professor of German
p.hoffer@usp.edu | 215.596.8905
Dr. Hoffer earned a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA from Tufts University and a BA from Columbia University.
Laurie G. Kirszner, PhD
Professor of English
l.kirszn@usp.edu | 215.596.8899
Dr. Kirszner holds a PhD from Temple University, an MA from New York University and a BA from Barnard College. She is the coauthor of more than a dozen popular college writing textbooks, including literature anthologies; grammar handbooks; rhetorical, thematic and cross-cultural readers; and developmental writing workbooks. Her best-known text, Patterns for College Writing, has for years been a best-selling reader for college composition.
Robert Manbeck, MA
Distinguished Assistant Professor of English
r.manbec@usup.edu | 215.596.8904
Mr. Manbeck earned an MA from Temple University and a BA from Allegheny College.
William B. Reinsmith, DA
Professor Emeritus of Humanities
w.reinsm@usp.edu | 215.596.8903
Dr. Reinsmith holds a DA from Carnegie Mellon University, an MA from Villanova University and a BA from Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary.
Kim Robson, MM
Assistant Professor of Music
Director, musical activities
k.robson@usp.edu | 215.596.7542
Ms. Robson earned an MM from the New England Conservator of Music and a BS from Allegheny College. She is the founder of the current music program, which includes up to nine different chamber ensembles and two lecture-format classes each semester. Ms. Robson’s research interests include sacred choral performance practice in colonial America, pedagogy in the voice studio, and the effect of sinus surgery on the singing voice.
Roy Robson, PhD
Professor of History
r.robson@usp.edu | 215.596.8525
Dr. Robson received a PhD from Boston College, an MA from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA from Allegheny College.
David Traxel, PhD
Professor of History
d.traxel@usp.edu | 215.895.1133
Dr. Traxel earned a PhD and MA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an AB from the University of California, Berkeley.