Alumni Profiles

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  • Alberghini, Jennifer - Research Interests: Medieval gender, marriage, and family, Chaucer, Gower, romance, and hagiography, translation Jennifer is a Writing Across the Curriculum Fellow at Queensborough Community College, and teaches at Queens College and Marymount Manhattan College. She defended her dissertation, “Divided Loyalties: Family and Consent to Marriage […]
  • Andrzejewski, Alicia - ALICIA ANDRZEJEWSKI received a PhD from the English program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She holds an MA from Appalachian State University. Her research focuses on representations of pregnancy and fertility control in early modern drama, bringing together feminist, queer, and […]
  • Baaki, Brian - Dissertation: “A Dark Record: Criminal Discourse and the African American Literary Project, 1721-1864” Supervisor: R.Reid-Pharr Readers: D.Faherty, E.Lott
  • Baker, Rebecca - Rebecca Baker is a first-year PhD student in English at the CUNY Graduate Center. She holds an MA in English from Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, NC) and a BA in English—with a minor in creative writing—from UNC Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC). Her research interests […]
  • Baldassano, Alexander - Before coming to the CUNY Graduate Center, I completed a B.A. in English Adolescent Education and an M.A. in Literature from CUNY Hunter College. My dissertation research focuses on fantasies about non-normative genders and atypical sexual anatomies and considers how their fictitious representation in literature […]
  • Balkan, Stacey - I am a professor of literature in the great state of New Jersey where I live with a philosopher, several bicycles, and thousands of books. My dissertation, entitled “Rogues in the Postcolony: The New Picaresque and the Making of Modern India,” reflects my longstanding interest […]
  • Barile, Susan - Dissertation: “Brought Up For Each Other: The Letters of Edith Wharton to Bernard Berenson.” Supervisor: M.A.Caws Readers: N.J.Hall, R.Brownstein, H.Hoeller
  • Baumann, Jason - Jason Baumann Montilla is currently completing his PhD in English at the CUNY Graduate Center focusing on the influence of Gothic literature on American prison narratives. He teaches courses on Latina/o literature, prison studies, and 19th century American literature in the colleges of the City […]
  • Becker, Balthazar - Dissertation: “Cosmopolitan Corporealities: Extraordinary Bodies and the Politics of Remembering Mid-Twentieth Century Egyptian Pluralism” Supervisor: A.Dawson Readers: R.Reid-Pharr, A.Alcalay
  • Benjamin, Meredith - Dissertation: “Genres of Feminist Lives: Autobiography, Archives, & Community, 1970-1983” Supervisor: N.K.Miller Committee: C.Hintz, H.Hoeller
  • Biggie, Roya - Dissertations: “Ecologies of the Passions in Early Modern English Tragedies” Supervisor: T.Pollard Committee: M.Digangi, W.Fisher
  • Binder, Jeffrey - Jeffrey Binder is a graduate of the English at CUNY program specializing in transatlantic literature and intellectual history of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, historical media studies, and digital humanities. Much of his work involves putting new digital technologies into dialogue with particular […]
  • Birrell, Marguerite “Maggie” - My first love is English Renaissance literature but I am extremely fond of a lot of the literature that came before and after as well.
  • Botwick, Aaron - Aaron is an Assistant Professor of English at Hostos Community College. His research is on modernism and suicide.
  • Bowling, Joseph - Joseph is a PhD candidate, copyeditor for Renaissance Quarterly, and Mellon Fellow of the Committee for the Study of Religion. His dissertation studies the reception of Galfridian legendary history in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.
  • Brickley, Briana - Dissertation: “Follow the Bodies”: (Re)Materializing Difference in the Era of Neoliberal Multiculturalism Supervisor: K.Chuh Readers: R.Reid-Pharr, P.Hitchcock, C.Parikh Briana teaches multicultural American literature, critical theory, postcolonial literature, and composition at Hunter College. Her research examines how various forms of inequality get exaggerated—even as the rhetoric of equality à la […]
  • Broder, Hillel - Dissertation: Wandering Bodies and Minds: A Narrative Theory of Cognition Supervisor: P.Hitchcock Readers: N.Israel, A.Vardy, J.Tougaw
  • Browne, Sharmaine - Sharmaine Browne is a PhD candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her dissertation focuses on radical Romantic responses to early effects of industrialization on marginalized individuals. Her research areas include British Romanticism,nineteenth-century industrialization and architecture, ideology, effects of technology—especially glass and light, phenomenology, […]
  • Chancellor, Jennifer - Dissertation: “Portrait of the Artist, as an Ad Man: Advertising, Masculinity, and the American Postmodern Novel” Supervisor: M.Dolan Committee: G.Joseph, E.Lott
  • Chessman, Nolan - I’m interested in composition, rhetoric, and poetics. Dissertation: “Toward a Theory of This/And Rhetoric in First-Year Composition” Supervisor: M.McBeth Committee: S.Perl, W.Koestenbaum
  • Collins, Paul - Dissertation: Imaginary Subjects: Fiction-Writing Instruction in America, 1826 – 1897 Supervisor: I.Shor Readers: D.Reynolds, T.Schaffer
  • Corcoran, Lucas. - Lucas is a third year doctoral student, focusing on composition/rhetoric studies. He also teaches first year composition at John Jay, CUNY.  His research focuses on transnational and translingual approaches to composition/rhetoric, and the history of critical pedagogy.
  • Cranstoun, Annie - Dissertation: Ceasing to Run Underground: 20th-Century Women Writers and Hydro-Logical Thought Supervisor: N.K.Miller Readers: W.Koestenbaum, R.Brownstein
  • Cushing, Iris - Iris Cushing grew up in northern California and lives in Queens. Her first collection of poems, Wyoming, won the 2013 Furniture Press Poetry Prize. Her poems and criticism have appeared in the Boston Review, Hyperallergic, BOMBlog, Jacket, Two Serious Ladies and Paperbag, among other places.
  • Cusick, Colleen - Dissertation: Playing with Matches: Matchmaking as Authorship in the Nineteenth-Century Marriage Plot Supervisor: T.Schaffer Readers: R.Brownstein, R.Kaye, C.Reitz
  • Davis, Sarah - Dissertation: “Their Strategies for Survival Became Our Maneuvers for Power”: Narrative Flight as Heterotopia Supervisor: C.Hintz Readers: D.Reynolds, R.Brownstein
  • Decker, Elizabeth Lenn - Dissertation: ““Vital glowing things:” the art of women’s writing, 1910-1935” Supervisor: H.Hoeller Committee: W.Koestenbaum, N.K.Miller Elizabeth Lenn is a Ph.D. candidate in English at CUNY Graduate Center. She holds an MA in English Literature from the  St. Louis University (Madrid Campus) and a BA from the […]
  • Dowell, LeiLani - PUBLICATIONS AND PAPERS“Violence against women: the U.S. war on women.” Feminism and War: Confronting U.S. Imperialism. Ed. Robin L. Riley, Chandra Tapalde Mohanty, and Minnie Bruce Pratt. New York: Zed Books, 2008.CONFERENCE EXPERIENCEFeminism and War conference, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y., October 2006Presenter – “Violence against […]
  • Dunn, Melissa - Dissertation: Transparent Interiors: Detective and Mystery Fiction in the Age of Photography Supervisor: W.Koestenbaum Readers: N.K.Miller, A.Humpherys
  • Dupont, Danny - My interests include Children’s Literature (particularly Victorian and Edwardian), Comics and other Graphic narratives, and Feminist, Queer, and Gender & Sexualites Criticism.
  • Eng, Chris - Dissertation: Dislocating Camps: On State Power, Queer Aesthetics, and Asian/Americanist Critique Supervisor: K.Chuh Readers: R.Reid-Pharr, E.Lott, K.Shimakawa   Chris is a doctoral candidate in the English program at the CUNY Graduate Center. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 2010 from the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Hunter College, where he was […]
  • Epelbaum, Diana - Dissertation: “Evolving the Genre of Empire: Gender and Place in Women’s Natural Histories of the Americas, 1688- 1808” Supervisor: D.Faherty Committee: D.Reynolds, C.Hintz, C.Iannini
  • Fess, Paul - I am a doctoral candidate specializing in 19th-century American literature, African American literature, and sound studies. I’m currently working on my dissertation, “Resonant Texts: The Politics and Practices of 19th-century African American Musical Cultures of Print from Abolitionism to the Player Piano.”
  • Fortin, Simon - Dissertation: Dying to Learn, Learning to Die: The Craft of Dying in Early Modern English Drama and the Cultivation of Dying-Voice-Literacy Supervisor: M.DiGangi Readers: R.McCoy, W.Koestenbaum,
  • Francis, Angela - When it comes to CUNY, I’ve been an undergraduate student, graduate student, Adjunct Instructor, Non-Teaching Adjunct, and now an Assistant Director at SPS. Guess I stepped in the door and just didn’t want to leave!
  • Freer, Lindsey - Lindsey M. Freer is a PhD candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she is also earning a doctoral certificate in American Studies. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College, and an M.Phil from the CUNY Graduate Center. Her academic specialty is […]
  • Gafney, Julie - Dissertation: Falling Forward: Continuity and Change in the Poetics of Eden Supervisor: S.Kruger Committee: G.Burger, R.McCoy, A.Walkden
  • Gale, Erin Nicholson - My doctorate in English Literature from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center was conferred on May 27, 2015. My dissertation “Street Theater: Gender, Performance, and the Urban from Plessy (1896) to Brown (1954)” explores the relationship of the built environment of New York City […]
  • Galvan, Margaret - Dissertation: Archiving the ’80s: Feminism, Queer Theory, & Visual Culture Supervisor: N.K.Miller Readers: K.Chuh, D.Gerstner, H.Chute
  • Gamso, Nicholas - Dissertation: Windows on the World: The Aesthetics of Difference in Neoliberal New York Supervisor: K.Chuh Readers: E.Lott, P.Hitchcock, C.Bishop
  • Ganter, Granville - See Granvill Ganter’s Alumni Spotlight interview here.   Educational/professional/personal background prior to attending CUNY Graduate Center: Breadloaf School of English University of Vermont MA institution/year: University of Vermont, 1989 Dissertation: Speaking Out: The Legacy of Active Virtue in American Literature, 1800-1850. (1998) Employment history post PhD/job titles: […]
  • Gerrity, Sean - Dissertation: A Canada in the South: Marronage in Antebellum American Literature Supervisor: E.Lott Committee: D.Faherty, R.Reid-Pharr
  • Gillespie, Janne - Dissertation: A Man to Preserve or Reform the Nation: Masculinity as Political Rhetoric in English Novels during the Revolution Controversy Supervisor: D.Richter Readers: R.Brownstein, A.Vardy
  • Glass, Erin - i am interested in digital/public humanities, critical theory, free software development, and peer collaboration. http://www.erinroseglass.com
  • Elizabeth Bidwell Goetz Goetz, Elizabeth - An alum of the Ph.D. Program in English at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, Elizabeth Bidwell Goetz applies urban theory to domestic settings to examine the politically charged relationships between space and community in the poetry of the New York School. She served as […]
  • Green, Ian - Dissertation: Providential Capitalism: Heavenly Intervention, Market, and the Atlantic’s Divine Economist Supervisor: D.Faherty Committee: D.Reynolds, E.Lott
  • Griffiths, Timothy - Dissertation: Bricolage Propriety: The Queer Practice of Black Uplift, 1890–1905 Supervisor: R.Reid-Pharr Committee: E.Lott, D.Faherty
  • Hoch, Nancy - Dissertation: On the Threshold: Breadwinning, Capitalism, and the Absent/Present Father in the Works of Three Late 20th-Century U.S. Novelists Supervisor: J-C.Suggs Readers: K.Chuh, B. Katz Rothman
  • Hoffman, Meechal - Dissertation: Knowing Others, or Not: Performing, Caring, Foreboding, and Acknowledging in NineteenthCentury British Fiction Supervisor: T.Schaffer Committee: R.Brownstein, C.Reitz, N.Yousef
  • Holchak, Paul - Dissertation: Intelligent bodies and embodied minds: reading religious performance in Middle English writing from Syon Abbey, Nicholas Love, William Langland, and John Gower Supervisor: S.Kruger Committee: G.Burger, M.Sargent
  • Huang, Kristina - In her dissertation, “Toward a Black Enlightenment: the Making of an Anglo-African Class in the Long Eighteenth Century,” Kristina examines how, from the mid-eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, Anglophone writers of African descent described and contributed to the formation of black public cultures in the […]
  • Hussey, Miciah - Dissertation: Radical Interiorities, Aesthetic Selves: Charlotte Brontë, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf Supervisor: M.A.Caws Committee: T.Schaffer, J.Richardson, R.Kaye
  • Kadish, Philip - Dissertation: Fictions of Whiteness: Transatlantic Race Science, Gender, Nationalism, and the Construction of Race in Nineteenth Century American Fiction (1823-67) Supervisor: D.Reynolds Readers: H.Hoeller, M.Dolan
  • Kalaz, Susan -
  • Kappes, Gabrielle - Dissertation: The Picturesque and Its Decay: The Travel Writing and Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Shelley Supervisor: Alexander Schlutz Readers: Alan Vardy, Siraj Ahmed
  • Katopodis, Christina - Christina Katopodis, PhD, graduated from the Ph.D. Program in English at the Graduate Center, CUNY, in February 2021. She is now the Executive Director of Transformative Learning in the Humanities. She was awarded the English Program’s 2019 Diana Colbert Innovative Teaching Prize for her early […]
  • Kaufman, Erica - Dissertation: Imagining a “Poethical” Classroom Supervisor: W.Koestenbaum Readers: M.McBeth, A.Alcalay
  • Kijowski, Jenny - Dissertation: Speaking through the Wound: Bearing Witness through Gendered Bodies in Trauma Narratives of War Supervisor: N.K.Miller Readers: A.Alcalay, S.Perl
  • Photo of Mary Catherine Kinniburgh Kinniburgh, Mary Catherine - My research addresses postwar American poets and their libraries, and at CUNY I’ve served as a Digital Fellow and Teaching Fellow at Brooklyn College.
  • Kravetz, Rachel - Dissertation: The Art of Cognition: Ideals through Aesthetics in British Prose, From Locke to Frazer Supervisor: T.Agathocelous Committee: A.Humpherys, N.Yousef, G.Joseph
  • Lavender-Smith, Jordan - Dissertation: The New Reflexivity: Puzzle Films, Found Footage, and Cinematic Narration in the Digital Age Supervisor: M.Dickstein Readers: D.Richter, A.Herzog
  • LeRoy, Jenny - Jenny works in 19th/20th century hemispheric American studies, focusing on gender and economics in U.S. encounters in and with the Global South. She teaches at Queens College.
  • Letzler, David - David entered the program in Fall 2008, after earning his Master’s in English (Creative Fiction) at Temple University and his Bachelor’s in English and Mathematics at Williams College.  His dissertation deals with “cruft,” his adapted term for the excessive sections within the mega-novel tradition of […]
  • Liao, Earl Yin-Wei - Earl Liao is a Ph.D. student in English literature at the CUNY Graduate Center. His fields of interest include Asian American/Asian diasporic literature, corporeal phenomenology, temporality, queer studies, and speech act theory. Earl’s disseration explores the question of how time can be imagined differently when […]
  • Licastro, Amanda - Amanda Licastro received her BA in English and Creative Writing with a minor in Italian from Loyola College (now University) in Maryland, and an MA in English with a certificate in teaching in two-year colleges from DePaul University in Chicago. She has worked as an […]
  • Lucchesi, Andrew - Dissertation: Accessing Academe, Cripping the Curriculum: Tracing Institutional Locations of Disability in the City University of New York, 1946 – Today Supervisor: M.McBeth Committee: C.Davidson, S.Brier I am a PhD candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center. I write about social justice issues in higher education. […]
  • Mahendran, Thiruvarangan - Thiruvarangan is a third year PhD student in English. He holds a BA special degree in English from the University of Peradeniya and an MA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His areas of interest include transnationalism and transnational literatures, post-Marxism, subalternity, world Englishes […]
  • Manolova, Velina -
  • McMahon, Jennifer M. - Educational/professional/personal background prior to attending CUNY Graduate Center:  BA from Lafayette College; MA from Boston University; paralegal for various law firms; clerk / book repair at the Gotham Book Mart MA institution/year (if applicable):  Boston University (1994) Dissertation defense year: 2000 Dissertation topic/title:  The American […]
  • Messina, Lynn - Dissertation topic/title: “Trains of Thought: The Railroad and Consciousness in Selected Works by Hawthorne, James, and Cather.” (1997) Publications (in reverse order of publication): “Child Abuse.” Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services. 23 Sept. 2012. Web. “2012–13 National High School Debate Topic: Federal Transportation […]
  • Mickelson, Jeffery Nathan - Dissertation: City Poems and Urban Crisis, 1945 – Present Supervisor: A.Alcalay Readers: T.Angotti, D.Richter
  • Miller, Benjamin - Benjamin Miller is a 7th-year ABD Ph.D. candidate in the English program of the CUNY Graduate Center, where in addition to passing orals and submitting his prospectus, he has completed all requirements for the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy certificate program. He is currently an Instructional […]
  • Miyajima, Keiko - Dissertation: Theater Matters: Female Theatricality in Nineteenth-Century Novels Supervisor: R.Kaye Readers: D.Reynolds, T.Schaffer
  • Molloy, Sean - Dissertation: Dilemma at CUNY: SEEK and Supportive Teaching v. Basic Writing and the Rise Of High Stakes Testing from 1965 to 1978 Supervisor: S.Perl Committee: G.Otte, R.Mlynarczyk
  • Mondello, Kaitlin -
  • Moriah, Kristin - Dissertation: Performing African American Citizenship and Identity in Germany, 1890-1920 Supervisor: R.Reid-Pharr Committee: E.Lott, D.Faherty
  • Munich, Adrienne - Adrienne Munich, Professor of English at Stony Brook University, graduated from the Graduate Center in 1976. Her publications include Selected Poems of Amy Lowell (2002), Queen Victoria’s Secrets (1996), and Andromeda’s Chains: Gender and Interpretation in Victorian Literature and Art (1989).
  • Neiberg, Linda Kristine - Linda has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at Baruch College’s Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute since Fall 2013. She works with faculty from the Zicklin School of Business on its Writing Initiative and also supports faculty and students in the Business Policy capstone course. Her article, “Death’s Release: […]
  • O’Malley, Rose - Rose O’Malley is a  PhD candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her dissertation looks at childless female characters in nineteenth-century British literature through a feminist Darwinian lens. She teaches composition and literature at the College of Staten Island and the New York City College […]
  • Paparella, Donna - Dissertation 2016: Knowing Children/Children Knowing: Nineteenth-Century British Child Law and Literature Supervisor: T.Schaffer Readers: R.Brownstein, A.Humpherys
  • Phruksachart, Melissa - Dissertation 2016: Cherry Blossoms in Bryant Park: Mediating Asiatic Racialization on Cold War Television, 1957-1964 Supervisor: K.Chuh Readers: E.Lott, W.Boddy Melissa has taught at Brooklyn College, Baruch College, and Hunter College. You can find her here and here.
  • Polish, Jennifer - I am an enthusiastic instructor of first year composition at CUNY Queens College while pursuing my PhD at the Grad Center. My research interests include affective whiteness in writing classrooms and the intersections of dis/ability, race, and trauma in children’s literature and media. I am […]
  • Priest, Madison - Madison is a doctoral candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center specializing in U.S. Literature. She’s currently working on her doctoral dissertation, “The Woman We Don’t Want to Be: The Female-Authored Antiheroine in American Modernism.” Before starting at the GC, Madison earned her B.A. in Comparative Literature […]
  • Prosser, Jay - See Jay Prosser’s Alumni Spotlight interview.   Educational/professional/personal background prior to attending CUNY Graduate Center: University of London, English Department.  BA Degree (1st class honours) in English. MA institution:  CUNY (1994) Dissertation topic/title:  Transitional Matter (or Matters?  I forget): The Body Narratives of Transsexual Autobiography […]
  • Remedios, Sara - Dissertation: “What’s the Use of Trying to Read Shakespeare?”: Modes of Memory in Virginia Woolf’s Fiction and Essays Supervisor: C.Hintz Committee: M.DiGangi, R.Mlynarczyk
  • Rodriguez, Lara - Dissertation: The Strains of Confessional Poetry: The Burdens, Blunders, and Blights of Self-Disclosure Supervisor: W.Koestenbaum Committee: N.K.Miller, M.A. Caws Lara Rossana Rodriguez (also known as Lara Mimosa Montes) has poems and essays appearing in Fence, Triple Canopy, BOMB, The Third Rail, and elsewhere. She is basically done […]
  • Rowney, Matthew - Dissertation: Reframing Romantic Nature: Towards a Social Ecocriticism Supervisor: A.Vardy Readers: J.Wilner, A.Schlutz, N.Yousef
  • Saed, Zahera - Dissertation: Langston Hughes: Photos, Notebooks and Poems in Turkestan (1932-1933) Supervisor: A.Alcalay Committee: M.Gold, R.Reid-Pharr
  • Schwarzenbach, A. Blake -
  • Shalev, Talia -
  • Solan, Yair - Dissertation: Writing the Projected Image: American Fiction and Early Screen Culture Supervisor: H.Hoeller Committee: M.Dickstein, M.Dolan, R.King Yair Solan received his Ph.D. in English from the CUNY Graduate Center in June 2017, with doctoral certificates in American Studies and Film Studies. He specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century […]
  • Spencer, Stephen - Stephen Spencer is a first year doctoral student at the CUNY Graduate Center in the English program. He holds an MA from CUNY Brooklyn College and a BA from St. Joseph’s College. He grew up in New York.
  • Strouse, Allen - Dissertation: Literary Theories of Circumcision Supervisor: S.Kruger Committee: G.Burger, M.Sargent
  • Tran, Frances - Dissertation: Animate Impossibilities: on Asian Americanist Critique, Racialization, and the Humanities Supervisor: K.Chuh Readers: D.Faherty, R.Reid-Pharr
  • Van Wormer, Justin - Justin is a Ph.D. student in English at the Graduate Center.  He has a BA from the University of Arizona and a JD from the University of Michigan.  He is interested in Gothic literature, American legal and economic history, and 18C – 19C aesthetics and […]
  • Wall, Chelsea - Graduate student in the English Department, focusing on postcolonialism.
  • Wermer-Colan, Henry - Dissertation: The Devil’s Advocate: Empire, Cynicism, and the Politics of Decadent Literature (1848-Today) Supervisor: W.Koestenbaum Committee: R.Reid-Pharr, J.Przybos
  • White, Simone - Dissertation: Descent: American Individualism, American Blackness and the Trouble With Invention Supervisor: J.Watts Readers: A.Alcalay, E.Lott
  • Woods, Livia - Dissertation: Heavy Expectations: Reading Pregnancy in the Victorian Novel Supervisor: T.Schaffer Readers: A.Humpherys, C.Reitz   Publications: Journal Issue Special issue of Nineteenth Century Gender Studies on “Relations.” Forthcoming, Winter 2015. (Edited and introduced with Julia Fuller and Meechal Hoffman, CUNY Graduate Center) Works in Progress “We Are (Not) to […]
  • Zagoria-Moffet, Mikayla - Mikayla Zagoria-Moffet is a fourth-year PhD student in the English program at the CUNY Graduate Center, a teaching fellow at Baruch College and an adjunct at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She completed her undergraduate education at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her […]