Congrats to PhD and MFA Graduates!

The Department of English congratulates the graduate students who successfully defended dissertations and creative manuscripts over the academic year 2022-2023. We salute their accomplishment, and the commitment they have shown to learning and teaching at the University of Minnesota! Their innovative scholarship and writing have enlivened our English and creative writing classes and will enrich literary studies and literature into the future.

Doctoral Dissertations

• Christopher Bowman, "Climate Change of Mind: Revisiting Dust Bowl Narratives in a Time of Climate Catastrophe"
• Eunkyung Cho, "Metatheater in City Comedy with Prodigal Son Plot Structure in Shakespeare’s Time"
• Moinak Choudhury, "Autodidacts: Eighteenth-Century Progress Narratives and the Limits of Enlightenments"
• Jennifer Jodell, “From the Mediatrix to the White Room: Affective Engineering Tropes in Early Media Science Fiction"
• Saeide Mirzaei, "Hijacking Islam: An Analysis of Positive Representations of Islam and Muslims in the US"
• Caleb Molstad, "Alimentary Theology: Religious Experience and the Language of Food in Late-Medieval English Vernacular Literature"
• Brett Sigurdson, "We Know Jack!: On the Road with the Influencers Shaping the Legacy of America’s Most Misunderstood Author"
• Anne Spidahl, "Dressing Disaster: Apocalyptics After '68"
• John Vanoverbeke, "Muir's Wilderness: Christianity, Indigeneity, and Postsecularism in America's National Parks"
• Ali Zimmerman Zuckerman, "I Will Not Be a Monster: Revising the Fairy-Tale Witch"

MFA in Creative Writing Graduates

• Ciara Alfaro (nonfiction)
• Jonathan Crowl (fiction)
• Olivia Fantini (fiction)
• Brandon Hackbarth (poetry)
• Greg Langen (fiction)
• Nen Ramirez (poetry)