Meet our faculty
 
 
Dr. Mary Baldridge
Chair of Foreign Languages, Assistant Professor of Spanish
Hometown: Pippa Passes, KY
Education: PhD
School: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Email: mbaldridge@cn.edu
Phone: (865) 471-3473
 
 
Dr. Maria Clark
Associate Professor of Spanish
Hometown: Heidelberg, Germany
Education: PhD
School: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Email: mclark@cn.edu
Phone: (865 ) 471-3289
 
 
Professor Zachary Feltner-Reichert
Instructor of Spanish
Hometown: Bourbon, IN
Education: M.A.
School: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Email: zfeltner-reichert@cn.edu
Phone: (865) 471-3288
 
 
Dr. Richard Gray
Assistant Professor of French
Hometown: Pittsfield Township, MI
Education: PhD
School: The University of Texas at Austin
Email: rgray@cn.edu
Phone: (865) 471-3287
 
 
 
 
Dr. Michael Putnam
Assistant Professor of German and Linguistics
Hometown: Gnadenhutten, OH
Education: PhD
School: The University of Kansas
Email: mputnam@cn.edu
Phone: (865) 471-3291
 
 
Dr. Baldridge teaches Spanish language, literature and culture courses. She received her PhD from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville with a specialization in Medieval Women’s Literature. Her current research interests include medieval women and religion, as well as minority medieval women. She is presently editing a special volume of the Cuaderno Internacional de Estudios Humanísticos y Literatura about medieval Spanish Judaism. Dr. Baldridge is also interested in the pedagogical benefits of study abroad and computer assisted language learning and is the faculty sponsor of the Tertulia -- the weekly Spanish table meeting. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dr. Clark teaches Spanish language and Latin American literature, culture and service/learning courses. She received her PhD from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville with a specialization in the use of the fantastic in short fiction by women writers from the River Plate. Her publications include feminist and psychoanalytic approaches to Latin American literature and her current research interests include genre film and women directors from Argentina. Professor Clark is a native speaker of German and has teaching experience in language, culture and literature courses in German. Dr. Clark is the faculty sponsor os Sigma Delta Pi, the Spanish Honor Society. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Professor Feltner-Reichert is an Instructor of Beginning and Intermediate Spanish. He received his B.A. in Spanish from Berea College in Berea, Kentucky in 1996. In 2003, he received his Master’s Degree in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His interests include Foreign Language Pedagogy, Second Language Acquisition, and 20th Century Latin American literature, particularly Science Fiction and Magic Realism. Zachary lives in Knoxville, TN with his wife, Melanie and his four-year old son, Noel. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dr. Gray teaches French language, literature and culture courses. He received his Diplôme de langue et de culture françaises from the Université Catholique de l'Ouest in Angers, France, his BA in French and History from Eastern Michigan University, his MA in French literature from Purdue University, and his PhD in French and Francophone literature from The University of Texas at Austin with a specialization in 20th century French theater. His current research interests include computer-assisted second-language acquisition and interdisciplinary approaches to French literary studies. In addition to several articles, he is currently preparing a monograph entitled “The Art and Science of French Radio Drama.” Dr. Gray is faculty sponsor of La Table française - the Carson-Newman College French Club. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dr. Putnam teaches German language, literature and culture courses as well as courses in linguistics. He received his PhD from the University of Kansas in German and Linguistics and was the recipient of a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Michigan following his graduate studies. Within German Studies, Dr. Putnam harbors a particular interest for popular German culture. He has taught courses and conducted research on German popular music (hip-hop) and German television. He has published on topics related to popular music and society, the pedagogical use of music in the foreign language classroom and will be a co-guest editor (with John Littlejohn) of a special edition of Popular Music and Society on Krautrock. Dr. Putnam's research focus in linguistics centers on linguistic theory, with a special focus on syntactic theory. He is the author of the book Scrambling and the Survive Principle (John Benjamins, 2007) and is currently editing a volume of the journal Linguistic Analysis and an edited book (John Benjamins) on crash-proof derivational grammars (i.e., Survive-minimalism). Dr. Putnam is also interested in generative approaches to second language acquisition, sociophonetics and contact linguistics.