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Students/Activities

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Current MFA Candidates

See Creative Writing Program page.

Current PhD Candidates

Sunyoung Ahn: 19th- and 20th-century British and American novels; contemporary novels written in English; science fiction; science and technology; humanism, anti-humanism, and posthumanism; biopolitics. Previous degrees: BA (2003) and MA (2006), Korea University.

Jessica Apolloni: Early modern English and Italian literature; Mediterranean studies; crime narratives and portrayals of violence; cross-community conflict; cultural and comparative literature theory; social discipline theory; connected histories; and society formation. Hometown: Rockford, MN. Previous degrees: BA in English, Italian, and Global Studies, University of Minnesota, 2010.

Patricia Baehler: Eighteenth-century British and American novels; epistolary fiction; postal history; early modern communications networks and technology. Member of Nineteenth Century Subfield. Previous degrees: MA from DePaul University and BA from Valparaiso University.

Valerie Bherer: Feminism (second and third wave) and young adult literature, especially conceptions of girlhood and adolescence; history of feminism; contemporary popular culture; consumer culture; women’s biographies. Hometown: Montreal, Canada. Previous degrees: BA, Universite de Montreal; MA, Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada).

Laura Bozeman: 19th-century American literature; travel writing; women and gender studies; cultural studies; composition pedagogy; U.S. higher education public policy. Professional memberships: MLA, NCTE, CCCC. Hometown: Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Anchorage, Alaska. Previous degrees: BA, English and French, Texas Christian University; MA, University of Minnesota, English

Wesley Burdine: 20th-century fiction; modernism; psychical research, ghosts, and other weird things; theories of temporality, affect, and embodiment; thing theory; and narrative theory. Co-organizer of the Theory Reading Group. Hometown: Allentown, PA. Previous degrees: BA, Bethel University; MA, Marquette University.

Stacey Decker: 19th- and 20th-century literature, particularly trans-Atlantic modernism(s); gender and modernism; literary theory (especially feminist, queer, skin/body studies, and affect); the Victorian era; the Harlem Renaissance; Irish studies; history of medicine. Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio. Previous degrees: BA, The College of Wooster; MA, University of Connecticut.

Yuan Ding: Ethnic American Literature (especially Asian American literature); immigration, transnationalism and global diaspora; French feminism; psychoanalysis; postcolonialism. Member of MELUS and ACLA. Hometown: Beijing, China. Previous degrees: BA and MA, Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Hyeryung Hwang: 19th- and 20th-century European and American Literature; theories of comparative literature and “world” literature; continental literary and cultural theory; Marxist aesthetics and politics; and theories of colonialism and imperialism. Officer of Theory Reading Group. Hometown: Pusan, South Korea. Previous degrees: BA and MA, Pusan National University, South Korea.

Jennifer Somie Kang: 19th- and 20th-century literature; peripheral modernism and realism; critical theory and Marxist aesthetics; theories of postcolonialism and world literature. Member of the 20/21 Century Subfield. Previous degree: BA, Seoul National University, South Korea.

Eun Joo Kim: Asian American literature; multilingual American literature; diaspora studies; translation studies. Hometown: born in Seoul and grew up in Flushing, New York. Previous degrees: BA in English and Fine Arts (with a focus on oil painting), Brandeis University; MA in English, New York University.

Na-Rae Kim: 20th- and 21st-century American literature and cultural studies; Asian American literature; theories of "world" literature; Marxist aesthetics and politics; theories of the novel. Previous degree: BA, Handong University, South Korea. 

Katelin Krieg: 19th-century British literature and culture; the Victorian novel; British Aestheticism; science and literature; philosophy and literature; gender studies. Co-President of the 19th Century Subfield. Previous degree: BA, University of Michigan.

Adam Lindberg: 20th- and 21st-century literature and new media; theories of play; games (digital and analogue); ethics; literary theory; media and cultural studies; critical theory; subjectivities; literary theory; immersion and experience; systems and meaning.

Cliff Jen-chou Liu: 18th-century British literature; literature and intellectual history (especially economics, science, medicine); Scottish Enlightenment; William Blake. Hometown: Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Previous degrees: BA and MA, National Taiwan University.

Samantha Majhor: Contemporary Native American literature; Dakota language, literature, and culture; poetry and poetics; postcolonial feminism; Native visual and material culture; American Gothic. Hometown: Minnetonka, MN. Previous degrees: English BA, Sociology BA, University of Minnesota-Duluth; English MA, University of St. Thomas.

Andrew Marzoni: 20th- and 21st-century literature; cinema; critical theory; media theory; psychoanalysis; theories of embodiment, drugs & altered states; rock & roll; popular culture. Hometown: San Diego, California. Education: BA, English, University of San Diego, 2007; MA, English & American Literature, New York University, 2009. Publications: “Vengeance and Imitation in Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Jewish Revenge Film.” Locating Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century. Ed. Kelli Marshall and Gabriele Malcolm. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2012.

Caitlin McHugh: Early modern drama; Shakespeare; adaptation; the Restoration; tragedy. Member of Medieval & Early Modern Research Group. Hometown: Wooster, Ohio. Previous degrees: BA, Capital University; MA, Kent State University.

Rachel J. McWhorter: 20th- and 21st-century American novels; feminist disability theory; narratives of pregnancy; radical pedagogy. Member of the Pedagogy Subfield and 20/21 Century Subfield. Hometown: Birmingham, Alabama. Previous degrees: BA (English), Samford University; MA (Women's Studies), University of Alabama.

Keith Mikos: 19th- and 20th-century American literatures and cultures; history of continental philosophy; history of science. I am especially interested in how novel instruments of observation impacted late 19th-century revisions to classical metaphysics, and how these revisions are expressed in works of fiction and contemporary literary theory. Hometown: Chicago, IL. Previous degrees: BA in Philosophy, DePaul University, Chicago; MA in English, University of Minnesota.

David Moberly: Early modern English literature; gender studies; transatlantic studies; Anglo-Ottoman and Anglo-Moroccan relations; Shakespeare; captivity narratives; North African and Ottoman history and literature; Mediterranean studies, Mediterranean piracy and slave trade; digital humanities. Previous degrees: BA, English, Brigham Young University, 2009; MA, English, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2011. Website.

Amanda Niedfeldt: Modernism; women’s writing; identity studies; feminist, gender, and sexuality theory. Some questions of concern: How do people negotiate the elements that compose their identity? How do they combat and overcome the obstacles that limit them? Furthermore, how do people manipulate the presentation of their identity to serve their needs, and what are the gains and losses of such transactions? Previous degrees: BA English, BA History, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Leslie Nightingale: 18th- and 19th-century British literature, history, and culture; the novel; women and gender studies. Member of the Nineteenth Century Subfield. Hometown: St. Louis, MO. Previous degree: BA, Harvard University.

Trenton Olsen: British Romantic poetry (especially Wordsworth); Victorian poetry and fiction; literary influence; literature and science, religion, and ethics. Member of the 19th Century Subfield. Previous degree: BA, Utah State University.

Asa D. Olson: Early Modern literature, particularly historiography; Classical reception into English literature; translation; print culture; Mediterranean studies; Imperial Rome and the Second Sophistic. Member of Medieval & Early Modern Research Group. Hometown: Danbury, WI. Previous degrees: BA (Majors: English, Classical Humanities (Latin and Greek). Minor: European Studies), University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Michael Phillips: 18th-century British novel; narrative theory; genre studies; 19th-century British novel; 18th-century philosophy; pedagogy and fiction. Professional memberships: MLA, ISSN, BSECS, NCTE. Subfield memberships: 18th and 19th Century Studies, Theorizing Early Modern Studies. Previous degrees: BA, North Central University; MA, State University of New York-Binghamton.

John Pistelli: Modern and contemporary Anglophone fiction; the history and theory of the novel; modernism; aesthetics; literature and the visual arts; the graphic novel; fiction writing. Hometown: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Previous degree: BA, University of Pittsburgh.

Katie Robison: Late medieval/early modern literature; dream visions; medieval disability studies; madness; addiction and consumption; women writers; Old French romance; Chaucer, Langland, Spenser; creative writing (YA fiction and memoir). Member of Medieval & Early Modern Research Group. Previous degrees: BA in English and French, Brigham Young University.

Robb St. Lawrence: My research aims to unite in a single line of inquiry the two modes of questioning named by Antonioni's Corrado in Red Desert, who tells Monica Vitti, "You wonder what to look at; I wonder how to live." Focusing on their engagement with the 20th century’s troubling materials (petrochemicals, refinery waste, fossil fuels), I read (primarily) postwar poetics and philosophy for the traces of an aesthetics and ethics of materials that challenge thought and sensibility.

Ashley Sandlin: 18th-century theatre; gender and sexuality; feminist theory; cultural studies. Hometown: Lacey’s Spring, Alabama. Previous degrees: BA, Judson College; MA, Auburn University.

Laura Scroggs: 20th- and 21st-century American literature; feminist theory; women's writing; queer theory; graphic novels. BA and MA, University of Toledo. Website

Davu Underwood Seru: African American novels; African American modernisms; African American folklore; hip hop; race in the American novel; theories of race and modernity; African American genre fiction; African American masculinist and feminist discourses; African American avant-gardes. Board member of the Givens Foundation for African American Literature. Drummer. Hometown: Minneapolis, MN. Previous degree: BA, Hamline University.

Katie Sisneros: Anglo-Muslim relations; English travel in the Mediterranean; popular/ephemeral literature; print culture; travel writing; rhetoric and identity. Member of Medieval & Early Modern Research Group. Hometown: Gothenburg, Nebraska. Previous degrees: BA and MA, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Why Minnesota? To work with my current adviser, Professor Nabil Matar.

Anne Marie Spidahl: The novel in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; theories of ideology, aesthetics, and metaphysics; Lacanian psychoanalysis; fiction writing. Previous degrees: BA, Macalester College and MFA, The University of Montana. Hometown: Boston, MA, and Des Moines, IA.

DeAnna Stansbury: Tragedy and modernist writers; photography and literature; affect studies; suicidology; first wave Italian futurism; pedagogy and technology. Graduate Minor: Art History. Previous degrees: BS at California State University, Fullerton; MA at California State University-Los Angeles.

Amanda Taylor: Medieval literature, particularly hagiography and Arthuriana; early modern epic poetry, especially Spenser and Ariosto; critical theory, in particular theories of gender construction, affect theory, and French poststructuralism; and rhetoric. Member of Medieval & Early Modern Research Group, Critical Theory Group, and TEMS. Hometown: Great Falls, Montana. Previous degrees: BA (Majors: English, English for Secondary Education. Minors: Chemistry, Chemistry for Secondary Education, Honors Scholars Program), Carroll College (Helena, MT); MA, University of Chicago.

Benjamin Utter: My dissertation on the nexus between medieval concepts of heroism and sanctity continues apace. Meanwhile, I try not to neglect entirely my other scholarly interests: Old and Middle English poetry, hagiography, and sermon studies; Arthuriana; and Charles Williams studies. I am privileged to be able to list Rex Quondam (okay, merely president) of the Medieval & Early Modern Research Group among my former posts at the University of Minnesota, and I am currently coordinating the Making of a Medieval Book Project, a community outreach endeavor in partnership with the U's Center for Medieval Studies. Previous degrees: BA (English & Political Science), Ouachita Baptist University; MA (English) Wake Forest University.

Bomi Yoon: I am interested in Asian American, postcolonial, and transnational drama and literature. I am currently working on the relationship between food, race, and transnational identities and how it is explored in literature and performed on stage. The University of Minnesota is perfect because: I receive great support from faculty in/out of the department; Twin Cities is second to New York City for most theater seats per capita; it is a racially diverse city (largest Hmong and Somali communities in the nation); and you can enjoy both the city life and nature retreats.

Patricia Zanski: Trauma, film, and performance studies on contemporary American texts. Representation of the “other” in autobiographical documentaries; victim/victimizer relations within domestic and sexual abuse situations and the working through of trauma within those relationships, as read within this subgenre of films. Previous degrees: BS in Philosophy and English with a Women Studies Minor, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

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