Faculty & Scholars
Dr. Wendy Galgan
Project Co-Director
Dr. Galgan is associate professor of English at Saint Joseph's College of Maine, has extensive experience with public, interdisciplinary scholarship. She has taught extensively on Gothic literature in general and on Stephen King’s work in particular. Her research and teaching interests also include women’s and gender studies. She has published on women poets and directed the Women’s Center and women’s studies minor while at St. Francis College. Dr. Galgan was a member of the first cohort of Public Scholars for the New York Council for the Humanities (NYCH), led and eventually designed a number of NYCH Adult Reading & Discussion Series hosted by St. Francis College in New York, and was the project scholar for the NYCH Reading & Discussion Series “Our World Remade: World War I.”
Dr. Chris Fuller
Project Co-Director
Dr. Fuller is the Vice President of Mission, Sponsorship, and Planning at Saint Joseph's College of Maine. He possesses an extensive interdisciplinary background with a focus on religious studies. In his academic work he has blended historical studies, literary theory, and cinema studies, including the manifestation of the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish imaginations in cinema, music, and literature. He also twice led an NEH seminar for school teachers during his time at Carroll College.
Dr. Faye Ringel
Visiting Scholar
Dr. Ringel is professor emeritus of humanities at the United States Coast Guard Academy. She is the author of multiple articles about New England Gothic literature and the recently published The Gothic Literature and History of New England: Secrets of the Restless Dead, which addresses women’s representation as writers and consumers of Gothic literature, the Puritans’ fear of the wilderness and treatment of the native peoples, and the legacy of slavery and enduring racism.
Dr. Francis Bremer
Visiting Scholar
Dr. Bremer is professor emeritus of history at Millersville University. He has published thirteen books and numerous essays, most dealing with puritanism in Old and New England, including The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards and Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia.
Dr. Emerson Baker
Visiting Scholar
Dr. Baker is professor of history at Salem State University. He teaches courses on material culture, archaeology, museums, and architectural history. His archaeological fieldwork and research have centered on Maine, a place where English, French and Native American cultures collided. He is the author of The Devil of Great Island: Witchcraft and Conflict in Early New England and A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience.
Dr. Michael Bell
Visiting Scholar
Dr. Bell was the consulting folklorist at the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission in Providence (1980–2006). He has served as a scholar or consultant on numerous projects for the media, particularly those concerned with folklore, folk art, oral history, and humanities programs for young adults, including the recent Smithsonian Channel special, Vampires in America. He is the author of Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires.
Dr. Joseph Bruchac
Visiting Scholar
Dr. Bruchac is the acclaimed author of Whispers in the Dark and a member of the Nulhegan Abenaki tribe of Vermont. He is the author of more than 120 books for children and adults, including the Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children series which is used in classrooms throughout the country. He has also been a storyteller-in-residence for Native American organizations, including the Institute of Alaska Native Arts and the Onondaga Nation School.
John Bear Mitchell
Visiting Scholar
John Bear Mitchell is a citizen of the Penobscot Nation from Indian Island in Maine. He presently serves as the University of Maine System Office Native American Waiver and Educational Program Coordinator, University of Maine’s Wabanaki Center Outreach and Student Development Coordinator, as well as, a Lecturer of Wabanaki Studies and Multicultural Studies at the University of Maine in Orono. He has served on numerous museum and educational boards throughout the state with missions based on Maine’s Wabanaki people.
"They don't like the house, and I don't like the house, sir, because it has always been a bad house." - Stephen King, "Jerusalem's Lot"