UA@Oxford Faculty for 2020

Dr. Cassie Smith (co-director)


​Dr. Smith has built her career on the study of countercultures in early America and the Caribbean, specifically those countercultures, like pirates, that don't play well with others, although she, herself, can get along with a brown paper bag. She has published books and articles about pirates like the English knight Sir Francis Drake and about maroon rebels in the Jamaican mountains. Having taught with the UA@Oxford program in the past, she looks forward to returning in Summer 2020 with a new batch of eager and inquisitive UA students ready to walk the plank into the fascinating world of early modern British piracy.


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​Dr. Paul Phelps (co-director)

​Dr. Phelps, who prefers to be called by his first name, is a visiting professor in the Honors College at UA, a senior fellow in the University's Blount Scholars Program, a specialist of early modern literature, in particular those that precede Shakespeare, the author of a largely-unread book on metaphors, the upcoming author of an equally-unreadable book on sixteenth-century grammar, and a lover and protector of his cavalier spaniel, Spenser.  His other moral attachments include good coffee and good wine, about which he tends to be a bit obsessive, and whatever courses he happens to be teaching at the moment.  His AirBnB profile describes him thusly: "Male, 5'9". Brown eyes and hair; slouching rather than standing up straight, and generally reading and walking simultaneously."  ​



​Dr. Sharony Greene


All of the classes taught by Dr. Green pivot from her deep love for understanding our complicated past that includes the       antebellum period and transnational history. She has twice pursued research interests in Oxford, tagging along with her Modern British history prof-husband (best memory: finding a shortcut up a steep hill to a castle in Dover after sitting on a pebbled beach with some brave students who, like her, were unafraid of an adventure even if our hiking knees paid dearly)! Her music class receives inspiration from a UA course that netted her class permission to run through the Bryant-Denny stadium tunnel, the "messiest postwar spot on campus," as featured on ESPN’s Sports Center.​
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​Prof. Allen Jones


Professor Allen Jones is a specialist in all things Oxford--its rich cultural, artistic, and architectural histories, its vast  archives, libraries, and museums, and its intense, vibrant, cosmopolitanism.  Now an instructor emerita of classics and fine arts in the Honors College at UA, Prof. Jones remains the key staple of teaching on the "UA in Oxford" program.  


Dr. Kate McKeogh (New College, Oxford)

Katie has lived and studied in Oxford since 2011. She finished her DPhil (what Oxford calls the PhD) in 2018 and since October of that year has had the immense pleasure of working at New College, Oxford, as a research fellow with additional responsibilities for student welfare. Katie’s research is centred around the experience of religious change for English Catholics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in particular the ways this intersects with culture and identity. These very vague terms allow her to indulge her interests in music, literature, and the history of the book, sometimes at the same time. She is married to George, also a historian, and they have a cat called Hobbes (which should not be taken as evidence of intimate familiarity with the works of the philosopher of the same name). Outside the classroom and the library, Katie can be found cooking, walking, practising yoga, singing, and swimming, but not at the same time. She splits her time between Oxford and Beeston, Nottinghamshire and has an Irish surname which is difficult to pronounce.