Source: Michele Janette, 785-532-5738, mjanette@k-state.edu
Website: http://www.k-state.edu/womst/
Pronouncer: Janette rhymes with Gillette.
Photo available. Contact media@k-state.edu or 785-532-2535.

Friday, Sept. 3, 2010

MICHELE JANETTE NEW DIRECTOR OF WOMEN'S STUDIES PROGRAM

MANHATTAN -- Kansas State University's women's studies program has a new director.

Michele Janette, associate professor of English, was named to the post in June by Brian Spooner, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Janette has been an affiliated faculty member of the women's studies program since joining K-State in 1997.

"The women's studies program is fortunate to have Dr. Janette serve as director; she is committed to moving the program forward in these challenging economic times," Spooner said.

A specialist in Asian American literature and cultural studies, Janette is the editor of My Viet, the first comprehensive anthology of Vietnamese American literature in English. Her scholarship focuses on contemporary literature and film, and includes articles on novels by Lan Cao, Toni Morrison and Maxine Hong Kingston; plays by K-State alumna Velina Hasu Houston; and films by Tony Bui.

Janette served for 10 years as the director of the cultural studies program in K-State's department of English, and was coordinator of the university's peer review of teaching program for two years.

Her many honors include a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship in 1999 and a William L. Stamey Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Sciences. She was promoted to associate professor in 2003.

Janette received a bachelor's in English from Yale University in 1988, with a semester spent abroad at Nanjing University in the People's Republic of China. After college, she taught literature to high school students before returning to Yale to earn her doctorate in English in 1997. She spent a year on the English department faculty at the University of Minnesota before joining K-State. Janette also has attended the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University.