2022 marks the completion of the final year of teaching for 10 Trinity College faculty members, listed below.
JOSEPH BYRNE
Professor of Fine Arts
Joseph Byrne came to Trinity in 1999 after 13 years at Carleton College, where he was professor of art. In addition, he spent a year teaching at Dartmouth College as a visiting artist-in-residence. Byrne holds a B.A. in art from Saint John’s University (Minnesota) and an M.F.A. in painting from the University of Iowa. Byrne is a painter of place and things. He is interested in how objects and places can hold meaning, the residue of experience, and especially memory. His current studio project is based on the landscape of western Ireland, from where his maternal grandmother emigrated. At Trinity, Byrne taught all levels of painting and drawing, developed and taught the “Thesis in Studio Arts Seminar,” and introduced the Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship program, now the Deborah Buck and Hilla Rebay Fellowships. As well as serving on many college committees, Byrne often was director of the Studio Arts Program.
KATHLEEN CURRAN
Professor of Fine Arts
Kathleen Curran, a Trinity faculty member since 1990, is a specialist in architectural history. A winner of the 1997 Dean Arthur H. Hughes Award for Achievement in Teaching, she taught courses in the history of architecture and cities and served as the college’s architecture adviser, sending many students off to successful careers in architecture, historic preservation, and art history. Her book The Romanesque Revival: Religion, Politics, and Transnational Exchange (Penn State Press, 2003) won the Henry-Russell Hitchcock Award from the Victorian Society in America. Her book The Invention of the American Art Museum: From Craft to Kulturgeschichte, 1870-1930 (Getty Research Institute, 2016) examines the intellectual origins of the American art museum that gave birth to the museum movement at the turn of the 20th century. She earned a B.A. from Newcomb College of Tulane University, an M.A. from New York University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware.
LUIS A. FIGUEROA–MARTÍNEZ
Associate Professor of History
Luis A. Figueroa–Martínez earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in Latin American history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.A. in general (interdisciplinary) studies from the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras. He came to Trinity in 1996 from the University of Connecticut, where he was an assistant professor of history and associate director of the Center for Latin American Studies, as well as co-founder of what is now El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies. His initial research focused on slavery, post-slavery, and race in Puerto Rico, resulting in Sugar, Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico (The University of North Carolina Press and Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 2005). He also did extensive work in documentary filmmaking. More recently, his research focus shifted to urban history and urban studies.
SHEILA FISHER
Professor of English
Sheila Fisher earned a B.A. in English and Latin from Smith College and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in English from Yale University. A medievalist specializing in Chaucer, late 14th-century English literature, and medieval women writers, Fisher published Selected Canterbury Tales: A New Verse Translation (W.W. Norton, 2011), which was featured in the inaugural series of translations of major world texts (spring 2020) to launch the new Norton Library Series. She also co-edited a volume of feminist contextual essays on medieval and renaissance writings. Fisher served as chair of the English Department, associate academic dean, co-director of the Humanities Gateway Program, and co-founder and director of the Trinity Prison Seminar Series, which, since 2012, has offered credit-bearing college-level courses at the York Correctional Institution, the only women’s prison in Connecticut. A Trinity faculty member since 1984, Fisher was awarded the Thomas Church Brownell Prize for Teaching Excellence in 2004.
THOMAS HARRINGTON
Professor of Language and Culture Studies
Thomas Harrington, who came to Trinity in 1997, taught courses on 20th- and 21st-century Spanish cultural history, literature, and film. His areas of research include modern Iberian nationalist movements, the history of Iberianism, polysystem theory, contemporary Catalonia, and the history of migration between the peninsular “periphery” (especially Catalonia, but also Galicia, Portugal, and the Basque Country) and the societies of the Caribbean and the Southern Cone. A two-time Fulbright Senior Research Scholar (Barcelona, Spain, and Montevideo, Uruguay), he also lived and worked in Madrid and Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and in Lisbon, Portugal. In addition to his work in Hispanic studies, Harrington is a frequent commentator on political and cultural affairs in the United States and abroad. He earned a B.A. in European history from Holy Cross, an M.A. in Spanish from Middlebury College, and a Ph.D. in Hispanic studies from Brown University.
DAN LLOYD
Brownell Professor of Philosophy
Dan Lloyd earned a B.A. in English and philosophy from Oberlin College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University. Lloyd’s classrooms were intensely communal and interdisciplinary, where a discussion of what it’s like to taste a jalapeno pepper might be followed by an analysis of brain scan data. Over 35 years at Trinity, his teaching ranged from philosophy in literature, to philosophy of mind, to brains, to music, to relativity, to dreams, and, recently, to Shakespeare (as philosopher). He co-founded and led the first 10 years of the Community Learning Initiative, directed the Tutorial College, co-founded New Faculty Orientation, and engaged energetically in many other community initiatives. Lloyd joined the Trinity faculty in 1987; in 1990, he was named the recipient of the Dean Arthur H. Hughes Award for Achievement in Teaching. His massive open online course, “The Conscious Mind: A Philosophical Roadtrip” remains available for viewing at edX.
BETH E. NOTAR
Professor of Anthropology
Beth E. Notar is an anthropologist whose research has focused on the intersection of the cultural and the material. This focus led her to examine the relationship between representations in popular culture, tourism, and transformations of place in southwest China; the symbolism of Chinese currency; and cars, taxis, and mobility in urban China and Burma/Myanmar. After graduating with a B.A. in Chinese studies from Wellesley College, she spent three years in mainland China and Taiwan studying Mandarin at Beijing University, working as a translator at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, and studying Chinese economy and history at the Hopkins–Nanjing Center in Nanjing. She returned to the United States for theoretical and methodological training in Chinese studies (M.A.) and anthropology (M.A., Ph.D.) at the University of Michigan. Notar views research and teaching as mutually reinforcing and sees learning as an active process. Notar especially loved co-teaching on Trinity’s summer study-abroad programs in Asia.
GIULIANA PALMA
Principal Lecturer in Language and Culture Studies
Giuliana Palma, a native of Italy, holds a laurea from the University of Florence. She taught beginning, intermediate, and advanced Italian language and culture courses at Trinity’s main campus in Hartford and at the college’s Rome Campus. Whether she was teaching intensive elementary Italian or the history of the language (in Italian), she underscored the study of language as the main portal to understanding the peoples and cultures of Italy. For Palma, a Trinity faculty member since 1988, language defines “being,” so the study of foreign language is a means to learning more about who we are. Students were encouraged to reflect on their linguistic selves while and because they were studying a foreign language and culture.
MICHAEL PILGER
Instructor in Physical Education and Head Men’s Soccer Coach
Michael Pilger was named Trinity’s head men’s soccer coach in 2004 after coaching at the college and professional level, including serving as head coach of the Cleveland Force (Major Indoor Soccer League) and at the University of Rochester and Kenyon College. At Trinity, he took the men’s team to the NCAA tournament in 2012 and to a top 20 U.S. ranking for parts of six consecutive seasons (2011–16). In 2007 and again in 2011, Pilger was named NESCAC Coach of the Year. In 1990, while at Kenyon, he was named NCAA National Coach of the Year. He also played professional and semiprofessional soccer for six years, starting with the Las Vegas Seagulls of the American Soccer League. Pilger earned a B.S. from Boston University, where he was the leading scorer all four years and All-New England for three years.
MICHAEL PRESTON
Associate Professor of Theater and Dance
Michael Preston, a Trinity faculty member since 2003, earned a B.A. in theater from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His experience includes time as a member of the Shaliko Company, an experimental theater group founded by Leonardo Shapiro. He spent many seasons as a clown with Circus Flora, based in St. Louis, and toured the world as one of the Flying Karamazov Brothers, including three runs on Broadway. Since 2004, he has shared a teaching position with his wife, Associate Professor of Theater and Dance Barbara Karger. They directed Fräulien Maria, which toured the country for four years. Recently, he has appeared as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol at Hartford Stage. It was his hope that theater students, within the framework of a structured, playful, improvisatory, and supportive environment, were able to unlock their creativity, imagination, and physicality to further their growth as artists and humans. He also is a licensed Feldenkrais practitioner.
GEORGE SUITOR
Associate Professor of Physical Education
George Suitor earned a B.S. and an M.S. from Central Connecticut State University. Retiring as Trinity’s head men’s and women’s cross country coach and assistant men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track and field coach, Suitor possessed a coaching philosophy that required individual runners to establish a series of goals that would enable them to reach their potential. Suitor sought athletes who were committed to the sport, to a demanding workload, and to a team concept. This philosophy inspired Trinity teams to improve during each of Suitor’s seasons. A member of the Trinity faculty since 1992, Suitor came to the college after a highly successful tenure at the high school level in Manchester, Connecticut.