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THESIS, DISSERTATION, AND DOCTORAL EXAMINATION ADVISEMENT:
Doctoral Dissertations:
Director (47 dissertations)--status on each as of May 2013 (not updated after then):
Meriah Crawford, a dissertation on second-person point of view in selected literature, in progress
Nancy Raftery, a study of Irish playwrights Brian Friel's and Frank McGuinness's Adaptations of Chekhov and Ibsen, in progress
Matthew Ayres, a dissertation on myth, legend, and ideology in selected twentieth-century Irish literature, in progress
Scott Sheets, a dissertation on the supernatural detective novels of Jim Butcher, in progress
Daniel Klyne, George Carlin and the Irish comic tradition, in progress
Alana Sherrill, Place in the Appalachian Poets Ron Rash, Kate Byer, and Robert Morgan, in progress
Sandra Leonard, a study of literary plagiarism in Sterne, Poe, Melville, and Wilde, in progress
Elisabeth Aiken, a dissertation on the fiction of the Appalachian authors Ron Rash and Fred Chappell, in progress
Bradley McDuffie, a biographical and critical study of the contemporary poet Donald Junkins, in progress
Carly Dunn, a dissertation on the contemporary Irish novelist Deirdre Madden, in progress
Andru Lugo, a Panzaic approach to Philip Roth and a few other modern and contemporary novelists, in progress
Wesley Hellman, a cultural studies study of Flann O'Brien, in progress
Dennis Ledden, a dissertation on the influence of Hemingway's wartime lover Agnes von Kurowsky on his fiction, in progress
Francis Altomare, "A Calculus of Fire: Strange Loops and Autopoietic Consciousness in Selected Twentieth-Century Fiction from Joyce to Philip K. Dick--A Cognitive Poetic Approach," March 2013
Ashley Bourne, "Snares Covered in Flowers: Postcolonial Ecocriticism in Early National and Romantic American Fiction, March 2013
Viki Dasher Rouse, "Wilma Dykeman: Wellspring of Ecofeminism in the Appalachian South," 2012
William E. Clough, "Engaging Joycean and Post-Joycean Experimental Novels: Methods of Approaching "Writerly" Texts," 2012
Brett Devido, "From Utopian Dreams to Twentieth-Century Dystopian Nightmares: Modern Fears of the World State and 'Big Brother' in Huxley, Orwell, and Burgess," 2012
Henry C. Stewart, "Questioned Consciousness in the Memoirs of Jean-Dominique Bauby, Julia Tavalaro, and Philippe Vigand: Unlocking and Teaching the Locked-in Writings of the Written Off," 2012
Krista Lewis, "The Unsung and Transformative Power of African-American Urban Adolescent Literature: Using an Adolescent Identity Taxonomy to Understand and Teach Inner-City Students"
Rachal LeBourhis, “Independent Mountaineers: Tracing a Path of Individualism in Selected Appalachian Literature, Film, and Popular Culture,” 2011
Andrew Andermatt, "A Toxic Discourse: Contaminated Hometown Communities in Selected U. S. Ecocatastrophe Prose," 2011
Motasim Almwaja, "Environmentalism, Modernity, Capitalism, and Cultural Hegemony in Six Contemporary Authors," 2010
Matt Babcock, "Private Fire: Robert Francis's Ecopoetry and Prose," January 2009
Lee Hobbs, "Expatriate Spaces, Ex-Soviet Spaces: Narratives of Americans Abroad in Turn-of-the-Millenium Post-Communist Europe," April 2008
Brad Lint, "Teaching College Literature: Educational Alignment and Literature Pedagogy," February 2008
John Hicks, "Randy Wayne White: American Social Philosopher and Practitioner of Ecological Noir," August 2007
Lauri Chose, "Uncharted Arctic Wilderness: Rediscovering the Literary Works of Lois Crisler, Margaret Murie, and Theodora Stanwell-Fletcher," April 2007
Joy Kennedy-O'Neill, "The Sacred and the Sublime: Caves in American Literature," April 2007
Stacey Guill, "Hemingway and 'The Spanish Earth': Art, Politics, and War," November 2006
Joyce Mosher, "Sound Practices: Transforming College Literature and Composition Courses through Aurality and Orality," November 2006
Melanie Wagner, "Raising Cultural Awareness to Enhance the Spirit of Teaching and Learning through the Introductory Literature Classroom of the Community College," October 2006
Katrina Thacker, " Whittling the Double Bind: Appalachian Poets Carving out Tradition and Resistance," February 2006
Sharon Gallagher, "Three Nineteenth-Century Irish Novelists, Their Gothic Myth, and National Literature: Charles Robert Maturin, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and Bram Stoker," March 2004
Claire Norris, "Samuel Beckett and Trauma: Laughter and Tears," February 2004
Patricia Kane O'Connor, "The Stages of Nationalism: A Study of Post-Partition Irish Drama," April 2002
David Pozza, "The Unity of Opposites in the Works of Edward Abbey," November 2001
Mohammed El Nahal, "The Impact of Place on Women Characters in Edna O'Brien's
Fiction", August 2000
Robert Simola, "Teaching in a Postmodern World: A Study of Applications of
Literary Theory to Teaching of High-School English," April 2000
Dennis McFadden, "A House Divided: Strains in the
Modern Irish Big House Novel," June 1999
Shawn Holliday, "`A Passionate and Obscure Hunger for Voyages': Thomas Wolfe
and the American Milieu of Travel Writing," December 1998
Patsy Daniels, "The Voice of the Oppressed in the Language of the
Oppressor: A Discussion of Selected Postcolonial Literature from Ireland, Africa,
and America," November 1998
Michael Gooch, "Medieval Theory, Modernist Text: `Auctoritas' in Pound,
Eliot, Yeats, and Joyce," April 1997
Kurt Krueger, "The Search for Meaning: A Logotherapeutic Approach to Ernest
Hemingway's Life and Work," July 1996
Dallas Dillon, "Reading Differently in Introduction to Literature Courses: A
Study of Contemporary Critical Reading Strategies as They Apply to Classroom
Practice," September 1996
Mark Crilly, "The Political Vision of John Millington Synge," April 1995
Gail Tayko, "Narratives of Exile: Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook and Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits and Eva Luna", May 1994.
Hwa Soon Kim, "The Counterpoint of Hope, Obsession, and Desire for Death in Five Plays by Samuel Beckett," 1992
Qingxiang Wang, "Who Troubled the Waters? A Study of the Motif of Intrusion in Five Modern Dramatists: John Millington Synge, Eugene O'Neill, Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, and Harold Pinter," 1991
Reader (incomplete list):
Margaret Cox, a dissertation on Caribbean literature (Director: Prof. Lingyan Yang)
Leigh Ann Rhea, a dissertation on Walker Percy, in progress (Director: Prof. Christopher Kuipers)
Debra Frances, "Shakespeare's Gardens and Nature Settings: Landscapes of the Reformation's Spiritual Individualism," 2012 (Director: Prof. Ronald Shafer)
David von Schlichten, ""The angel said unto me 'write!'": Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Ecofeminist Homiletics," 2012 (Director: Prof. Todd Thompson)
Scott Hanna, "In Search of the Self, in Search of the Land: Toward a Contemporary American Poetics of Place," 2012 (Director: Prof. Kenneth Sherwood)
Ben West, a dissertation on William Faulkner, 2010 (Director: Prof. Ronald Emerick)
Katrina Quinn, a dissertation on Samuel Bowles, August 2007 (Director: Prof. Karen Dandurand)
Jose Irizary, The Harlem and Latino literary revivals, Fall 1999 (Director:
Prof. Cecilia Rodriguez Milanes)
Peter Narusewicz, The Idea of Wilderness in U. S. Literature, December 1998 (Director:
Prof. Malcolm Hayward)
Charles Baker, "William Faulkner's Postcolonial South," March 1997 (Director:
Prof. Ronald Emerick)
Patricia Linton, "A Floating Perspective: the Relational Self in Contemporary American Fiction," January 1996 (Director: Prof. Patrick Murphy).
Patrick McLaughlin, "Narrative Structure and Narrative Sense: Women's Writing and Identity in the Works of Zora Neal Hurston, Margaret Drabble, and Isabel Allende" (1994) (Director: Prof. David Downing).
Etaf Elbanna, "The 'Mean Streets': A Study of Arthur Morrison's Slum Fiction" (1989) (Director: Prof. Malcolm Hayward).
Adjunct Faculty Advisor, Paula Pratt, Youngstown, Ohio, doctoral project on Irish women writers through the doctoral program of the Union Graduate School based in Cincinnati, 1989-91.
John Woznak, "Loose Compositions: James Arbuckle and the Irish Literary Journal" (1988). (Director: Prof. John McManmon).
Master's Theses:
Director, James Ishler, "Teaching American and English Literature to EFL Students in Tunisia: Methods of Solving Contextual Problems," November 1995
Director, Steven Hazenstab, "Life in the Void, or Watt is Knott is Nought: a Glimpse of the Existential Human Experience as Implied in Samuel Beckett's Watt (1988).
Committee Member, Susan Graf, "Per Amica Silentia Lunae: Yeats's Kabbalism"(1985). (Director: Prof. Richard Hazley).
Doctoral Comprehensive Examinations (an incomplete list of about 75 of them, not updated after May 2013):
Luke Chwala, Long-Nineteenth-Century Gothic Fiction, scheduled for Fall 2013
Karen Smith, Selected American Nature Writing, scheduled for Summer 2013
Meriah Crawford, Second-Person Point of View in Fiction, 2013
Tara Friedman, Family Relationships in Selected Modern and Contemporary Fiction, 2013
Francis Altomare, Twentieth-Century Experimental Novels, 2012
Dennis Ledden, Hemingway, 2011
Henry Stewart, "Crip Lit" (Disability Studies in Literature), 2011
Ashley Bourne, Ecocritical and Place Studies Theory, 2011
Nancy Raftery, Twentieth-Century Irish Drama, 2011
Matthew Ayres, Selected Twentieth-Century Irish Literature, 2011
Scott Sheets, Detective Fiction and the Supernatural, 2011
Leigh Ann Rhea, Ecocritical Theory, 2011
Carly Dunn, Irish Women Authors, 2011
Andru Lugo, Selected Twentieth-Century Novels, 2011
Viki Rouse, Appalachian Women Writers, 2010
Krista Lewis, Theory and College Pedagogy, 2010
Dan Klyne, The Writings of Stand-Up Comics, 2010
Sandra Leonard, Literary Plagiarism, 2010
Alana Sherrill, Appalachian Literature, 2009
Elisabeth Aiken, Appalachian Literature, 2009
William Clough, 20th Century Experimental Novels, February 2010
Brett Devido, Selected 20th Century British Novelists, 2009
Wesley Hellman, Irish Novels 1905-55, September 2009
Ben West, New Historicism, February 2009
Motasim Almwaja, Global/Hometown/"Glocal" Literature, November 2008
Deborah Galliher, Ecofeminist Theory, February 2008
Andrew Andermatt, Regional Place-Based Contemporary American Fiction, November 2007
Jill Wagner, John Fowles, September 2007
Matt Babcock, Robert Francis, August 2007
Katrina Quinn, Ecocriticism, 2006
Lee Hobbs, Literature of the Irish Famine, 2005
Brad Lint, Pedagogy, 2005
John Hicks, Randy Wayne White and other detective fiction writers, 2005
Lauri Chose, Ecocriticism, 2005
Joy Kennedy-O'Neill, Cave literature and other nature writing, 2005
Stacey Guill, Hemingway, 2005
Joyce Mosher, Pedagogy, 2005
Melanie Wagner, Pedagogy, 2005
Katrina Thacker, Appalachian Literature, April 2004
Claire Norris, Samuel Beckett, 2002
Yeonman Kim, Ecocriticism and Postmodernism, September 2001
Deborah Penner, New Historicism, 2001
Heidi Nichols, New Historicism and Feminism, 2000
Mohammed El Nahal, Modern Irish Literature, 1998
Rebecca Steinberger, Twentieth-century Irish Literature, December 1998
Mohammed Gamal, Modern Irish drama and novel, December 1998
Michael Kussmaul, Reception and Reader-Response Theory, November 1998
Ron Grummick, English and Irish modernism, September 1998
Sharon Gallagher, Modern Irish Literature, April 1998
David Pozza, Edward Abbey and related writers, April 1998
Patricia Kane, Modern Irish Literature, September 1997
Robert Simola, Literary Pedagogy, March 1997
Dennis McFadden, Modern Irish Literature, 1997
Shawn Holliday, Modern Irish literature, September 1996
Deborah Young, Feminism and New Historicism, September 1996
Jose Irizarry, Four literary revivals since 1798, January 1996
Luciana Bohne, Modernist Fiction, November 1995
Peter Lecouras, Yeats, February 1995
Margery Vagt, Modern Irish, British, and Irish-American Literatures, January 1995
Kurt Krueger, Hemingway, November 1994.
Patricia Linton, Contemporary International Fiction, November 1994.
Peter Narusewicz, Edward Abbey and related writers, October 1994
Michael Gooch, Modernism, May 1994
Celeste Calderón, Doris Lessing, April 1994
Mark Crilly, Modern Irish Literature, October 1991
Dallas Dillon, Literary Pedagogy, October 1991
Andrew Williams, Modern Irish Drama and Novel, May 1991
Sandra Vrana, Contemporary Fiction, June 1991
Gail Tayko, Modern Novel, July 1990
Hwa Soon Kim, Samuel Beckett and Absurdist Fiction, May 1990
Ross Coombes, Modern Drama, May 1990
Qingxiang Wang, Modern Drama, May 1989
William Yahner, Literary Theory, November 1987
SELECTED GRADUATE STUDENTS' WRITINGS PUBLISHED UNDER MY MENTORSHIP (through only 2007--stopped recording them here after then because I was too busy; at least one dissertation, Matt Babcock's, was published as a book by the University of Delaware Press, more recently):
Jill Wagner, “Back to Bittersweet: Bethlehem as Birthplace in Barbara Dimmick's In the Presence of Horses.” Pennsylvania English, forthcoming; written under my direction in ENGL 785 (summer 2007).
Dickey, William M. “‘Islands’ of Isolation: Hometown Representations of Altoona, Pennsylvania in the Works of John Pielmeier.” Pennsylvania English, forthcoming; ENGL 785 (summer 2007).
Andermatt, Andrew S. “Humor, History, and Tall Tales: Rereading the Adirondack College Student.” Voices: Journal of New York Folklore 33.3-4 (2007): 12–14; ENGL 785 Hometown Literature (summer 2007).
David Pozza, Bedrock and Paradox: The Literary Landscape of Edward Abbey, New York: Peter Lang, 2006; dissertation written under my direction.
Kennedy, Joy. "Tales from the Deep: Mammoth Cave and American Literature." Journal of Kentucky Studies 22 (Sept. 2005): 116-29; from dissertation written under my direction.
Matt Babcock, “Learning Logs in Introductory Literature Courses,” Teaching in Higher Education 12 (2007): 513-23; ENGL 760 Teaching College Literature (summer 2005).
Joy Kennedy, “'Sympathy Between Man and Nature': Landscape and Loss in Synge's Riders to the Sea.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 11 (2004): 15-30; ENGL 764 Modern Irish Drama (summer 2002).
Kennedy, Joy. “Artistry of Hunger: Desire and Appetite in Desert Solitaire.” Western American Literature 38 (2004): 402-16; submitted under my mentorship.
Norris, Claire. “The Big House: Space, Place, and Identity in Irish Fiction.” New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua: A Quarterly Record of Irish Studies 8.1 (Spring 2004): 107-21; ENGL 764 Modern Irish Fiction (Spring 2001).
Patsy J. Daniels, The Voice of the Oppressed in the Language of the Oppressor: A Discussion of Selected Postcolonial Literature from Ireland, Africa, and America, New York: Routledge, 2001; dissertation under my direction.
Shawn Holliday, Thomas Wolfe and the Politics of Modernism, New York: Peter Lang, 2001; dissertation under my direction.
Jones, Margaret Faye. “Bringing New Historicism into the American Literature Survey.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 28 (2000): 186-91; ENGL 752 Literary Theory for the Teacher and Scholarly Writer (summer 1999).
Tucker, Lois P. “Liberating Students through Reader-Response Pedagogy in the Introductory Literature Course.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 28 (2000): 199-206; ENGL 752 Literary Theory for the Teacher and Scholarly Writer (summer 1999).
Shawn Holliday, entries on Austin Clarke, Patrick Kavanagh, and Thomas Kinsella, in Modern Irish Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, ed. Alexander G. Gonzalez (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1998); written under my mentorship.
Patricia Kane, entry on John B. Keane, in Modern Irish Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook (1998); written under my mentorship.
Hwa Soon Kim, The Counterpoint of Hope, Obsession, and Desire for Death in Five Plays by Samuel Beckett, New York: Peter Lang, 1997; dissertation under my direction.
Joyce Stavick, “A Vegetarian Critical Response to Dakota Bones: Becoming a Wrangler of Moral Dilemmas with Linda Hasselstrom,” South Dakota Review 33.2 (Summer 1995): 120-29; EN 752 Literary Theory for the Teacher and Scholarly Writer (Summer 1994).
Shawn Holliday, “Sex and Comedy in Patrick Kavanagh's 'The Great Hunger',” Notes on Modern Irish Literature 7 (1995): 24-41; submitted for publication under my mentorship.
Amy Scher, “Preaching an Ecological Conscience: Liam O'Flaherty's Short Stories,” Éire-Ireland 19.2 (Summer 1994): 113-22 EN 764 Modern British and Irish Fiction (Spring 1990).
Patricia Linton, “'What Stories the Wind Would Tell': Representation and Appropriation in Maxine Hong Kingston's China Men,” MELUS 19.4 (1994): 37-49; written under my direction in EN 752 Literary Theory for the Teacher and Scholarly Writer, Summer 1992.
John D'Ambrosio, “William Butler Yeats's Evolving Drama of Self-Analysis: The Psychoanalytical Process of On Baile's Strand and Purgatory,” Literature and Psychology 39 (1993): 42-51.
Gail Tayko, “Teaching Isabel Allende's La casa de los espíritus (The House of the Spirits),” College Literature, 19.3/20.1 (October 1992 / February 1993): 228-32; written as part of her dissertation that I directed.
Mitsuhiko Ito, “Naming the Characters of Synge's Playboy of the Western World,” Éire-Ireland: The Journal of Irish Studies 27.2 (Summer 1992): 93-101; written under my direction in a Spring 1990 independent study on Irish-English linguistics and literature.
Andrew Williams, “Hero Bloom: The Development of Character in the Calypso Chapter of Joyce's Ulysses,” Midwest Quarterly 33.4 (Summer 1992); EN 764, Spring 1990.
Judith Washburn, “Objective Narration in Liam O'Flaherty's Short Stories,” Éire-Ireland: the Journal of Irish Studies 24.3 (Fall 1989); EN 766 Topics in Comparative Literature: Modernism (Summer 1988).
Last Updated: June 1, 2013