Past Theses

The following thesis titles (with committee chairs in parentheses) should provide a sense of the range of research projects undertaken by our recent MA, MFA, combined MFA/MA, and interdisciplinary PhD students.

Master of Arts

Emma Corby: "Slack in Education: A Voice Platform for Quiet Students" (Stanley)

Master of Fine Arts

Jane Jacob: "Apples and Honey" (Torres)

Cade Yongue: "Homeostasis and Other Plays" (Holt)

Courtney Skaggs: "Lost and Found Futures" (Farmer)

Master of Fine Arts / Master of Arts in Creative Writing and Literature

KJ Janeshek: "Line Your Pocket with Stones" (MFA, Johnson); "'Love Doesn't Cancel Colonialism': Lesbians, Land, and Settler Colonialism" (MA, Coffman)

Aaron Salzman: "The Prince of Labrador" (MFA, Farmer); "Societal Structure, Family, and Masculinity in the Bildungsroman: An Analysis of The Great Santini and Portnoy's Complaint" (MA, Carr)

Master of Fine Arts

Heather Ezell: "What Grows" (Farmer)

Alison Miller: "Artifacts of Belief" (Brightwell)

Keely O'Connell: "Maybe the Same Wolf: Essays" (Farmer)

Mackenzie Williamson: "Memories from Stagebarn Crystal Cave" (Farmer)

Master of Fine Arts / Master of Arts in Creative Writing and Literature

Michael Kay: "The First Finale: Five Stories and a Novella" (MFA, Holt); "The Linguistic Dreamstate: Freud, Lacan, and Intertextuality in Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable" (MA, Coffman)

Master of Arts

Nicole Emanuel: "The Politics of Penguin Pleasure: Why Animal Sexualities Matter to Humans" (Schell)

Master of Fine Arts

Sean Enfield: "Holy American Burnout" (Farmer)

Greg Hindy: "The All-Night MFA Feces Incident: A Photo-graphic 'Novel' (Bark!)" (Farmer)

Daniel Lyew: "Anfechtung" (Johnson)

Rebecca Wood: "Even in Arcadia: Stories" (Farmer)

Master of Arts

Claire-Elise Baalke: "If Women Were Dragons: A Study of the Conquest of Women and Dragons in Ragnar's Saga, The Volsunga Sagas, and The Nibelungenlied" (Harney)

Meryem Udden: "Playacting Happiness: Tragicomedy in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford" (Carr)

Master of Fine Arts

David Aubuchon: "Miserri" (Farmer)

Adrianne Blackwood: "Hearing Colors" (Brightwell)

Regan Campbell: "The Deadly Affairs of John Figaro Newton" (Farmer)

Venus Fultz: "Vestige" (Soos)

Ryan Shek: "There are No Hurricanes in Michigan" (Farmer)

Tiffany Thomas: "Shakemap" (Johnson)

Master of Arts

Casie Cameron: "Voices from the Margins: Seriality in the Introductory Writing Classroom" (Stanley)

Master of Fine Arts

Alex Alfaro: "Recreation" (Johnson)

Heather Aruffo: "The Maiden's Firestorm" (Soos)

Brandi Jo Nyberg: "Floating: Ruminations from the Open-Air Abyss" (Farmer)

Zoë Wise: "Dance, Dance, Dance: Stories" (Soos)

Andrew Luft: "She lives in Ohio" (Kamerling)

Master of Fine Arts / Master of Arts in Creative Writing and Literature

Brianna Frentzko: "Selections from: Nature's Womb & Perhaps Her Grave" (MFA, Brightwell); "Mythic Women Reborn: Djebar’s Scheherazade & Atwood’s Penelope" (MA, Harney)

Master of Arts

Kerstin Aloia: "S.O.S. Eisberg versus S.O.S. Iceberg Two Nations' Visualizations of Arctic Lanscapes" (Schell)

Master of Fine Arts

Alex Alfaro: "Recreation" (Johnson)

Kendalyn Mckisick: "Skin-Tongue" (Johnson)

Jason Namey: "Plastic Alaska" (Brightwell)

Sarah Small: "Leaving Centralia and Other Stories" (Brightwell)

Master of Arts

Summer Dorr: "The Perimeters of Familial Affection: Examples with the Metamorphosis, The Sooterkin, and  A Very Old Man with Enormous                                                  Wings" (Carr)

Elle Fournier: "Control/Contrôle: Comparing Discourses of Power and Rebellion in Hair Care Products" (Stanley)

Tara Knight: "Displacing Phallogocentrism: Fragmented Subjects & Transgendered Bodies" (Coffman)

Tia Tidwell: "Settler Colonial Belonging and Indigenous Erasure in Snow Child and The Raven's Gift" (Carr)

Master of Fine Arts

Micah Allen: "Selections from "The New Color" (Brightwell)

Jennifer Hoppough: "A Reason For Being: A Memoir" (Farmer)

August Johnson: "Bitter" (Hill)

Quintin Overton: "Investigations of the Funhouse" (Hill)

Whittier Strong: "Twin Citizen: A Memoir" (Farmer)

Master of Fine Arts / Master of Arts in Creative Writing and Literature

Kori Hensell: "Astray" (MFA, Hill); "In a Word:" Poetry, Place, and Prophetic Mode of C. D. Wright" (MA, Coffman)

Megan Mericle: "Sparks Across the Gap: Essays" (MFA, Farmer); "The Malleability of Disciplinary Identity" (MA, Stanley)

Master of Arts

Sharon Johnson: "Book Clubs in the ESL Classroom: A Microinteractional Anylysis of Literacy Development in Adult ESL Students" (Carr)

Master of Fine Arts

Lisa Balvanz: "The Music of Water" (Farmer)

Jaclyn Bergamino: "Surface Tension: Circus Performers, Hurricanes, and the Scars of Sexual Trauma" (Farmer)

Master of Arts

Quinn Elizabeth Dreasler: "Tiny Robots in Our Pockets: A Critical Exploration of Podcasts" (Coffman)

Grace Annelyse McCarthy: "The Evolution of the Patient Woman: Examining Patient Griselda as a Source for William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale" (Reilly)

Master of  Fine Arts

Megan Bush: "Porcelain Curtains" (Farmer)

Eric'Alain Parker: "Wolvendael" (Kamerling)

Natalie Taylor: "River of Fear" (Farmer)

Heather Warren: "Short Jabs" (Burleson)

Caitlin Woolley: "The Hound at the End of the Road" (Farmer)

Jonnell Liebl: "We Are Almost Talking" (Burleson)

Kathryn Michael: "Later That Night: Three Studies in Horror" (Kamerling)

Derek M. Hinckley: "What We Teach" (Farmer)

Master of Arts

Victoria Avery: "Connecting Places: Writing About and With Portal" (Stanley)

Danny Dyer: "Sacred Trauma: Language and Recovery in Ingmar Bergman's Trilogy of Faith" (Carr)

Master of Fine Arts

Charles Frost: "The Ministry of Love" (Farmer)

Gwen S. "Wendy" Uzzell: "The Story of E. Lyman Graves: A Dispassionate Exploration of a Hard Luck Harry Who Also Happened to Be My                                                                      Grandpa" (Farmer)

Eric Notaro: "New Places to Burn: Stories" (Farmer)

Jennifer Popa: "The Lost Boys of the Shirley Marie" (Farmer)

Caitlin Scarano: "The White Dog Years" (Burleson)

Master of Arts

Emily Klotz: "The Meeting of Worlds: Postcolonialism and the Game-Worlds of Myst" (Heyne)

Heather Ann Stewart: "James Hogg, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Romantic Anachronism" (Edson)

Master of Fine Arts

Christopher Moran: "Sylph: A collection of poems on mythology, story, and transformation" (Burleson)

Master of Fine Arts / Master of Arts in Creative Writing and Literature

Zackary Medlin: "A Familiar & Favorite Terror" (MFA, Burleson); "Home Sweet (Sint)home: Diagnosing Modernity from Symptom to Sinthome" (MA, Coffman)

Sally Rafson: "A Gun of One's Own: Musings of a Misogynist-loving Feminist" (Farmer)

Master of Arts

Jennifer Hoppough: "Author First, Asian American Second: How a Literary Shift in Asian American Literature is Contributing to a New Wave of Authors" (Carr)

Master of Fine Arts

Ryan Ragan: "As Far as the Light Will Carry" (Burleson)

Mollie Murray: "Metanoia" (Crouse)

Jenni Moody: "This Apocalypse Won't Last Long Enough" (Brightwell)

Christopher Lee Miles: "Squid Song" (Burleson)

Cody Kucker: "Let Planes Be Stars and Brambles Beasts" (Burleson)

Aaron Bauer: "Reasons You Trust a Giant" (Burleson)

Jody Marie Hassel: "To the Root" (Kamerling)

John L. Messick: "Refrigerators at the End of the Road" (Farmer)

Sarah Jane Holsteen: "What Home I Have" (Farmer)

Christie Hinrichs: "A Giant of Its Kind" (Farmer)

Master of Fine Arts / Master of Arts in Creative Writing and Literature

Chris D. Malmberg: "The Moon was for Witches" (MFA, Crouse); "Complicating Swinburne's Heroines" (MA, Carr)

Master of Arts

Ryan Fleharty: "One Large Steppe for Russian Authorship: Gogol's Troika of Settings" (Carr)

Robert Byers: "Animal Companionship in the Middle English Ywain and Gawain: (Grossweiner)

Master of Fine Arts

Elizabeth Sharrock: "Her Firewater" (Thomas)

Edward Kim: "And Other Myths" (Burleson)

Patrick Barney: "In Memory of Days and Nights" (Farmer)

Master of Fine Arts / Master of Arts in Creative Writing and Literature

John Edward Fletcher: "Remedy" (Carr)

Hans Burger: A Vast Tapestry of Madness" (MFA, Crouse); "Counterhistory in the Literature of Juarez" (MA, Grossweiner)

Interdisciplinary Ph.D.

Nathaniel Mohatt: "Shudder: Poems and Essay on Cancer, Care, and Healing" (Burleson)

Sarah Doetschaman: "Margaret Keenan Harrais: A Biography in Four Voices" (Carr)

Master of Arts

Robert Byers: "Animals, Identity, and Companionship in Middle English Literature" (Grossweiner)

Robert Brown: "American Indian Stories: A Guide to the Development of Zikala-Sa's Sioux Identity" (Ruppert)

Nan Lallish: "'Malice Domestic': Exploring the Host/Guest Relationship in Macbeth and King Lear" (Box)

Jacob Pinkston: "Post-Colonial Side Effects: Perceptions of Doctors and Medicine in 20th Century Irish Literature" (Coffman)

Julie W. Ruth: "Never Happy and Honest at the Same Time"; History, Duality, and Impossible Choices in Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated (Carr)

X'unei Lance Arron Twitchell: "Coyote's Song" (Brightwell)

Master of Fine Arts

Jessica Caitlin Bryant: "Hands to Work" (Crouse)

Douglas Scott Cost: "Analog Pop" (Burleson)

Ian Dickson: "Lady on the Bell" (Burleson)

Melina Draper: "Later the House Stood Empty: Poems" (Burleson)

Kevin C. Eib: "Proof of Identity" (Crouse)

A.M. Hartley: "Almanac" (Thomas)

Ryan Henderson: "And the Night Before" (Crouse)

Kate Hove: "Ball and Chain" (Crouse)

Carol Kaynor: "Anchoring the Sky" (Crouse)

Sara Jarvis: "Reading Beneath the Surface: "Jane Austen's Craft(iness) and Her Artful Women" (Dupras)

Ann LaRee Johnson: "Animals and Men" (Heyne)

Gregory Woodrow Lyons: "Winter's Cricket" (Thomas)

Kyle Mellen: "Look At Us" (Crouse)

Tom Moran: "Boundary" (Kamerling)

Brooke O'Shay Sheridan: "Fortitude of the Ordinary World" (Burleson)

Master of Arts

Samantha Grissom: "From Ennui to Egress: Walker Percy's Sovereign Wayfarer" (Coffman)

Master of Fine Arts

Jacob Robert Stephens: "The Cedar Grove and Other Sorrows" (Thomas)

James Harris: "Other Such Matters" (Crouse)

Bryr Ludington: "The Bindle Stiffs" (Crouse)