current grad students
M.A. Students
Wilfred Bradford
I am a first year M.A. student with a B.A. (Hons) in English from the University of Lincoln in the UK. My research interests include literary forms of traumatic expression, ecocriticism and memory, and concepts of "hyperreality" in contemporary culture.
Michael Chiappini
I am a first year M.A. student and hold B.A.s in English and Philosophy from Slippery Rock University. My academic interests include queer theory, deconstruction and poststructuralism, film and film theory, postmodern literature, contemporary American literature, and Native American literature.
Hannah Fogarty
I am a first year M.A. student. I received my B.A. in English with a minor in Art History from Kent State University in 2011. I am interested in modernism, gender studies, and Marxism.
Zachary Hacker
I'm a first year M.A. student with a B.A. in both English and History from the College of Mount Saint Joseph in Cincinnati (2012). My interests include post-colonial theory/literature, speculative fiction, post-modernism, and the international politics of language.
Cara Miller
I am a second year M.A. student focusing on postwar American literature and new media. I received my B.A. in English from Ohio University in 2011.
Mark Mowls
I have B.A.s in English and in Film Studies from Ohio State University (2002) and interests in film studies, visual culture and rhetoric, and British and expatriate American modernism.
I am a second year M.A. candidate with academic interest in poststructuralism, film, queer theory, and the effects of technology. I hold a B.A. in English from Ohio University (2011).
Matthew Trammell
I am a second year M.A. student and hold a B.S. in English from Troy University (2009). My historical periods of study include the late Victorian, Edwardian, and Modern; my theoretical interests lie in material culture studies, phenomenology, and the study of ‘things.’
Wendy Wei
I am a second year M.A. student interested in Victorian literature and philosophy.
Ph.D. Students
Wells Addington
I'm a Ph.D. candidate focusing on contemporary American literature. I hold a B.S.S. from Ohio University in American Studies (2004), and an M.A. in English from Case Western (2007). My interests include the sociology of texts, new media studies and creative writing. My dissertation, Discipline and Publish: Creative Writing, Corporate Publishing, and the Short Story Renaissance (1975-85), examines an anomalous moment in which single-authored short story collections sold well in the literary marketplace.
Mary Assad
I am a Ph.D. candidate in my first year of dissertation research. I am interested in studying how the general public learns about health issues through educational texts, and further how such texts shape individuals’, and particularly women’s, self-perceptions. For my dissertation, I am conducting a rhetorical analysis of the American Heart Association’s “Go Red for Women” campaign, exploring how women learn about heart health and heart disease through the campaign and how they respond to this information as expressed in first-person narratives. My teaching interests include ESL and Writing in the Health Professions. I have earned a B.A. in History from Baldwin-Wallace College (2006) and an M.A. in English from Case Western (2009), as well as a TESL certificate (2008).
Varsha Balachandran
I'm a third-year Ph.D. student focusing on cross-cultural American literature, specifically
multi-ethnic literature. I hold a B.A. in English from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India (2006), and an M.A. in English from The University of Akron, Ohio (2009). My interests include issues of identity in cross-cultural texts, particularly in observing how 'identity' is reached in
a cross-cultural, multi-ethnic context. I am currently preparing to give my qualifying examination later this year.
Drew Banghart
As a third year Ph.D. student, I am preparing for my qualifying exams and beginning work on my dissertation which will explore the ways Victorian literature and psychology theorized the body's role in the growth of the mind. I focus on such major Victorian authors as Robert Browning, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. More broadly, my research interests include medical humanities, science studies, issues of embodiment, posthumanism, and composition and technical communication.
Cara Byrne
I am a second year Ph.D. student, and my academic interests include children's literature, African-American literature, gender studies, and ESL pedagogy. I earned my B.S. in Education and my B.A. in English from Bowling Green State University (2009) and my M.A. in English from Case Western Reserve University (2011). I am also licensed to teach middle school and high school integrated language arts in Ohio.
Jason Carney
I am a third year Ph.D. student who is interested in aesthetics, pulp fiction, modernist literature, and the history of Anglo-American literary criticism. I am attracted by questions of literary value, that strange divide between "high" and "low." For fun I write stories of robots, sorcerers, and other novums.
Thom Dawkins
Having earned my M.F.A. in poetry at Chatham University and my M.T.S. at Vanderbilt Divinity School, I am coming to CWRU from Columbia, Missouri, where I spent over a year teaching creative workshops and college composition. I also serve as the Reviews Editor for Weave Magazine and contribute regularly to the Los Angeles Review.
Kate Dunning
A Ph.D. student focusing on 19th- and 20th- century American poetry, my interests include Emily Dickinson, ecocriticism, and third wave feminism. I hold a B.A. in English and French with a minor in Spanish (2008), as well as a Master’s in Library Science (2009) from the University at Buffalo. I also spent the 2009-2010 academic year teaching English at the University of Maroua in Cameroon (Central Africa) as a Fulbright grantee.
Eric Earnhardt
I hold a B.A. in English from Geneva College (2006) and an M.A. in Literary History from Ohio University (2011). I am a second year Ph.D. student focusing on ecology and literature, critical theory, and issues of environmental and social justice in American literature.
Nicole Emmelhainz
As a Ph.D. student focusing on writing studies, I'm specifically interested in how digital/new media technologies and feminism and gender studies influence writing classrooms. I hold a B.A. in English (Professional Writing) from Capital University, as well as a Master’s in English (General Studies) from Ball State University and a Master’s in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Ohio University.
Catherine Forsa
I hold a B.A. in English from Fairfield University and an M.A. in English from Seton Hall University. My research interests include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American literature and Writing Studies, especially medical rhetoric and the intersection of literature and medicine.
Jennie Giaconia
I am a Ph.D. student interested in History and Theory of Rhetoric and Composition, Life Writing, and the Teaching of Writing.
Kristin Kondrlik
I am a second year Ph.D. student participating in the WHiT program, and my research interests include new media studies, medical rhetoric, and literature of the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods. I received my B.A. in English and Political Science from Canisius College (2008) and my M.A. in English from Case Western Reserve University (2011).
Claire McBroom
I received my B.A. in English with a minor in Art History from Bowling Green State University (2010), and my M.A. in English from John Carroll University (2012), where I worked as a graduate assistant in the First-Year Writing program. I am most interested in contemporary literature, as well as film, television, and pop culture studies, and my research and teaching typically considers gender, sexuality, marriage and romantic relationships, performance and social construction, and notions of modernity and postmodernity.
Michelle Lyons-McFarland
I'm a first-year Ph.D. student focusing on 18th-century British literature. I hold a B.A. in English and Humanities from the University of Washington (2010) and an M.A. in English from Case Western Reserve University (2012). Areas of academic interest for me include reader/author/publisher communities and relationships, gothic literature, and composition.
Marcus Mitchell
I hold a B.A. in English from Illinois Wesleyan University (2008) and M.A. in English from Case Western Reserve University (2011). My research interests include Victorian literature and culture, gender studies, and Edwardian fiction.
Monica Orlando
I received a B.A. (2005) and M.A. (2008) in English from John Carroll University, and I taught high school English for two years before coming to Case to work toward my Ph.D. My academic interests include 19th- and 20th-century American literature, autobiographical writing, and disability studies, particularly life writing about disability.
Michael Parker
I am a Ph.D. student focusing on queer theory and late 20th-century American literature and poetry. My primary areas of interest are queer temporalities, utopias and aesthetics. I received my B.A. in Russian Language and Literature from the University of Pittsburgh in 2007 and my M.A. in English from Case Western in 2011.
Jessica Slentz
I am a first year Ph.D. student interested in digital literacy, new media, multimodal composition and visual rhetoric. I hold a B.A. in Professional Communication and Information Design from Nazareth College, an M.A. in Creative Writing from Kingston University, London, UK, and an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Rochester.
Gregory Summers
I am a Ph.D. student interested in visual rhetoric and new media studies. My dissertation topic is “Sustainability Reporting in the Age of New Capitalism: A Textually-Oriented Discourse Analysis of the Global Reporting Initiative.”
Scott Weedon
I graduated from Loyola University of Maryland with a B.A. in English and from Case Western Reserve University with an M.A. in English. I am a Ph.D. student and I focus on professional communication, rhetorical theory, and narratology.