Comparative Studies Graduate Student Alumni (2009-2022)
2022
Sarah Craycraft (PhD)
"Reinventing the Village: Generations, Heritage and Revitalization in Contemporary Bulgaria"
Advisor: Katherine Borland
Committee: Dorry Noyes, Theodora Dragostinova (History), Galey Modan (English)
2021
Ryann Patrus (PhD)
"Illegible Injury: Technological Abuse and the Disabled Bodymind"
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Committee: Margaret Price (English), Amy Shuman (English)
Keren Tanquay (PhD)
“Deviant Patients with Fuzzy Valves: The Practice of Infective Endocarditis in Substance Users”
Advisor: David Horn
Committee: Melissa Curley, Miranda Martinez, and Alexandra Perry (Marietta College)
Seth Gaiters (PhD)
Dissertation: "Black Sacred Politics: (Extra)Ecclesial Eruptions in the #BlackLivesMatters Movement"
Advisor: Isaac Weiner
Committee: Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́ (AAAS), Melissa Curley, Theresa Delgadillo, Vincent Lloyd (Villanova)
Sarah Jasmine Stork (PhD)
"Asexuality in Avengers Fanfiction: A Mixed-Methods Folklore Study"
Co-Advisors: Amy Shuman (English) and Miranda Martinez
Committee: Merrill Kaplan (English), Gail Kaye (Public Health)
2020
Leighla Khansari (PhD)
Dissertation: "Constancy, Race, and Religious Virtue: The Representation of Muslim Women in English Early Modern Drama"
Advisor: Jennifer K. Higginbotham (English)
Committee: Kimberly Ann Coles (University of Maryland), Theresa Delgadillo, Pranav Jani (English).
Kati Fitzgerald (PhD)
Dissertation: “No Pure Lands: The Contemporary Buddhism of Tibetan Lay Women”
Advisor: Hugh Urban
Committee: Mark Bender (DEALL), Melissa Curley
Eleanor Paynter (PhD)
Dissertation: "Witnessing Emergency: Testimonial Narratives of Precarious Migration to Italy"
Co-Advisors: Amy Shuman (English), Dana Renga (FRIT)
Committee: Asley Pérez, Julia Watson
Afsane Rezaei (PhD)
Dissertation: “Agency Between Narratives: Women, Faith, and Sociability in Irangeles”
Advisor: Dorry Noyes
Committee: Katey Borland, Morgan Liu (NESA)
Caroline Toy (PhD)
Dissertation: “Wizarding Shrines and Police Box Cathedrals: Re-envisioning Religiosity through Fan and Media Pilgrimages”
Advisor: Hugh Urban
Committee: Katherine Borland, Merrill Kaplan (English), Isaac Weiner, Ross Garner (Cardiff University)
2019
Enrico Zammarchi (PhD)
Dissertation: "'My Style is Strictly Italo': A History of Italian Hip-Hop"
Co-Advisors: Barry Shank, Dana Renga (FRIT)
Committee: Philip Armstrong, Clarissa Clò (San Diego State University)
Nic Flores (PhD)
Dissertation: “PrEParing and Producing the Queer Medical Subject: An Ethnographic Account of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality, and Class in Columbus, Ohio in the Time of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP)”
Co-Advisors: Maurice Stevens, Noah Tamarkin
Committee: Miranda Martinez
Dan DiPiero (PhD)
Dissertation: “Contingent Encounters: Improvisation in Music and Everyday Life”
Co-Advisors: Barry Shank, Philip Armstrong
Committee: Ryan Skinner (Music), Eugene Holland
Amanda Randhawa (PhD)
Dissertation: “Being Punjabi Sikh in Chennai: Women's Everyday Religion in an Internal Indian Diaspora”
Co-Advisors: Hugh Urban, Amy Shuman (English)
Committee: Mytheli Sreenivas (WGSS), Anne Murphy (Univ. British Columbia)
Zeynep Aydogdu (PhD)
Dissertation: “Modernity, Multiculturalism, and Racialization in Transnational America: Autobiography and Fiction by Immigrant Muslim Women Before and After 9/11”
Co-Advisors: Nina Berman, Pranav Jani (English)
Committee: Theresa Delgadillo
2018
Cristina Benedetti (PhD)
Dissertation: “Dreams of Democracy, Logistics of Crowds: Public Gatherings on the National Mall”
Advisor: Dorothy Noyes
Committee: Katherine Borland, Isaac Weiner, Shilarna Stokes (Theater), Jason Baird Jackson (Indiana University)
Bishal Karna (PhD)
Dissertation: “Skillful Ways: Sōtō Zen Buddhism in the American Midwest”
Co-Advisors: Isaac Weiner, Thomas Kasulis
Committee: Melissa Curley, Katherine Borland
Seth Josephson (PhD)
Dissertation: “Beastly Traces: The Co-emergence of Humans and Cattle”
Advisor: Hugh Urban
Committee: David Horn, Bernhard Malkmus (German), Isaac Weiner
Kay Clopton (PhD)
Dissertation: “Now Hear This: Onomatopoeia, Emanata, Gitaigo, Giongo – Sound Effects in North American Comics and Japanese Manga and How They Impact the Reading Experience”
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Committee: Theresa Delgadillo, Jared Gardner (English)
2017
Carolyn Elerding (PhD)
Dissertation: Mechanical Clouds and Other Concrete Abstractions: Materiality, Enlightenment, and the Digital”
Advisor: Philip Armstrong
Committee: John Davidson (German), Sandra MacPherson (English), Ethan Knapp (English)
Amy Gregg (PhD)
Dissertation: “Nineteenth-century American Medicine: The Implications of Professionalism, Capitalism, and Implicit Bias”
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Committee: Christine Ballengee-Morris (Art Education), Robert Buerki (Pharmacy)
2016
Vidar Thorsteinsson (PhD)
Dissertation: “Diachronic Binding: The Novel Form and the Gendered Temporalities of Debt and Credit”
Advisor: Eugene Holland
Committee: Philip Armstrong, Jill Galvan (English), Ethan Knapp (English), Katherine Hayles (Duke University), Guðni Elísson (University of Iceland)
Perry Miller (PhD)
Dissertation: “Freeing Associations: A Return to Psychoanalysis in Self-help Literature”
Advisor: David Horn
Committee: Theresa Delgadillo, Robert Hughes (English)
Puja-Batra-Wells (PhD)
Dissertation: “Art/Work: Place-making, Precarity, and the Performance of Artistic Occupational Identities in Columbus, Ohio”
Advisor: Amy Shuman
Committee: Philip Armstrong, Dorothy Noyes, James Sanders (Art Education)
Gabriel Piser (PhD)
Dissertation: “Appalachian Anthropocene: Conflict and Subject Formation in a Sacrifice Zone”
Advisor: Eugene Holland
Committee: Miranda Martinez, Maurice Stevens, Adrian Parr (University of Cincinnati)
2015
Michael Murphy (PhD)
Dissertation: “Meaning through Action: William James’s Pragmatism in Novels by Larsen, Musil, and Hemingway”
Co-Advisors: Nina Berman, Tom Kasulis
Committee: Ethan Knapp (English)
2014
Andrew Lyness (PhD)
Dissertation: “Mobility, Poverty, and the Western Mythos: Chasing the Object of the U.S. Homeless Policy”
Advisor: Barry Shank
Committee: Leo Coleman, Theresa Delgadillo
Oded Nir (PhD)
Dissertation: “Nutshells and Infinite Space: Totality and Global Culture”
Advisor: Philip Armstrong
Committee: Leo Coleman, Ethan Knapp (English), Frederic Jameson (Duke)
Brian Michael Murphy (PhD)
Dissertation: “The Future of American Memory: Media Preservation, Photography, and Digital Archives”
Advisor: Barry Shank
Committee: Kris Paulsen (History of Art), Hugh Urban, Ruby Tapia (University of Michigan)
Ricky Crano (PhD)
Dissertation: “Posthuman Capital: Neoliberalism, Telematics, and the Project of Self Control”
Advisor: Philip Armstrong
Committee: Brian Rotman, Kris Paulsen (History of Art), Alexander Galloway (NYU)
Damon Berry (PhD)
Dissertation: “Blood Right: Racial Protectionism and the Problem of Christianity in American White Nationalism”
Advisor: Hugh Urban
Committee, Merrill Kaplan (German), David Horn, Michael Barkun (Syracuse University)
Tahseen Kazi (PhD)
Dissertation: “Leadership in State Genesis: Creative Falsification, Guardianship, and the Crystallization of Sovereign Authority”
Advisor: Gene Holland
Committee: Philip Armstrong, Sonja Amadae (Political Science), Mathew Coleman (Geography), Luis Lobo-Guerrero (University of Groningen)
Josh Kurz (PhD)
Dissertation: “The Figure of the Refugee”
Advisor: Philip Armstrong
Committee: Leo Coleman, Mathew Coleman (Geography), Sandro Mezzadra (University of Bologna)
Rashelle Peck (PhD)
Dissertation: “Imperfect Resistance: Embodied Performances in Nairobi Underground Hip Hop”
Advisor: Barry Shank
Committee: Nina Berman, Maurice Stevens
2013
Rita Trimble (PhD)
Dissertation: “Conceiving a ‘Natural Family’ Order: The World Congress of Families and Transnational Conservative Christian Politics”
Advisor: Debra Moddelmog (English)
Committee: Tanya Erzen, Mytheli Sreenivas (History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies), Hugh Urban
Lindsay Bernhangen (PhD)
Dissertation: “Sounding Subjectivity: Music, Gender, and Intimacy”
Advisor: Barry Shank
Committee: Maurice Stevens, Mary Thomas (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)
Andrew Culp (PhD)
Dissertation: “Escape”
Advisor: Gene Holland
Committee: Philip Armstrong, Mathew Coleman (Geography)
Joanna Spanos (PhD)
Dissertation: “Redeeming Susanna Cox: A Pennsylvania German Infanticide in Community Tradition”
Advisor: Dorothy Noyes
Committee: Richard Green (English), Margaret Mills (Near Eastern Languages and Cultures), Randolph Roth (History)
2012
Wamae Muriuki (PhD)
Dissertation: “That I Should Dance on the Earth: Shinran's Revaluation of ‘Karmic Afflictions’”
Advisor: Thomas Kasulis
Committee: Shelley Quinn (East Asian Langauges and Literatures), Daniel Reff
Rachel Wortman (PhD)
Dissertation: “Facing the Waitlist: Visual Grammars of Organ Donation and Transplantation”
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Committee: Philip Armstrong, David Horn
Kate Dean-Haidet (PhD)
Dissertation: “Thanatopoiesis: The Relational Matrix of Spiritual End-of-Life Care”
Advisor: Thomas Kasulis
Committee: Tanya Erzen, Daniel Reff, Julia Watson
Elo-hanna Seljamaa (PhD)
Dissertation: “A Home for 121 Nationalities or Less: Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Integration in Post- Soviet Estonia”
Advisor: Dorothy Noyes
Committee: Margaret Mills (Near Eastern Languages and Cultures), Ray Cashman (English), Nicholas Breyfogle (History), Rick Hermann (Political Science)
Jennifer Black (PhD)
Dissertation: “Lock My Body, Can't Trap My Mind: A Study of the Scholarship and Social Movements Surrounding the Case of Imprisoned Radical Mumia Abu-Jamal”
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Committee: Tanya Erzen, Anthonia Kalu (UC Riverside), James Upton (AAAS)
Peggy Reynolds (PhD)
Dissertation: “Depth Technology: Remediating Orientation”
Advisor: Brian Rotman
Committee: Philip Armstrong, Barry Shank
Beth Shively (PhD)
Dissertation: “Happily Ever After: Gender, Romance and Relationships in the Christian Courtship Movement”
Co-Advisors: Tanya Erzen, Mary Thomas (Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies)
Committee: Hugh Urban
2011
Ilana Maymind (PhD)
Dissertation: “Ethics in Exile: A Comparative Study of Shinran and Maimonides”
Co-Advisors: Tom Kasulis, Tamar Rudavsky (Philosophy)
Committee: Lindsay Jones
Saeed Honarmand (PhD)
Dissertation: “The Impact of the Modernity Discourse on Persian Fiction”
Advisor: Dick Davis (Near Eastern Languages and Cultures)
Committee: Philip Armstrong, Margaret Mills (Near Eastern Languages and Cultures)
2010
Sande Garner (PhD)
Dissertation: “What Sort of Indian will Show the Way?: Colonization, Mediation, and Interpretation in the Sun Dance Contact Zone”
Advisor: Lindsay Jones
Committee: Tanya Erzen, Richard Shiels (History), Maurice Stevens
Mike J. McVicar (PhD)
Dissertation: “Reconstructing America: Religion, American Conservatism, and the Political Theology of Rousas John Rushdoony”
Advisor: Hugh Urban
Committee: Philip Armstrong, Tanya Erzen
Kirsi Haënninen (PhD)
Dissertation: “The Construction of Self in Finnish First-Person Supernatural Encounter Narratives”
Advisor: Dorothy Noyes
Committee: Sarah Iles Johnston (Greek and Latin), Amy Shuman (English/Folklore)
2009
Alana Kumbier (PhD)
Dissertation: “Ephemeral Material: Developing a Critical Archival Practice”
Advisor: Maurice Stevens
Committee: Tim Choy, Leo Coleman, David Horn
Rebecca Adelman (PhD)
Dissertation: “The Shadow Rules of Engagement: Visual Practices, Citizen-Subjectivity, and America's Global War on Terror”
Advisor: Ruby Tapia
Committee: Philip Armstrong, Maurice Stevens
Kennedy Waliaula (PhD)
Dissertation: “The Incarcerated Self: Narratives of Political Confinement in Kenya”
Co-Advisors: Adélékè Adéẹ̀kọ́ (English and AAAS), Nina Berman
Committee: Maurice Stevens
Tracy Carpenter (PhD)
Dissertation: “Recovering Women: Intersectional Approaches to African American Addiction”
Advisor: Amy Shuman (English)
Committee: Nina Berman, Valarie Lee (English), Maurice Stevens