Ann Hetzel Gunkel
Dr. Hetzel Gunkel is an award-winning educator and scholar serving as Humanities Coordinator and Associate Professor of Cultural Studies & Humanities at Columbia College Chicago where she teaches Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Interdisciplinary Humanities and Media Studies. Winner of the 2017 Excellence in Teaching Award at Columbia, she is a founding member and past Director of the innovative program in Cultural Studies, a leading center for undergraduate research and pedagogy in the field. A winner of multiple major grants, she is a two-time Fulbright recipient for both Research (Germany 1992) and Teaching (Poland 2012) and the Harmonia Research Grant from the Polish National Science Center. Her specializations in Higher Education Administration include Program Direction, Faculty Development & Hiring, Curriculum Development, and Thesis Supervision.
An interdisciplinary Humanities scholar trained in Philosophy and Cultural Studies, Gunkel's teaching competencies include: Cultural Studies, Classical, Modern & Continental Philosophy, Film and New Media Criticism, Ethnic Studies, Food & Culture, Popular Culture, and Postmodernism. Dr. Gunkel has lectured widely in North America, Russia, Western and Eastern Europe; she is an Editorial Board Member of the journals Ad Americam (Poland) and Polish American Studies (US) and a member of the Advisory Board for the Book Series in Marxism & Cultural Studies at Rowan & Littlefield (UK). She is a native Chicagoan, active in Cultural Studies and Polish/American Studies; winner of the prestigious Joseph V. Swastek and Creative Arts Prizes in the latter field. An award-winning designer of educational multimedia, Dr. Gunkel is a public intellectual who has appeared frequently in national and local media. She is also a published documentary photographer and award-winning graphic designer; her photos and digital artworks have been widely published and exhibited.