Alumni of the Center for Premodern Studies

Sonia Beltz
MFA Creative Writing: Non-Fiction           
Current Position: UMN Gesell Writing Fellow 

Fikri Cicek
PhD History           
"Children of Crisis: Politics, Science, and Faith in a Cross-Cultural Ottoman Druze Family, 1585-
1703"
Advisor: Giancarlo Casale
Current Position: 

Jessica Farrell
PhD History 
"Abolition through Recapture: Unfreedom, Necromancy, and Re(-)formation in Nineteenth
Century Liberia"
Advisor: Helena Pohlandt-McCormick
Current Position:

Johnathan Hardy
PhD Art History 
"To Leave One's Mark: The Glyptic Arts of Zoroastrians and Christians in the Sasanian Empire (224 - 651 CE)"
Advisor: Matt Canepa
Current Position:

Margaret Heeschen
PhD English 
"A Meeting of Minds: How the Conceptualization of the Mod Shaped Interpersonal Relationships in Old English Poetry"
Advisors: Janet Schrunk Ericksen & Rebecca Krug 
Current Position: Technical Communications Specialist, Carleton College

Emily Schoenbeck
PhD English 
"The Millennial Fandom: Shakespeare and New Media"
Advisor: Katherine Scheil 
Current Position: 

Sultan Oker Toprak
PhD History       
"The Alcohol Networks of Ottoman Istanbul in the Seventeenth Century"
Advisor: Giancarlo Casale
Current Position: 

Clara Biesel
PhD English 
""The Print o'Life": Transitions of Text and the Early Modern Stage"
Advisor: Katherine Scheil
Current Position: Adjunct English Instructor, Southern Connecticut State University

Joshua Eichen
PhD Geography      
"Racialization, Climate Change and the Birth of Capitalism: 1449-1720"
Advisor: 
Current Position: 

Benjamin Hansen
PhD History       
"Between Trepidation and Hope: A Study of Palestinian Christians after the Arab Conquests, ca. 630-797"
Advisor: Andrea Sterk
Current Position: Lecturer, History Department, University of Minnesota

Alex Magnolia
PhD History       
"Byzantium and beyond: the Medieval Roman Empire and its world through the letters of patriarch Nicholas I Mystikos, 901-925 CE"
Advisor: Andrea Sterk
Current Position: Minnesota Historical Society

Heather Sommer-Collins
PhD History       
"Louis XVI, Royalism, and Republicanism in Early America, 1775–1800"
Advisor: Kirsten Fischer
Current Position: Instructor of History and Education, Ohio Northern University

Jennifer Carnell
PhD German 
"Repeat the Sounding Joy: Hearing Communal Joy in Medieval German Literature"
Advisor: James Parente, Jr.
Current Position: Cataloger of Western Manuscripts, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library

Moinak Choudhury
PhD English       
"Autodidacts: Eighteenth-Century Progress Narratives and the Limits of Enlightenments"
Advisor: Timothy Brennan
Current Position: Assistant Director, Writing and Communication Program, Georgia Tech

Alex Korte
PhD Spanish       
"Under the Predatory Flag: Medieval Tales of Iberian Piracy"
Advisor: Michelle Hamilton
Current Position: Assistant Professor of Spanish, Concordia College

Caleb Molstad
PhD English
"Alimentary Theology: Religious Experience and the Language of Food in Late Medieval English Vernacular Literature"
Advisor: Andrew Scheil
Current Position: Adjunct Instructor, Bethel University

Benjamin Obernolte
PhD French
"Power Broker or Broken Power: Violence and the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Social Standing in Medieval French and Iberian Literature"
Advisor: Susan Noakes
Current Position: French Instructor, Hill-Murray School

Ashley Patton
PhD Art History
"Tangible Women: Marble Sculptures of Female Saints in Seventeenth-Century Rome"
Advisor: Steven Ostrow
Current Position: Head of Research, The Heller Group, LLC

Katherine Pierpont
PhD History
"The Public Body: Sex Work in 12th and 13th Century Southern France"
Advisor: Ruth Karras and Kathryn Reyerson
Current Position: Assistant Professor of History, Bucknell University

Chris Saladin
PhD History
"Resurrecting Carthage: Mapping Memory in the Roman Colony, c. 146 BCE – 200 CE"
Advisor: Andrew Gallia
Current Position: Assistant Professor of History, Rowan University

Anthony Shin
History
"The Hammer and the Ottoman Anvil"
Advisor: Howard Louthan
Current Position: 

Samantha Crain
PhD English       
"Judicious Improbable as Critique: The Brontës’ Possible Fictions and Their Reception"
Advisor: Brian Goldberg
Current Position: Independent Scholar and Author

Erin Crowley-Champoux
PhD Anthropology
"Cattle, Food, and the Rise of Early Ireland"
Advisor: Peter Wells
Current Position: Community Flooding Social Science Liaison, University of Maryland Extension

Jennifer Easler
PhD English
"The Futility of Prophecy: Prophecy and Poetry in English Narratives of Troy"
Advisor: Andrew Scheil
Current Position: Assistant Professor of English, University of Providence

Jonas Gardsby
PhD English
"Unsettled: Trials, Attempts, and Unknowing in the Early Modern Essay"
Advisor: John Watkins
Current Position: Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Jason Herbert
PhD History
"Beast Of Many Names: Cattle, Conflict, And The Transformation Of Indigenous Florida, 1519-1858"
Advisor: David Chang
Current Position: Tribal Liaison, US Forest Service & Creator and Host of Historian at the Movies

Elizabeth Howard
PhD English
"The Parted Voice: Polyvocal Utterances in Victorian Elegies"
Advisor: Andrew Elfenbein
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Bethlehem College and Seminary

Gabriale Payne
MA History
"'Making 'The Cut': Kikuyu Conceptions of the Body, Gender, and Ethnicity, and the Invention of Modern Gender/Sexuality in Kenya, c. 1895 to the Present"
Advisors: Helena Pohlandt-McCormick and Allen Isaacman
Current Position: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Specialist, Premier Members Credit Union

Laura Price
PhD English
"Things Fall Apart: Decapitation and the Quest for Certainty in Early Modern English Literature"
Advisor: John Watkins

Jesse Dorst
PhD History
"Bumfodder: Cheap Paper, Ephemeral Print, and the Unsettled Nation, 1651-1720"
Advisor: JB Shank

Macey Flood
PhD History of Medicine 
"Simple Medicines: Land, Health, and Power in the 19th-century Ojibwe Western Great Lakes"
Current Position: Visiting Scholar, The University of Texas Medical Branch

Tim Frye
PhD Spanish and Portuguese 
"Megaprojects and Literature in Chile, Panama, and Brazil"
Advisors: Sophia Beal, Jamie Hanneken
Current Position: Instructor of Spanish, Benilde - St. Margaret's School

Robert Hultgren
PhD Spanish and Portuguese
"Embracing the Text: Stories of Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Spain"
Advisor: Michelle Hamilton
Current Position: Instructor of Spanish, Forest Lake High School

Melissa Johnson
PhD English
"'The Real World Represented': Identity Politics and Diverse Representation in Shakespeare and Young Adult Lit"
Advisor: Katherine Scheil
Current Position: Assistant Professor of English, Lyon College

Jen-chou Liu
PhD English
"Metaphors of Authorship: Eighteenth-Century Novelists' Imaginations of the Reading Publics, 1740-1810"
Advisor: Tony C. Brown

Wesley Lummus
PhD History
"One Nation, Two Languages: Latinization and Language Reform in Turkey and Azerbaijan, 1905-1938"
Advisor: Giancarlo Casale
Current Position: Upper School History and Debate Instructor, The Hockaday School

Virgil Slade
PhD History
"Sport in South Africa: The 'Ideal Body' and the Limitations of Political Equality and 'Reconciliation' in the Post-apartheid State, c 1900 - 2020"
Advisor: Helena Pohlandt-Mcormack
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Emma Snowden
PhD History
"Bridging the Straight: The Shared History of Iberia and North Africa in Medieval Muslim and Christian Chronicles"
Advisors: Michael Lower, Ruth Mazo Karras
Current Position: Assistant Professor of History, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Anthony Thomas
PhD Classical and Near Eastern Religions and Cultures
"Ambrose of Milan Combats the 'Crooked Interpreter': Forming Nicene Identity through Old Testament Exegesis."
Current Position: Lecturer, University of Minnesota; Assistant Editor for Book Reviews, American Society of Church History

Amy Bolis
PhD English
"Exporting Othello: Shakespeare, Race, and Adaptation in America (2008-2018)"
Advisor: Katherine Scheil

Mario Cossio Olavide
PhD Spanish and Portuguese
"El que toma candela del fuego ajeno. Don Juan Manuel y la refundación castellana del mundo cortesano en el siglo XIV"
Advisor: Michelle Hamilton
Current Position: Post Doc, Universidad de Alcalá

Jenna Dreier
PhD English
"'As you from crimes would pardoned be': Prison Shakespeare and the Practices of Empowerment"
Advisor: Katherine Scheil
Current Position: Minnesota Prison Education Program Coordinator

Amy Fairgrieve
PhD English
"I've Got a Bad Feeling: Rethinking Negative Affect in Literary Studies"
Advisor: Andrew Elfenbein
Current Position: Writing Center Coordinator, Normandale Community College

Joanne Jahnke-Wegner
PhD History
"Captive Economics: Social Reproduction, Commodification, and Settler Colonialism in the Northeast 1630-1763"
Advisor: Kirsten Fischer
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Sean Killackey
PhD French & Italian
"Disenchantment and Re-Enchantment: Rhetorical Tension in the Siècle Des Lumières"
Advisor: Daniel Brewer
Current Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, St. Olaf College

Charlotte Madre
PhD English
"Creating Indian and British Selves: Life-Writing and Colonial Relations, 1794-1826"
Advisor: Brian Goldberg
Current Position: Faculty, King's Academy, Jordan

Bailey Poletti
PhD History
"Final Preparations: The Emergence of Human Agency in Christian Apocalyptic Speculation in the 10th and 11th Centuries"
Advisor: Kathryn Reyerson

Noam Sienna
PhD History
“Making Jewish Books in North Africa, 1700-1900”
Advisor: Daniel Schroeter
Current Positions: The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Biography 2022-2024 Junior Fellow; Lecturer, University of Minnesota

Yon Ji Sol
PhD English
"To Enlist or Not, for the Empire: The Citizens of the British Isles and Stories of War from the Four Kingdoms 1798-1853"
Advisor: Andrew Elfenbein

Colleen Stockmann
PhD Art History
"Weeds and Wildflowers: Drawing, Landscape, and Abolitionism in New York, 1850-1870"
Advisor: Jen Marshall
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Gustavus Adolophus College

Dustin Studelska
PhD History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
"Forgetting the Hand: Wedgwood, Sèvres, and the Industrial Fate of Skill"
Advisor: Jennifer Alexander
Current Position: Strategist at Zeus Jones

Natalia Vargas Marquez
PhD Art History
"Looking Through the Landscape: Colonialism and the Indigenous Painters in Seventeenth-Century Cuzco"
Current Position: Developmental Editor & Writing Coach, The Indigenous Editing Workshop

Kent Weber
PhD History
“Chinese Exclusion and the U.S. Empire in Hawai’i and Cuba, 1874-1943”
Advisors: Erika Lee, David Chang
Current Position: Assistant Professor of History & Assistant Director of the Asian Pacific American Studies Program, Michigan State University

Lars Christensen
PhD Musicology
"The Time-Suturing Technologies of Northern Song Musicology"
Advisor: Gabriela Currie

Brooke Creager
PhD Anthropology
"Dynamics of Religious Ritual: Migration and Adaptation in Early Medieval Britain"
Advisor: Peter Wells

Adam Fix
PhD History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
"Sensible Mathematics: The Science of Music in the Age of the Baroque"
Current Position: Global Writer, Transportation & Electronics Group, 3M

Alexander Greff
MA History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Current Position: Technical Communications Writer, Medtronic

Yuanxin Jiang
PhD History
“More than just a Drink: Tea Consumption, Material Culture, and ‘Sensory Turn’ in Early Modern China (1550-1700)”
Advisor: Ann Waltner

John Manke
PhD History
“Granum Bonum: Grain Distribution and the Emergence of Popular Institutions in Medieval Genoa”
Advisor: Kathryn Reyerson
Current Position: Project Coordinator, East View Information Systems

Emmie Miller
PhD History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
"Empire of Ice: Arctic Natural History and British Visions of the North, 1500-1800"
Current Position: Academic Administration, University of Minnesota

Karsten Olson
German, Nordic, Slavic and Dutch
"Beyond the Public Sphere: The Secret Agency of the Many"
Advisor: Matthias Rothe
Current Position: Lecturer, German, University of North Carolina Asheville

Paul Vig
PhD History
“Hunters and After Riders: A History of Hunting and the Making of Race in the Waterberg, 1840s-Present”
Advisors: Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, Allen Isaacman
Current Position: Senior Analyst, Market Analytics, Constellation

Emily Beck
PhD History of Medicine
"Communities of Healing: Domestic Medicine and Society in Early Modern Italy"
Current Position: Assistant Curator, Wangensteen Historical Library, University of Minnesota

Ivy Faulkner-Gentry
PhD Anthropology
"Cross-Cultural Interaction and Migration: Rethinking Greek Colonization in the 7th - 4th Centuries BC with the Exchange of Attic Figured Pottery"
Advisor: Peter Wells

Marcelo Fuentes
PhD Spanish and Portuguese
“An Empire of Two Religions: Muslims as Allies, Enemies, and Subjects in the Literature of the Iberian Christian Kingdoms”
Advisor: Michelle Hamilton
Current Position: Assistant Professor, New Jersey City University

Matthew King
PhD History
"The Norman Kingdom of Africa and the Medieval Mediterranean"
Advisor: Michael Lower
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of South Florida

Veronica Menaldi
PhD Spanish and Portuguese
“Out of Love: Magic and Control of (an)Other in Premodern Iberia”
Advisor: Michelle Hamilton
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Mississippi

Asa Olson
PhD English
"The Form of Selfhood: Elegy and Self-Presentation in Early Modern England"
Advisor: John Watkins
Current Position: Academic Technologist II, Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing, University of Minnesota

Adelia Solemsli-Chrysler
PhD German, Nordic, Slavic and Dutch
"Translation on the Move: Place, Language, and the Jewish Body in Rose Ausländer's Poetry"
Advisor: Leslie Morris

Jeffrey Squires
PhD English
"The Exculpation of the Desperate: Comforting the Desperate in England, 1580–1680"
Advisor: Nabil Matar
Current Position: Assistant Teaching Professor of English, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar

Basit Qureshi
PhD History
"Crusade, Crisis, and Statecraft in Latin Christendom: The Case of Fulk V of Anjou (1090-1143)"
Advisors: Michael Lower, Kathryn Reyerson
Current Position: Senior Product Manager, United Health Group

Amanda Taylor
PhD English
"Fabricating the Martial Body: Anatomy, Affect, and Armor in Early Modern England and Italy"
Advisors: Shirley N. Garner, John Watkins
Current Position: Senior Program Development Manager, Medtronic

Nathan Weaver Olson
PhD History
"A Republic of Lost Peoples: Race, Status, and Community in the Eastern Andes of Charcas at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century"
Advisor: Sarah Chambers
Current Position: Contract Technical Writer, Medtronic

Jessica Apolloni
PhD English
"Tales of Resistance: Combating Legal Power from Italian Shores to London Streets"
Advisor: John Watkins
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Christopher Newport University

Jesse Izzo
PhD History
"The Frankish Nobility and The Fall of Acre: Diplomacy, Society, and War in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, c.1240-1291"
Advisor: Michael Lower
Current Position: Lecturer, Stanford University

Caitlin McHugh
PhD English
"The Afterlives of Shakespeare's Tragedies"
Advisors: Katherine Scheil, John Watkins
Current Position: Associate Manager, Capella University

Kathryn Mogk
MA English
“‘Pore Paraille’: Clothing as Disguise in Piers Plowman”
Current Position: Director of Academic Programming at the Center for Christianity and Scholarship at Duke University

Katie Sisneros
PhD English
"The Abhorred Name of Turk": Muslims and the Politics of Identity in Seventeenth-Century English Broadside Ballads
Advisor: Nabil Matar
Current Position: Content Strategist, United Health Group

Molly Tun
PhD Spanish and Portuguese
“El Quipu: Escritura Andina en las Redes informacticas Incaicas y Coloniales”
Advisor: Luis Ramos Garcia
Current Position: World Language Lead, The STEAD School

Ann Zimo
PhD History
"Muslims in the Landscape: A Social Map of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Thirteenth Century"
Advisor: Michael Lower
Current Position: Associate Professor, Classics, Humanities, and Italian Studies,  University of New Hampshire

Cameron Bradley
PhD History
"Between Brothers: Brotherhood and Masculinity in the Later Middle Ages"
Advisor: Ruth Mazo Karras
Current Position: Associate Director, Payment Integrity R&D Transformational Programs at Optum

Alexander Wisnoski
PhD History
"Contesting Husbands and Masters: Law, Society, and the Marital Household in Colonial Lima"
Advisor: Sarah Chambers
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of North Georgia