Professor Sponberg joined the Valparaiso University English faculty in 1972.

Professor Sponberg specializes in twentieth century drama and theater. His publications include two books: Broadway Talks: What Professionals Think About Commercial Theatre in America (Greenwood Press, 1991) , and A.R. Gurney: A Casebook (Routledge, 2003). With the help of a $10,000 Kapfer Research Award, he is researching the rise of nonprofit professional theater in Chicago. See his website www.chicagotheaterhistoryproject.org.   This research has led to his joining with colleagues at Columbia College in Chicago to organize the first scholarly conference devoted solely to the history of Chicago theater. Sustaining Chicago Theatre: Past, Present, Future will be held May 18-22, 2011 at Columbia College. For more information, visit the Symposium's website at http//:colum.edu/TheatreSymposium. 

Professor Sponberg's teaching philosophy is simple. He strives to be prepared, on time, audible, inquisitive, helpful, positive, and available. He enjoys working with students and colleagues from all academic areas and therefore enjoys teaching in the Valpo Core. He teaches courses in twentieth century drama and in the theory and practice of adapting plays for the movies. In the spring of 2009 he taught a new graduate course, New Ideas in Midwestern Literature, for which he has started a blog at http://blogs.valpo.edu/midwestlit.

In addition to teaching, Professor Sponberg advises English majors and the Kappa Phi chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the national English honor society. With his colleague, John Feaster, he also serves as Co-Chair of Books and Coffee, an annual series of public book reviews. See http://www.valpo.edu/english/news/bookscoffee2010.php

Professor Sponberg’s passions include theater, for its clarity and precision; the history of science, for its emotional and ambitious obsessions; politics, for its complicated rhythms and harmonies; music, for its democratic and inspirational vistas; football, for its graceful choreography; golf, for its brutal physicality; and religions, especially the Lutheran family, for their simple, heartbreaking mysteriousness.