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Faculty

James Endersby
Associate Professor and Director of Canadian Studies
Department of Political Science
email: endersbyj@missouri.edu

My primary research interests with regard to Canadian politics are elections, voter participation, and public opinion. In particular, I make empirical application of models and theory from the American case to Canada. In the first article, I used Canadian survey data to investigate whether non-policy characteristics in the spatial theory of voting were dummy variables or dimensions (some evidence for the latter). In the second article, a Canadian graduate student, since defended, and I looked at the effect of news sources on public opinion, in particular on whether readers of French language newspapers expressed more positive feelings toward Quebec nationalist identity (they did, although no effect of English language newspapers). In the third article, two Political Science graduate students, one finished, one not, investigated the link between the level of competition in an election and the rate of turnout and proposed an improved measure of electoral closeness for multiparty/multicandidate elections (and it worked well). This summer, I should finish a paper in progress on a spatial model of elections that incorporates regional parties. It proposes a nested logit model of voter decision-making as, for instance, you can't include the BQ and the [old] Reform party in the same model since they don't compete within the same riding/province (and the data is not available from federal election studies—Quebec does not rate Reform party on thermometer scores and ROC does not rate the Bloc). This summer is my time to catch up on half-complete papers, so I haven't really thought much about where I might go from here!

Thomas Johnson
Emeritus Professor of Agricultural Economics
and Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs
email: johnsontg@missouri.edu

My current interests include an assessment of Canadian policies affecting rural areas. As an economist I am particularly interested in those policies focused on adjustment to globalization, adjustment to changing technology, economic development programs, rural infrastructure, and local governance. I am also interested in similar policies related to the remote northern regions of Canada and to policies directed at the aboriginal population. In 2001 I was a member of an OECD team that evaluated Canada's territorial policy (including rural areas and the far north). I wrote a presentation paper for meetings last April entitled, "Canadian Rural Development Policy.

Marvin Overby
Professor
Department of Political Science
email: overby@missouri.edu

My research interests have focused mainly on issues of legislative representation within American politics, but they also include some broader topics in the American field as well as a number of comparative issues. Some of my recent projects include studies of the representativeness of committees in both the U. S. Congress and American state legislatures; representation of minority interests; public attitudes toward gays and lesbians; public attitudes toward state judicial systems (especially with regard to differential levels of trust in fairness among racial groups); contemporary congressional leadership; and split-ticket voting behavior. Within Canadian politics, my research has focused on legislative procedures (especially free votes) in both the federal and various provincial legislatures, but I also have an interest in minority representation in Canada.

Craig T. Palmer
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
email: palmerct@missouri.edu

My research focuses on applying evolutionary theory to cultural behavior. My main field research is performed in small fishing villages in Newfoundland, Canada where I have performed fieldwork since 1990. My original research in this area focused on how changes in traditional fishing practices contributed to the ecological problem of over fishing in this area. My current research focuses on the relationship between traditional cultural behaviors and the spread of tuberculosis and influenza in Newfoundland communities. This involves ethnohistorical interviews with residents and the recording of stories about past patterns of social behavior.

Lisa Sattenspiel
Professor
Department of Anthropology
email: sattenspiell@missouri.edu

My research focuses on understanding the impact of infectious diseases on populations in central Manitoba, northern Ontario, and Newfoundland. I have collaborated with Ann Herring at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario for over 12 years and have recently begun a new project with Craig Palmer, a cultural anthropologist at MU. My research combines analysis of parish records and historical archives with mathematical models that have been developed to describe infectious disease spread across time and space. My main focus has been in the modeling arena, although I will be taking on the archival component as well in the Newfoundland project. My models have been used to address many questions about the role played by central Canadian fur trappers in the spread of diseases from community to community, with emphasis on the impact of variations in their mobility patterns, differences in rates of contact among individuals within a community, the effect of seasonality in activities, and the impact of quarantine measures. The Newfoundland project will address how traditional fishing activities, settlement structures, and kinship patterns influence the transmission of infectious diseases within households, communities, and the region.

Larry Brown
Resident Instructor
Department of Geography
email: brownlar@missouri.edu

Soren Larsen
Associate Professor
Department of Geography
email: larsens@missouri.edu

My interests are in rural development, indigenous communities, and the politics of place in northern British Columbia and other non-metropolitan regions of North America.

Joanna Hearne
Associate Professor
Department of English
email: hearnej@missouri.edu

Indigenous studies, film studies, and digital storytelilng.

Jonathan Krieckhaus
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
email: krieckhausj@missouri.edu

My research focuses primarily on the ways in which politics influences human welfare in developing countries. I am particularly interested in the way that powerful nations have influenced global development, and the ways in which democracy both helps and hurts poor countries’ bid for prosperity. I have addressed similar issues in Canada, focusing especially on how and why incomes in the poorer regions of Canada have increasingly converged with incomes in the richer regions over the past four decades.

Carol Lazzaro-Weis
Emeritus Professor of French and Italian
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
email: weisc@missouri.edu

My research areas are 18th century French and 20th century francophone literature as well as modern Italian literature ( 1750 to the present). I teach francophone Canadian texts in my literature courses and am especially interested in historical novels written by francophone Canadian women writers.

Contact:

James Endersby, Coordinator
Canadian Studies
College of Arts & Science
office: 113 Professional Building
phone: 573-882-4238
Fax: 573-884-5131
email: endersbyj@missouri.edu

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