Dissertation Record

Dissertation Record

Dissertations published by doctoral awardees in English Language and Literature have addressed an immense variety of topics, ranging widely in history, geography, genre, and method.

Doctoral students in English at Cornell typically begin work on their dissertations after their third year in the program, following completion of their Advance-to-Candidacy exam. Students draw on a corresponding range of faculty expertise both within and outside of English and their special committees frequently include faculty from multiple departments.

The following is a list of published doctoral dissertations from the last 5 years, in order of year published, including the names of the alum and their special committee chair. For older data visit the Dissertation Record Archive.

2023

Alumnus Title of Dissertation Chair
Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire Afro-Nationalism: The Transcontinental Poetics of Newly Black Fiction Caroline Levine
Philippa Chun Memento Mori: Attending to the Dead in Nineteenth-Century American Literature Shirley Samuels
Verdie Culbreath Towards a Literary History of the Rest Cure (1869-1931) Elisha Cohn & Dan Schwarz
Christina Fogarasi Therapeutic Culture and the Anti-Confessional Narrator Elizabeth Anker & Elisha Cohn
Laura Francis Irregular Pearl: Spanish-English Translations and for Formation of an English Baroque Philip Lorenz
Kelly Hoffer Against the Transparency of the Word: Metaphor and Visuality in Contemporary American Poetry Elizabeth Anker
Joseph Miranda Browning out: Suspended Relations of Lantinx Literature Mary Pat Brady

 

2022

Alumnus Title of Dissertation Chair
Ama Bemma Adwetewa-Badu Network Poetics: The Making of Anglophone Poetry Jonathan Monroe
Marty Cain

Rural Avant-Garde: Mapping Contemporary U.S. Poetry Collectives Outside
the Metropolis

Jeremy Braddock
Abram Coetsee New York Subway Style Writing: Aesthetics, Infrastructure and Technology Jeremy Braddock
Ben Fried The Empire of English Literature: Editing the Global Anglophone, 1947-1993 Amy Villarejo

Seth Koproski

Did We Believe in Dragons?: The Physiologic Tradition, Wonder and Ethnicity in
Early Medieval Britain and Ireland

Samantha Zacher

Nathaniel Likert Botany of the Mind: Character and Experience in Early Modern England Elizabeth Anker
Austin Lillywhite Raw Feelings: Ecologies of Race and Sexuality in Contemporary
American Literature
Jeremy Braddock

Molly MacVeagh

Maintenance Work: Climate Fiction and Process Biology

Elisha Cohn

Gary Slack Editing Black Aesthetics: Hoyt Fuller, Toni Morrison and 'The Black Book' Andrew Galloway
Seth Strickland Rewrite this Book: Compilation and Experimental Literary Practices in
Piers Plowman and Late Medieval English Book Culture
Caroline Levine
Krithika Vachali Novel Relations: Collection Epistemologies in Nineteenth Centure
British Literature
George Hutchinson

2021

Alumnus Title of Dissertation Chair

Mariana
Alarcon

Living in Excess: Narrating Violence and Presence in Native American
and Chicana Literature

Mary Pat
Brady

Elizabeth
Alexander

Dirty Computers: Erotic Data Poetics

Kate
McCullough

Malcolm
Bare

Implied Shelters

Caroline Levine

Christopher
Berardino

Multitude Modernism: Democratic Epiphany in
American Interwar Literature

George
Hutchinson

Pichaya (Mint)
Damrongpiwat

Fictions of Materiality in the Eighteenth-Century Novel

Laura Brown

Olivia
Milroy Evans

Archiving Otherwise: The Rhetoric, Ethics, and Poetics of Contemporary
Documentary Poetry

Roger Gilbert

Gabriella
Friedman

Speculative Pasts, Radical Politics: Historicizing in Black and
Indigenous Fiction

Elizabeth Anker

Grace Catherine
Greiner

The Poet's Matere: Materiality, Temporality, and the Making of Literary
History in Chaucer and Lydgate's Inset-Lyric Poems

Andrew
Galloway

Noah Lloyd

Caught Up in the Arrangement: Forms of Literary Life in the
Eighteenth Century

Laura Brown

Madeline
Reynolds

Anthropomorphic Representations: Blurring Animal-Human Boundaries
in the Nineteenth-Century Novel

Elisha Cohn

Bojan
Srbinovski

Figures of Catastrophe: Tragedy, Law, and Lateness in Victorian Realism

Ellis Hanson

Elisabeth
Strayer

Victorian Microcosms: Environmental Formalism in the Novel

Elisha Cohn

Hema
Surendranathan

Species and Psyche: Anthropomorphism and Environmentalism in 
Human-Animal Metafiction

Laura Brown

Brianna
Thompson

"The Kinship of Her Pain": Intimate Healing in American Women's Fiction

Shirley Samuels

2020

Alumnus Title of Dissertation Chair
Mariana Alarcon Living in Excess: Narrating Violence and Presence in Native American and Chicana Literature Mary Pat Brady
Elizabeth Alexander Dirty Computers: Erotic Data Poetics Kate McCullough
Malcolm Bare Implied Shelters Caroline Levine
Christopher Berardino Multitude Modernism: Democratic Epiphany in American Interwar Literature George Hutchinson
Pichaya Damrongpiwat Fictions of Materiality in the Eighteenth-Century Novel Laura Brown
Olivia Milroy Evans Archiving Otherwise: The Rhetoric, Ethics, and Poetics of Contemporary Documentary Poetry Roger Gilbert
Gabriella Friedman Speculative Pasts, Radical Politics: Historicizing in Black and Indigenous Fiction Elizabeth Anker 
Grace Catherine Greiner The Poet's Matere: Materiality, Temporality, and the Making of Literary History in Chaucer and Lydgate's Inset-Lyric Poems Andrew Galloway
Noah Lloyd Caught Up in the Arrangement: Forms of Literary Life in the Eighteenth Century Laura Brown
Madeline Reynolds Anthropomorphic Representations: Blurring Animal-Human Boundaries in the Nineteenth-Century Novel Elisha Cohn
Bojan Srbinovski Figures of Catastrophe: Tragedy, Law, and Lateness in Victorian Realism Ellis Hanson
Elisabeth Strayer Victorian Microcosms: Environmental Formalism in the Novel Elisha Cohn
Hema Surendranathan Species and Psyche: Anthropomorphism and Environmentalism in Human-Animal Metafiction Laura Brown
Brianna Thompson “The Kinship of Her Pain”: Intimate Healing in American Women's Fiction Shirley Samuels

2020

Alumnus Title of Dissertation Chair
Kristen Angierski Fictions of Empathy: Embodied Ethics in Contemporary Anthropocene Literature Elizabeth Anker
Esmeralda Arrizón-Palomera The Trope of the Papers: The Coloniality of Citizenship and the Turn to the Undocumented in Black and Chicana Feminist Thought Mary Pat Brady
Gregory Brazeal The Hero & the Victim: Narratives of Criminality in Iraq War Fiction Daniel Schwarz
Amelia Hall   Epigraphic Encounters and the Origins of the English Novel Ellis Hanson   
Matthew Kilbane The Lyre Book: Modern Poetic Media Jeremy Braddock
Stephen Kim Racial Fictions in Early Modern England Jenny Mann
Jonathan Reinhardt Political Secrecy and Theatricality in Marlowe and Shakespeare Phillip Lorenz

 2019

2019

Alumnus Title of Dissertation Chair
Marquis Bey The Blacknesses of Blackness: Fugitivity, Feminism, and Transness Dagmawi Woubshet
David Cosca Demonizing Unions: Religious Rhetoric in the Early 20th Century Strike Novel Eric Cheyfitz
Jane Glaubman Deplorable Cultus: Populism, Globalization, and The Lord of the Rings Amy Villarejo + Jeremy Braddock
Amber Harding        The Not So Great House: Domestic Space, Subjectivity, and Homecomings in the English Modernist Novel Ellis Hanson                                      
Nasrin Olla Reaching for Opacity: Contemporary Afrodiasporic Literature Jonathan Culler +
Margo Crawford
Zachary Price Molecular Terror: Medical Vision, Biopolitics, and Visceral Effects in Contemporary Cinema Ellis Hanson
Ruoji Tang Nature's Persistence: Romanticism and the Rhetoric of Implication Cathy Caruth
Katherine Thorsteinson Narratives of Disposability: Race and Ecology in Contemporary Media Elizabeth Anker
Claire Whitenack Poison and Disease in Anglo-Saxon Medicine and Metaphor Samantha Zacher
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