Student Research Projects: M.A.

Current Students

Writing Studies & Pedagogy

Natalie Raquel Acuña

Literary Studies

Anthony Lowe
M.A. Project: In the Doldrums of Destiny: An Interpretive Account of Ulysses S. Grant in Gold Rush Era California

Ken Rainey
M.A. Project: Behind the Veil: Lessons of Masked Resistance in Sam Greelee’s Novel The Spook Who Sat by the Door
M.A. Project Chair: Christina Hsu Accomando

Karen Zurita
M.A. Project: Words Made from Flesh and Bones: How Xicanx Queer Authors are Decolonizing Writing to Reclaim Their Indigeneity
M.A. Project Chair: Christina Hsu Accomando

Adam Mellott
M.A. Project: "Between Scotch and Nothing”: Alcohol, Hunger, and Imperialism in Faulkner
M.A. Project Chair: Janet Winston

Cultural Studies

Kim Sisu
M.A. Project: The Revolution Will be Meme’d: Internet Memes as Counter-Hegemony
M.A. Project Chair: Lisa Tremain

Douglas Smith
M.A. Project: The Pan African Land Manual: Black Radical Literature, Lyric and Tradition
M.A. Project Chair: Renée Byrd

Cole Shepard
M.A. Project: Beyond Capitalist Realism: Post-Capitalist Futures, Anti-Capitalist Presents, and the Roads In Between
M.A. Project Chair: Janet Winston

Digital Humanities

Allison Iafrate
M.A. Project: Our Place in Research: Understanding Social Productions of Knowledge Using Digital Spaces
M.A. Project Chair: Janelle Adsit

Graduated

2021

Writing Studies & Pedagogy

Alysia Hegg
M.A. Project: Write Yourself Awake: The Double Pursuit of Mindfulness Meditation and Writing Theory
M.A. Project Chair: Lisa Tremain

Jonathan Abidari
M.A. Project: Multimodality in Focus
M.A. Project Chair: Lisa Tremain

Literary Studies

Aaron Laughlin
M.A. Project: Hózhó, "To Walk in Beauty and Balance": Indigenous Writers Decolonize Theories of Myth
M.A. Project Chair: Michael Eldridge
2020

Writing Studies & Pedagogy

Kelley Ellion
M.A. Project: Understanding Reading in the English Program: An Inquiry of How Students are Guided with Advanced Reading Materials
M.A. Project Chair: Lisa Tremain

Publishing

Hallie Lepphaille
M.A. Project: (In)Equities in the Publishing Industry: The Politics of Representation
M.A. Project Chair: Janelle Adsit

Literary Studies

Grace Hart
M.A. Project: You Have a Voice Here: Implementing Armenian Feminist Literature within Feminist Discourse
M.A. Project Chair: Christina Hsu Accomando

Chris Ramponi
M.A. Project: Reflections of an Impossible Ideal: Passion as the Will to Downfall in Madame Bovary
M.A. Project Chair: Mary Ann Creadon

Cultural Studies

Morgan Thornburg
M.A. Project: The Ginger, The Pin-up, or the Stepchild? Redheadedness as an Embodied Trope
M.A. Project Chair: Michael Eldridge
2019

Writing Studies & Pedagogy

Justin Egan
M.A. Project: Towards a Critical Game Based Pedagogy in Composition
M.A. Project Chair: Lisa Tremain

Marcos Hernandez
M.A. Project: Publishing for Transfer: Notes Toward an Editorial Pedagogy for the Transfer-Oriented Writing Program
M.A. Project Chair: Lisa Tremain

Archival Studies

Natalie Ray
M.A. Project: On the Edge of Inclusion: A Look at the Shifting of Representation in Museum Display and Archival Cataloging
M.A. Project Chair: Janelle Adsit

Publishing

Dakota Rohlin
M.A. Project: Ethos in Climate Change Communication: Analyzing Digital and Broadcast News Coverage of the Fourth National Climate Assessment
M.A. Project Chair: Janelle Adsit

ESL/TESL

Melissa Wise
M.A. Project: Serving in the Kingdom: A Volunteer Experience in the Development of EFL Literacy in Tonga
M.A. Project Chair: Suzanne Scott

Digital Humanities

Felix Boers
M.A. Project: Toward a Working Theory of Queer Hypermedia: An Analysis of Queer Textual Structures in Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch
M.A. Project Chair: David Stacey
2018

Writing Center Studies

Thomas King
M.A. Project: Writing Center Tutor Training: An Examination of Emphasis on Critical Pedagogy in Tutor Training Handbooks
M.A. Project Chair: Lisa Tremain

Literary Studies

Corrina Wells
M.A. Project: Tracing Writer/Reader Identity in, and in Response to, Queer Latinx Autohistoria-Teorìa
M.A. Project Chair: Janelle Adsit

Cassandra Curatolo
M.A. Project: Historical Consciousness, The Cultural Imaginary and Postcolonial Subjectivity in Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being
M.A. Project Chair: Janet Winston

Writing Studies & Pedagogy

Emily Bushta
M.A. Project: Playing and Learning Through Text and Images: Examining Features of Adolescent Literacy and the Potential of Graphic Novels as a Supportive Tool
M.A. Project Chair: Nikola Hobbel
2017

ESL/TESL

Christopher Gordon
M.A. Project: 27 Months of Solitude: A Peace Corps Story
M.A. Project Chair: Suzanne Scott

Deva Richards
M.A. Project: EFL Teaching and Teacher Training in Nicaragua: A Master's International Experience
M.A. Project Chair: Suzanne Scott

Jason Stibi
M.A. Project: Motivation, Imagination, and the Future Self in Second Language Acquisition
M.A. Project Chair: Suzanne Scott

Literary Studies

Robin Imholte
M.A. Project: Abjection in Late Nineteenth Century British Literature
M.A. Project Chair: Mary Ann Creadon

Writing Studies & Pedagogy

Laura Gorman
M.A. Project: Considering “Disparate” Genealogies Analogously: A Survey into the Histories of Peer Response and their Impact on Current Peer Response Practices
M.A. Project Chair: David Stacey
2015

Literary Studies

Samuel Gabriels
M.A. Project: The Effects of Literature as a Guidebook: Reimagining Landscapes through Barry Lopez’s Desert Notes
M.A. Project Chair: Mary Ann Creadon
2014

Literary Studies

Amanda Alexander
M.A. Project: “In Our Veins Flows the Blood of Many Brave Races”: The Influence of the German Literary Vampire on Constructions of Race and Nation in Nineteenth-Century British Vampire Fiction
M.A. Project Chair: Mary Ann Creadon

Stephanie G. Cowherd, San Carlos Apache
M.A. Project: Spirals of (Re)knowing: An Analysis of the Construction of Place/Space in Women’s Communities through Ceremony in Joy Harjo's Poetry
M.A. Project Chair: Barbara Brinson Curiel

Writing Studies & Pedagogy

Lauren MacDonald Reagan
M.A. Project: Craft and the Corporeal in Composition: Embodied Metaphors in Writing Practice
M.A. Project Chair: David Stacey
2013

Cultural Studies

Laura Exline
M.A. Project: Revolutionizing Higher Education: An Analysis of Massive Open Online Courses in Popular Media
M.A. Project Chair: Nikola Hobbel

Writing Studies & Pedagogy

Amanda Alexander
M.A. Project: Students' Right and the First Year Composition Classroom: A Critical Reflection of One First-Time Teacher's Experience
M.A. Project Chair: Nikola Hobbel

Literary Studies

Adrienne Jones
M.A. Project: Archiving Trauma: Navigating Shame and Trauma in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves and Cherríe Moraga’s Loving in the War Years
M.A. Project Chair: Mary Ann Creadon