Penn Arts & Sciences Logo

Graduate English Doctoral Alumni

Please contact our Graduate Coordinator for updates to this page.
2009
Alumnus Director(s) Title of Dissertation Where they are now

Gershun Avilez

Thadious Davis The Wake of Blackness: Aesthetic Ambivalence and the Post-Black Arts Era Assistant Professor of English & African American Studies at the University of North Carolina chapel Hill

Ian Cornelius

Rita Copeland Cultural Promotion: Middle English Alliterative Writing and the Ars Dictaminis Assistant Professor of English, Loyola University Chicago

Celeste DiNucci

Cary Mazer The Physics of Presence, The Metaphysics of Materiality: Shakespeare and the Criticism of Presentation Associated Director (Interim)--Painted Bride Art Center--Philadelphia, PA

Jeffrey Edwards

Amy Kaplan Privileged Sensibilities: Conjectural Histories of Race in the Early American Republic Upper School English teacher, Riverdale Country School, NY

Andrew Gaedtke

Jean-Michel Rabaté The Machinery of Madness: Psychosis, Technology, and Modernist Narrative Assistant Professor, University of Illinois

Jane Malcolm

Charles Bernstein Hard Women, Hard Modernism: Gendering Modernist Difficulty Assistant Professor, University of Montreal, Department of English

Linda Nurra

Stuart Curran
Michael Gamer
Signs Performing: Language and Politics in 1790s Britain Associate Director: Office of Student Life, University of California-Santa Barbara

Rosemary O’Neill

David Wallace Accounting for Salvation in Middle English Literature Assistant Professor, Kenyon College

Cristina Pangilinan

Rita Copeland
Emily Steiner
Poetry and London Learning: Chaucer, Gower, USK, Langland and Hoccleve Visiting Assistant Professor of English (Medieval literature specialist) at Willamette University

Jared Richman

Stuart Curran
Michael Gamer
Transatlantic Realms: The Idea of America in British Literary Imagination Associate Professor of English, Colorado College

Hannah Wells

Nancy Bentley Fallen Subjects: American Pragmatism and the Color Line, 1880-1920 Assistant Professor, Drew University
2008
Alumnus Director(s) Title of Dissertation Where they are now

Joseph Drury

John Richetti Machines, Mechanism and the Making of the English Novel in the Eighteenth Century Assistant Professor, Villanova University

Jennifer Glaser

(COML)
Rita Barnard Exceptional Differences: The Politics and Poetics of Post-War Jewish American Literature Assistant Professor University of Cincinnatti

John P. Heon

Jean-Michel Rabaté
Wendy Steiner
The Dionysia of Science: Humor, Rational Madness, and Comic Experimental Methods in the Works of Bruce Nauman and Thomas Pynchon Education and Career Consultant

Anna Ivy

James English From Princeton to Paradise: Women's Reading in Academic and Popular Culture Senior Academic Advisor, Department of English, UIUC

Carolyn Anne Jacobson

Michael Gamer Contagious Transmissions and Charged Atmospheres: Disease Theories and Narrative in Early Victorian Novels Senior Lecturer, Grinnell College

Benjamin Kahan

Jean-Michel Rabaté Modern American Celibacies, 1886-1969 Associate Professor of English, Louisiana State University

Catherine Nicholson

Margreta de Grazia Geographies of English Eloquence Assistant Professor, Yale University

Rebecca A. Sheehan

(COML)
Charles Bernstein Totality and the Infinite: Paradoxes of the Visual, Figural and Linguistic
2007
Alumnus Director(s) Title of Dissertation Where they are now

Alexine Fleck

Jean-Michel Rabaté The Low and the Lost: Ethics, Expertise and Drug-Use Memoirs Assistant Professor, Community College of Philadelphia

Robbie Glen

Peter Stallybrass Lines of Affection: Dorothy Osborne and Women's Letterwriting in the Seventeenth Century

Laura Heffernan

James English 'Bad Form': Modernist Criticism and the Cultural Life of the Aesthetic, 1909-1929 University of North Florida

Jennifer Higginbotham

Phyllis Rackin Fair Maids and Golden Girls: Early Modern Girlhood and the Production of Femininity Assistant Professor of English and Women's Studies, Ohio State University

Jonathan Hsy

David Wallace Polygot Poetics: Merchants and Literary Production in London, 1300-1500 Assistant Professor of English, George Washington University

Lisa Martinez-Lajous

Phyllis Rackin Playing for Profit: The Legitimacy of Gaming and the Early Modern Theater

Matthew Merlino

James English The Contemporary Historical Novel and the Unsettling of America Teacher at Holy Names Academy, Seattle

Dahlia Porter

Stuart Curran
Michael Gamer
'Knowledge Broken': Empiricist Method and the Forms of Romanticism Lecturer, University of Glasgow

Matthew Ruben

James English Cultural, Political, and Spatial Transformation in the Late Twentieth Century United States President, Northern Liberties Neighbors Association

Veronica Schanoes

Vicki Mahaffey Re-Visionary Fantasies: Feminism, Fairy Tales, and Revision Assistant Professor of English, CUNY - Queens College

Kurt Schreyer

Margreta de Grazia Period Pieces: Remnants of Mystery Drama in Shakespeare Assistant Professor, University of Missouri, St. Louis

Josh Schuster

Jean-Michel Rabaté Modernist Biotopias: Organicism and Vitalism in Early Twentieth-Century American Poetry Assistant Professor, University of Western Ontario

Nancy Srebro

James English Adjusting the Focus: The Modern British Novel and the Rise of American Film Lecturer, Southern Methodist University

Emily Zinn

Vicki Mahaffey Rewriting the Kitchen: Gender and Food in Contemporary Fiction Associate Director, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, University of California-Santa Barbara
2006
Alumnus Director(s) Title of Dissertation Where they are now

Nicole L. Brittingham Furlonge

Herman Beavers
Michael Gamer
On the Lower Frequences: Listening and African-American Expressive Culture Teaching at Princeton Day School

Jeffrey Dillon Brown

James English Occidental Drift: London, Modernism and the Politics of Form in Early West Indian Fiction Associate Professor of English, Washington University in St. Louis

Stephanie Harzewski

Rita Barnard The New Novel of Manners: Chick Lit and Postfeminist Sexual Politics Lecturer, University of New Hampshire

Carolyn A. Lesnick

Vicki Mahaffey The End of Decline: Anglo-Irish Literature of the Big House Adjunct Faculty Professor, Marquete University

John P. Lessard

Vicki Mahaffey Entertaining Cinema: Hollywood, Globalization, and the Geography of Cultural Value Asst. Professor, Univ. of the Pacific

Mark J. Miller

Nancy Bentley
Max Cavitch
Voicing Abjection: Evangelic Discourse, Suffering and Speech in Early American Literature Assistant Professor, City Univ. of NY-Hunter College

Cyrus Mulready

Margreta de Grazia Romancing the Globe: Romance, English Expansion and the Early Modern Stage Assistant Professor of English, SUNY-New Paltz

Justine S. Murison

Joan Dayan States of Mind: The Politics of Psychology in American Literature, 1780-1860 Assistant Professor, Univ. of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign

Kathy Lou Schultz

Bob Perelman 'In the Modern Vein': Afro-Modernist Poetry and Literary History Asst. Professor, University of Memphis

Stella Singer

David Wallace Places of Pilgrimage in Premodern Texts Assistant Professor, Cleveland State University

Stephanie Anne Viereck Gibbs Kamath

Rita Copeland Unveiling the 'I': Allegory and Authorship in the Franco-English Tradition, 1270-1450 Assistant Professor, Univ. of Mass.-Boston
2005
Alumnus Director(s) Title of Dissertation Where they are now

Jeff Allred

Rita Barnard American Modernism and Depression Documentary Associate Professor, CUNY-Hunter College

Holly Barbaccia

David Wallace Kalendes of Chaunge: Thinking Through Change in Middle English Poetry Professor and Chair of English, Georgetown College

Rachel Buurma

Elaine Freedgood The Anonymous System: Anonymity and Corporate Authority in Nineteenth-Century British Literary Culture Associate Professor of English, Swarthmore College

Louis Cabri

Bob Perelman Social Address and the Modernist Word in Louis Zukofsky, Bruce Andrews, P. Inman Associate Professor, University of Windsor

Clare Costley

Peter Stallybrass David's 'Fruytfull Saynges': The Penitential Psalms in Late-Medieval and Early-Modern England Associate Professor, Director of Honors Program in English, Storrs Campus, UConn

Jane Hwang Degenhardt

Jean Howard Faith, Embodiment, and 'Turning Turk': Islamic Conversion on the Early Modern Stage and the Production of Religious and Racial Identity Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Marissa Greenberg

Margreta de Grazia Tortured Mimesis: Representing Punishment in Early Modern London Assistant Professor of English, University of New Mexico

Stephen G. B. Hock

(COML)
Rita Barnard Serial Postmodernism: Repetition and Innovation in Contemporary American Fiction

Miriam Jacobson

Margreta de Grazia 'Strangely Entangled': Alternative Antiquities in Renaissance English Poetry Associate Professor, University of Georgia

Damien Keane

Jean-Michel Rabaté Dictating Terms: Irish Writing, Criticism, and the Problem of Information, 1933-1953 Assistant Professor, SUNY - Buffalo

Monica Popescu

(COML)
Rita Barnard South Africa in Transition: Theorizing Post-colonial, Post-apartheid, and Post-Communist Cultural Formations

Bernard Jaeseong Rhie

Susan Stewart The Philosophy of the Face and 20th Century Literature and Art Associate Professor, Williams College

Jessica A. Rosenfeld

Rita Copeland The Ethics of Courtly Love: Narrative Transformations in the Later Middle Ages Assistant Professor, Washington University in St. Louis

Martha E. Schoolman

Nancy Bentley American Abolitionist Geographies: Literature and the Politics of Place, 1840-1861 Associate Professor of English, Florida International University

Elizabeth Williamson

Peter Stallybrass Staging Sacred Things: The Circulation of Religious Objects in Seventeenth-Century Drama Faculty, Evergreen State College
2004
Alumnus Director(s) Title of Dissertation Where they are now

Bronwyn Beistle

Vicki Mahaffey Honeyed Secrets: Authority, Sexuality, and Flower Imagery in Women's Literature from Wollstonecraft to McGukian Campaign Manager at Karen Montgomery for State Senate

Shanyn Fiske

Jean-Michel Rabaté Haes and Hellenism: Underworlds of the Victorian Mythopoetic Imagination Assistant Professor, Rutgers-Camden

Amina Gautier

Michael Awkward Encoding Vision, Envisioning Race Associated Professor, University of Miami, Department of English

Matthew Hart

Bob Perelman Synthetic Vernacular Poetry and Transatlantic Modernism, 1922-2002 Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University

Frank Guy Hoffman

David Wallace The Dream and the Book: Chaucer's Dream Poetry, Faculty Psychology, and the Poetics of Recombination Assistant Professor at Community College of Philadelphia, Associate Department Head

Rajani Iyer

David DeLaura 'My Soul Was Singing at a Work Apart': Female Victorian Poets Achieving Voice

Michelle Karnes

Rita Copeland The 'School of Devotion': Imagination and Cognition in Medieval Meditations on Christ Associate Professor, Stanford University

Scott Krawczyk

Stuart Curran Romantic Collaboration: Familial Authorship from Barbauld to Shelley Dean, Richard L. Conolly College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at LIU Brooklyn

Erika T. Lin

Phyllis Rackin Performance Matters: Culture and Theatrical Signification in the Early English Public Playhouse Associate Professor of Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center

Cynthia Port

Vicki Mahaffey 'Nothing by Change': Women's Economies of Aging, 1919-1939 Associate Professor of English, Coastal Carolina University and Co-Editor of Age, Culture, Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Juliet Shields

Toni Bowers Engendering Great Britain: Literary Representations of Anglo-Scottish Relations, 1700-1730 Assistant Professor, University of Washington

Tyler Smith

Margreta de Grazia A Poetics of Indenture: 'Cases peculiar' in English Renaissance Literature Visiting Professor, The Curtis Institute of Music
2003
Alumnus Director(s) Title of Dissertation Where they are now

N. Elizabeth Broadwell

David Wallace Women in Exile in Medieval Hagiography and Romance Library Specialists, Van Pelt Library, UPenn

Yoonmee Chang

(deceased)
Eric Cheyfitz
Houston A. Baker, Jr.
Beyond the Culture Ghetto: Asian American Class Critique and the Ethnographic Bildungsroman

Toby Heman

Margreta de Grazia Indoctrinating the Text: Reformation Controversies and Renaissance Texts, 1559-1640

Paul Kintzele

Jean-Michel Rabaté On the Verge of the World: Internationalism in the Text of Modernism Associate Professor, University of Houston-Downtown

James Peterson

Herman Beavers Concepts of the Underground in Black Culture Associate Professor, Director of the Africana Studies Program, Lehigh University

Mark Rifkin

Eric Cheyfitz Manifesting America: Imperialism and National Space, 1776-1861 Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Owen Williams

Rebecca Bushnell Trials of Conscience: Criminalizing Religious Dissidence in Elizabethan England Assistant Director, The Folger Shakespeare Library

Brett Wilson

Toni Bowers Maudlin Whigs: Gender, Feeling, and Party on the British Stage, 1688-1746 Associate Professor, College of William and Mary
2002
Alumnus Director(s) Title of Dissertation Where they are now

Michael Barsanti

Vicki Mahaffey Law Like Love: Marriage, Law, and the Modern Novel Director of Foundation Relations at Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation

Maurice Black

Vicki Mahaffey The Art of Code Independent Scholar

Hester Blum

Elisa New View from the Mast-Head: Antebellum American Sea Narratives and the Maritime Imagination Associate Professor of English, Penn. St.

Jeremy Braddock

Jean-Michel Rabaté The Modernist Collector and Black Modernity, 1914-1934 Associate Professor, Cornell

Alice Brittan

Rita Barnard Writing and Portage: The Post-Settlement Novel and Movement of Things Assistant Professor, Dalhousie University

Jean Feerick

Peter Stallybrass Reproducing Race: Early Modern Bodies and the Construction of National Difference Associate Professor John Carroll University

Patricia Hopkins

Farah Jasmine Griffin Invisible Woman: Reading Rape and Sexual Exploitation in African-American Literature Associate Professor of English, Christopher Newport University

Mark Stein

Stuart Curran The Ascetic Sublime

Aselda Thompson

David DeLaura New Women, New Mothers: The Conflict of Feminism and Motherhood in Late-Victorian Fiction Legal Counsel, Global Safety & Environment at Shell Oil Company

Sue Sun Yom

James English Sex And The American Soldier: Military Cinema and the War on Venereal Disease, 1918-1969 Associate Professor, Departments of Radiation Oncology & Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California, San Francisco
2001
Alumnus Director(s) Title of Dissertation Where they are now

James M. Andres

David Wallace Negational Architectures in Old English Poetry Lecturer-Written Rhetoric, Benedictine University

Robert Barrett

David Wallace Writing from the Marches: Cheshire Poetry and Drama, 1195-1645 Associate Professor of English and Medieval Studies & Associate Head of English, University of Illinois at Urbana

Ilana Blumberg

Nina Auerbach The Poetics of Ethics of Things: Sympathetic Property Relations in Silas Marner, Romola, and the Moonstone Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Humanities | Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan, 5290002 Israel

James Kearney

Peter Stallybrass Matters of the Book: The Incarnate Text in Renaissance England Associate Professor, University of California Santa Barbara

Jonna Mackin

James English Subject to Laughter: Comedy and Ethnicity in Contemporary American Fiction Lecturer, Dartmouth College

Lana Schwebel

(deceased)
David Wallace
Rita Copeland
Economy, Representation, and the Sale of Indulgences in Late-Medieval England

Erik Simpson

Stuart Curran Revising Inspiration: Minstrels, Bards, and Improvisers in British and Irish Literature, 1757-1830 Professor, Grinnell College
2000
Alumnus Director(s) Title of Dissertation Where they are now

Anjali Arondekar

David DeLaura
Lynda Hart
A Perverse Empire: Victorian Sexuality and the Indian Colony Associate Professor, Dept. of Feminist Studies, University of California-Santa Cruz

Jennifer Jordan Baker

Elisa New
Christopher Looby
A Speculative Language: Finance and Literary Imagination in Early America Associate Professor of English, NYU

Rayna Margrit Kalas

Margreta de Grazia Frames, Glass, and the Technology of Poetic Invention Associate Professor, Cornell University

Janet Knepper

David Wallace Misogyny, Subjectivity, and Crisis in English Romance and Allegory, 1350-1600 Assistant Professor, Clarion

Kerry Moore

Lynda Hart
Vicki Mahaffey
Mourning Loss: The Place of the Object in Narrative Fantasy Psychoanalyst in private practice, New York City and Upper Hudson Valley

Lana Emad Younes

Bob Perelman Facing the Other: A Comparative Study of Modernism in the Poetry of William Carlos Williams and the Cafeacute; Riche Circle Chair, English and Translation Academy of Arts, Cairo University

Donald Zimmerman

Stuart Curran Antipastoralism: A Resistant Georgic Mode Field Sales Account Manager at NetApp