Current Graduate Students' Research and Dissertations in Progress (also, see People)
Zeynep Aydogdu (PhD)
Research Areas: American Studies, Global and Transnational Studies, Race, Ethnicity, and Postcolonial Studies, Comparative Literature, Critical Theory, Comparative Ethnic Studies, Women’s Studies.
Puja Batra-Wells (PhD)(ABD)
Advisor: Amy Shuman (English)
Committee: Dorry Noyes, Leo Coleman, Allison Fish.
Research Areas: Popular Culture and Folklore, Material and Visual Cultures, Museums and Tourism.
Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Folklore
Exam Areas: Popular Culture and Critical Theory, Material Culture, Visual Culture
Collaborating Departments/Programs: Center for Folklore Studies
Cristina Benedetti (PhD)
Advisor: Dorry Noyes
Research Areas: Performance Studies, Material Culture, Festival, Ethnography
Collaborating Departments/Program: Center for Folklore Studies
Kay Clopton (PhD)
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Exam Committee: Theresa Delgadillo, Jared Garner (English)
Research Areas: Popular Culture, Comics and Manga Studies, New Media, Women's Studies, International Feminism, Linguistics, Media Studies
Collaborating Departments/Programs: East Asian Studies, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Dan DiPiero (PhD)
Research Interests: contingency in aesthetics and politics, improvised music, contemporary democratic theory, phenomenology, critical theory
Carolyn A. Elerding (PhD) (ABD)
Research Areas: Sound Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, Continental Philosophy, Critical Theory
Graduate Interdisciplinary Specializations: University Teaching (UCAT) and Film Studies
Exam Areas: Cinema and Media Theory, Critical Sounds Studies, Critical Theory
Kati Fitzgerald (PhD)
Research Interests: Performance, Tibetan performing arts, modern Tibetan studies, ethnomusicology, linguistics, East and South Asian performance, oral lineage, ache lhamo (Tibetan opera), rnam thar (religious biography), Tibetan Buddhism, ethnography, aesthetics and the politics of cultural preservation.
Nic Flores (PhD)
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Research: Cultural Studies, Ethnography, Migration/Immigration, Latin@ Studies, Queer Theory, Performance Studies
Collaborating Departments/Programs: Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Latino Studies
Amy Gregg (PhD) (ABD)
Dissertation: “Nineteenth-Century American Medicine: The Implications of Professionalism, Industrialism, and Capitalism”
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Committee: Robert Buerki (Pharmacy), Allison Fish
Research Areas: American History, Pharmacy and Modern Bio-ethics, Intersectionality of Race, Gender, and Class, American Indian History and Identity, Colonialism American Health-Care Policy
Exam Areas: Science and Technology Studies, Pharmacy, Intersectionalities of Race, Gender, and Class, American Studies and American Indian Identity
Collaborating Departments/Programs: Pharmacy
Seth Josephson (PhD)(ABD)
Advisor: Hugh Urban
Committee: Leo Coleman, Allison Fish
Research Areas: Contemporary Buddhism and Hinduism, New Religious Movements, South Asian Studies, American Studies, Poststructuralist Theory, Posthumanism, Human/Animal Studies, Meditation, Sexuality Studies.
Exam Areas: Critical Theory, Religious Studies, Science and Technology Studies
Bishal Karna (PhD)
Research Areas: Philosophy of Religion, Mysticism, Study of Folktales
Collaborating Departments/Programs: Center for the Study of Religion, Center for Folklore Studies
Drew Lyness (PhD)(ABD)
Dissertation: “ Mobility, Poverty, and the Western Mythos: Chasing the Object of U.S. Homeless Policy”
Advisor: Leo Coleman
Committee: Theresa Delgadillo, Barry Shank, Ruby Tapia (U. Michigan)
Research: American Studies: Urban Sociology/Anthropology, Ethnography, Cultural Studies
Exam Areas: U.S. Urban Ethnography, Migration and Ethnicity, Neoliberalism and the American State
Perry Miller (PhD)(ABD)
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Committee: Theresa Delgadillo, Pranav Jani (English), Judy Wu (History and Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies)
Research Areas: Comparative Ethnic Studies, Critical Affect Studies, Comparative Resistance Literature, Subaltern Studies
Exam Areas: Comparative Resistance Literature; Subalternity; Theories of Subjectification
Collaborating Departments/Programs: Asian American Studies, Diversity and Identity Studies Collective (DISCO)
Michael Murphy (PhD) (ABD)
Graduate Consultant at the University Center for the Advancement of Teaching
Dissertation: “The Relationship Between Thought and Action as Hermeneutic Circle: A Philosophical Consideration of Four Modernist Novels.”
Co-Advisors: Nina Berman and Tom Kasulis
Committee: Ethan Knapp (English), Debra Moddelmog (English)
Research Areas: American Modernist Literature, German Modernist Literature, American Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Narrative Theory
Exam Areas: Theorizing Thought and Action Together, Critical Theory, Literary Theory
Gabriel Piser (PhD)(ABD)
Advisor: Gene Holland
Research Areas: Human Geography, Cultural Studies, Political Ecology, Radical Continental and Decolonial Thought, Collaborative Methodologies
Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization: Geography
Exam Areas: Environmental Studies, Critical Pedagogy and Participatory Action Research, Affective and Other Material Economies of Energy
Afsaneh Rezaei (PhD)
Research Areas: Folklore and new media, narrative theory, humor, Iranian contemporary culture, Vernacular religion, Women and Islam.
Research Areas: Folklore and new media, narrative theory, humor, Iranian contemporary culture, Vernacular religion, Women and Islam.
Collaborating Departments/Programs: Center for Folklore Studies
Amanda Randhawa (PhD)
Advisor: Hugh Urban
Research Areas: Hinduism, Sikhism, South Asian Ethnography & Popular Religion, Narrative and Feminist Theory
Collaborating Departments/Programs: Folklore, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Conrad Robinson (PhD)(ABD)
Advisor: Tom Kasulis
Exam Committee: Hugh Urban, Sabra Webber, Anna McCullough (Classics)
Research Areas: Religious Studies, Comparative Ethics & Applied Ethics, Anthropology of Food/Foodways
Graduate Interdisciplinary Specializations: Sexuality Studies and Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean
Collaborating Departments/Programs: Classics and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
Kelly Schultz (PhD)
Advisor: Hugh Urban
Research Areas: Folklore, Religious Studies, Refugee Studies, South Asian Studies, Ethnography, Tibetology
Collaborating Departments/Programs: Center for Folklore Studies, Center for Religious Studies.
Jasmine Stork (MA)
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Research Areas: fatness and body size diversity; mixed race and intersectionality; alternative sexualities and sexual orientations; cultural/medical anthropology; public health; gender identities; stigma and social trauma; online communities
Vidar Thorsteinsson (PhD) (ABD)
Dissertation: “Credit Citizenship. The Theoretical Legacy, Cultural Imaginary and Political Subjectivities of Indebtedness from Victorian Times to Post-Crash Iceland”
Advisor: Gene Holland
Committee: Philip Armstrong, Jill Galvan (English), Ethan Knapp (English)
Research Areas: Marx and Marxism, Continental Social Theory, Comparative Literature, Debt and Indebtedness, Aesthetic Representations of the Economic
Exam Areas: Marxist and Poststructuralist Social Theory, The Victorian Novel, Comparative Literature
Caroline Toy (MA)
Interests: popular culture, religious studies, fan studies, temporary communities
Collaborating programs: Center for Folklore Studies
Ziqi Yuan (MA)
Research: Genres of Ancient Chinese Writing, Confucianism, Cultural Heritage and Modernity.
Lee Wiles (PhD) (ABD)
Advisor: Hugh Urban
Committee: Leo Coleman, David Horn, Amy Shuman (English)
Research Areas: Cultural Anthropology/Ethnography, Religious Studies, Death Studies, Mormon Studies, Sexuality/Kinship
Exam Areas: Agency in Social/Cultural Theory, Theorizing The Individual And The Collective In Cultural Anthropology, Death in America.
Enrico Zammarchi (PhD)
Research Areas: Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Comparative Ethnic Studies, European and Mediterranean Studies, Hip-Hop Culture, Social Movements.