English Department Staff

This webpage provides presentations of the teachers and researchers in the English Department.

Group photo of the staff in the department.
David Gray, Fredrik Land, Jonathan White, Miguel Garcia-Yeste, Joeseph Lee, Julie Skogs, Anita Purcell Sjölund, Marcia Markus, Annelie Ädel, Parvin Gheitasi, Carmen Zamorano Llena, Katherina Dodou, Katarina Lindahl, Marcia Marcus, Jeanette Toth, Billy Gray, Kostia Andreev, BethAnne Pauslrud

Konstantin Andreev

Lecturer

Konstantin (Kostia) Andreev has an MA in English linguistics, an MA in philosophy, and a teaching degree in English and German. He has taught English since 1999, first in St. Petersburg and since 2007 in Sweden. At Dalarna University, he teaches a variety of undergraduate courses focusing on English proficiency and the fundamentals of linguistic theory. He also teaches commissioned courses in Business English. He is the course coordinator of English Language Structure and Introduction to English Linguistics.  

 

Christine Cox Eriksson

PhD, Senior Lecturer

Christine Cox Eriksson completed a PhD in Special Education at Stockholm University, where she examined the vocabulary development of very young Swedish children. Her research interests include vocabulary learning in school, as well as the teaching of English to young learners. Christine has taught children and adults in the US, Germany and Sweden, and is currently a Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of English at Dalarna University in Falun, Sweden. Her teaching responsibilities include pre-service teacher education courses, and thesis supervision at the undergraduate level.

Katherina Dodou

PhD, Senior Lecturer
Docent 

Katherina Dodou is docent in English literature with specialisation in literature education. She received her PhD in English from Uppsala University and taught at the universities of Uppsala and Örebro before joining Dalarna University in 2010. Her current research focuses on the study of literature as an educational project. She is particularly interested in subject conceptions, knowledge mediation as well as the value and legitimacy of studying literature in English. Katherina has taught literature courses in English at all levels and supervised a number of theses at the undergraduate and advanced levels, both in literary studies and in teacher education. In 2017 she was awarded the distinction scholar of teaching (Excellent lärare). Katherina is a board member of the Literature Education Network (Litteraturdidaktiskt Nätverk) and Pro-Dean of the Dalarna University Faculty Board (UFN). She represented Dalarna University in Humtank, a collaboration between 15 Swedish universities, in the period 2017-2021.

 

Irene Gilsenan Nordin

PhD, Professor Emerita

Irene Gilsenan Nordin is originally from Co Meath, Ireland. She earned a Certificate in Education from London University (1970), and worked for a number of years in the 1970’s as a teacher of English in Africa, first in Kenya and then in Botswana. She moved to Sweden in 1981 and defended her doctoral thesis at Uppsala University in 1999, on the work of the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. She has been employed at Dalarna University since 1991. She was appointed Docent in 2007, and Professor in 2010. Since 2014 she is Professor Emerita in English at Dalarna University.

Irene Gilsenan Nordin’s main publications are Crediting Marvels in Seamus Heaney's Seeing Things; Reading Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, a Contemporary Irish Poet; and The Body and Desire in Contemporary Irish Poetry. She is the author and editor of numerous publications on Irish literature and culture. She was co-founder and editor of Nordic Irish Studies (2003-13), as well as founder of DUCIS, Dalarna University Centre for Irish Studies (2004).

Parvin Gheitasi

Senior Lecturer

Parvin Gheitasi holds a PhD in foreign language teaching and learning from Umeå University (Sweden). Her research interests include early language learning, formulaic sequences as well as sociolinguistics. Parvin is currently a senior lecturer in English at Dalarna University in Falun, Sweden. Her teaching responsibilities include courses in teacher education programs as well as courses such as linguistic methods and written proficiency. She is a supervisor and examiner for the degree thesis for teacher students (undergraduate/postgraduate) in English and has worked with in-service training for teachers. Currently, she is the course coordinator for: introduction to linguistic method and English for primary school teachers (4-6).

Billy Gray

PhD, Associate Professor

Born in West Belfast, Northern Ireland, Billy wrote his PhD thesis entitled 'The influence of Islamic Mysticism on the work of Doris Lessing' under the supervision of the established scholar and writer Professor Robert Welch. His research interests subsequently led Billy into two specific areas: Irish Literature and texts dealing with literary representations of ageing. Billy has published articles on writers such as Hubert Butler, Chris Authur, Derek Lundy, Patrick McCabe, Owen McNamee, Joseph O’Neill, J. M. Coetzee, Irma Kurtz, Doris Lessing and Jenny Diski in international, peer-reviewed journals such as the New Hibernia Review and The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, as well as in numerous monographs. He is currently one of three series editors for the Peter Lang Cultural Identity Series as well as editor of the History, Politics and Media Studies section of the peer-reviewed Nordic Irish Studies Journal (NIS) and has recently edited – together with Dr. Carmen Zamorano -Llena – Authority and Wisdom in Contemporary Ireland, published by Peter Lang. Billy is currently a member of the ISTUD research group at Dalarna University and DEDAL-LIT, a research body based in Lleida Spain which focuses on issues relating to Literary Gerontology. Billy’s current academic interests include the manner in which ideas relating to Sufism and Neo-Sufism are reflected in the novels of writers such as Leila Aboulela and Elif Shafak.

David Gray

PhD, Senior Lecturer

David Gray is originally from Northern Ireland and holds a PhD in English literature from Ulster University (UK). Since being employed at Dalarna University in 2014, he has taught a wide range of courses in English, across the three major disciplines within the subject: literature, linguistics and pedagogy. Working chiefly within the literature section, David regularly teaches at all levels - from undergraduate to advanced - in a variety of online and campus-based courses. Currently, he is the coordinator for several subjects in the department. In addition, he is a supervisor and examiner for the English literature bachelor's and master's thesis, as well as the degree thesis for teacher students (undergraduate/postgraduate) in English. David is a member of DUCIS (Dalarna University Centre for Irish Studies) and is on the steering group of the non-profit Literature House in Dalarna (LHD). His main research interests include British and Irish literature, ecocriticism, digital humanities, and literature didactics.

Joseph Lee

PhD, Senior Lecturer

Joseph Lee received his PhD in Applied Linguistics in 2011 from Georgia State University, and he taught in the Department of Linguistics at Ohio University for a decade before coming to Dalarna University in 2021. With over 20 years of teaching experience, he has taught courses on a wide range of topics in applied linguistics, academic communication, and ESL/EFL. His research interests include English for Specific/Academic Purposes (ESP/EAP), academic writing, genre studies, classroom discourse studies, and applied corpus linguistics. Using corpus-based methods, his current research program includes explorations of advanced second language writing, inter-/intra-disciplinary variations in research writing, and teachers’ and learners’ classroom communication practices. He has presented his research at numerous conferences in such countries as the US, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, and Mexico. His studies have been published in leading journals in applied linguistics such as English for Specific Purposes, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Journal of Second Language Writing, and System.

Fredrik Land

Lecturer

Fredrik Land holds a Master of Arts degree in English Literature. He has taught literature in English since the year 2000, both in Sweden and abroad. In addition, he was awarded the pedagogical title Qualified Teaching Practitioner. At Dalarna University he teaches and is coordinator of the following courses: Literature in English; The History of British and American Literature and Ideas; Themes in Popular Literature; Cultural Texts and Contexts; and Children's and Young Adult Literature. Finally, he teaches literature courses within the framework of the Swedish teacher-training programme Lärarlyftet.

Katarina Lindahl

PhLic, Lecturer

Katarina Lindahl holds a Licentiate of Philosophy in Subject Matter Education with a focus on English from Gothenburg University. In her licentiate thesis, she focused on how, and in what ways, vocational English is part of English teaching in the Building and Construction programme. Prior to her research studies, Katarina received a Master of Education degree from Karlstad University and worked in both secondary and upper secondary school as a teacher of English and religion. At Dalarna University, she teaches English didactics and language proficiency, and also teaches of several courses in the teacher training programme for secondary school and upper secondary school teachers. In addition, she supervises and examines degree theses in the teacher training programme. In 2021 she was awarded the distinction Excellent Teaching Practicioner (Excellent lärare). 

Marcia Markus

Lecturer

Marcia Markus holds a Master of Education from Dalarna University and a Master of Arts with a major in English linguistics. She is in the final stages of a Master’s degree in Educational Sciences - focus language teaching and learning. In addition, she has experience of teaching at the primary and secondary school level in Sweden. Marcia is a certified teacher in English and Swedish as a second language for all levels of school. She is program coordinator for English within the teacher program, course coordinator for Development and Learning for subject teachers, within the School of Education, English l and ll for teachers, English language learning and teaching and English for primary school teachers – year 1-3. For many years, Marcia has coordinated and taught courses in professional development for teachers commissioned by the Department of Education (Lärarlyftet). She also supervises degree theses in the teacher training programme.

BethAnne Paulsrud

PhD, Senior Lecturer

Associate Professor

BethAnne Paulsrud holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Child Development, Education emphasis, (San Diego State University), a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction, literacy emphasis (University of San Diego), a one-year Master degree in English linguistics (Dalarna University), and a PhD in Educational Sciences in Language and Language Development (Stockholm University). She has many years of experience as a preschool teacher, mother tongue teacher and primary school teacher in Sweden. She has been teaching at Dalarna University since 2006, both in the English Department and in the teacher education programme. Her courses have included English for Primary School Teachers, Sociolinguistics and Translation Theory, and she has also worked with in-service training for teachers and the supervision of degree theses. She recently completed a postdoctoral research project at the Centre for Research on Bilingualism at Stockholm University (2015-2018). BethAnne's current research focuses on multilingualism and policy in teacher education and the primary classroom, as well as family language policy and English-medium instruction in various sociogeographical contexts.

Anita Purcell Sjölund

PhD Student, Lecturer

Anita is Lecturer in English and Director of Studies for the English Department at Dalarna University. She has been employed here since 2003. Before working for Dalarna University, she spent 20 years as a journalist, programme producer and presenter for organisations such as Radio New Zealand International and Deutsche Welle in Germany, and as a freelancer for Agence France Press in Sweden. Anita has reported on issues within the Pacific region, EU politics, conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and East and South East Asian politics. Her academic background and interests are in English literature, New Zealand and Pacific literature as well as political sociology and Indigenous Pacific studies. In addition to these, other academic and research interests are in media communication, moving images (television and film studies), media discourse analysis, cultural representation and appropriation in literature and media, and colonial, post-colonial and transcolonial discourses. 

Julie Skogs

PhD, Senior Lecturer

Director of Studies

Presentation to come.

Jonathan White

PhD, Associate Professor

Jonathan White was awarded his PhD in Linguistics in 1999 from the University of London, and is now Associate Professor (docent) in English Linguistics. He carries out research in computer-mediated communication, especially in how online communities are developed through using language and in how this affects language learning. His current research project looks at authentic language in education and how attitudes to language norms are affected by net-based language learning. Jonathan teaches undergraduate and MA level linguistics courses, and proficiency courses, both oral and written, in the teacher training programme.

Carmen Zamorano-Llena

PhD, Associate Professor

Head of Department

Programme Director for the Master Programme with Specialisation in Literature in English

Dr. Carmen Zamorano Llena is Associate Professor of English and was previously lecturer in English at the University of Lleida, Spain (1999-2008). She obtained her Bachelor's Degree in English from the University of Lleida, Spain, an MA in Translation from the University of Westminster, UK, and her PhD in English from the University of Barcelona, Spain, which analysed postmodern feminist constructs of identity in the poetry of Fleur Adcock, Eavan Boland, Gillian Clarke, and Carol Rumens. In June 2006 she was granted a two-year Betriu de Pinós postdoctoral scholarship by the Catalan Agency for Research (AGAUR) for her project on postnationalist identity in contemporary Irish poetry, and has worked as a lecturer in English at Dalarna University since 2008. She has published on contemporary Irish and British poetry and fiction, and is co-editor of a number of collections of essays, including The Aesthetics of Ageing: Critical Approaches to Literary Representations of the Ageing Process (Publicacions de Lleida, 2002), Transcultural Identities in Contemporary Literature (Rodopi, 2013) and Authority and Wisdom in the New Ireland (Peter Lang, 2016). She is also General Editor of the Nordic Irish Studies journal, and co-editor of Peter Lang’s Cultural Identity Studies series. Her current research interests include representations of ageing in Irish and British literature, literature and globalization, and the migrant experience in contemporary Irish and British literature.​

Annelie Ädel

PhD, Professor

Head of Department

Programme Director for the Master Programme in Applied English Linguistics

Annelie Ädel joined the English Department at Dalarna University as Professor of English Linguistics in 2012. Her main research areas include discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, English for Specific Purposes and learner writing. The types of discourse that she has targeted in her work are primarily academic speech and writing, but she has also published on newspaper discourse, political discourse and popular science texts. She has been involved in different projects involving the development of corpora, such as MICASE (the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English) and MICUSP (the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers) at the University of Michigan. She has experience teaching a wide range of topics in Applied English linguistics in different university contexts. She is a keen supervisor of BA/MA students' research projects.

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