Recent Dissertations

Michael Kilburn, Ph.D., Spring 2001
The Czech Underground during Normalization
Committee: Angelika Bammer, Advisor; Walter Adamson, Irena Grudzinska-Gross

Evan Lieberman, Ph.D., Spring 2001
Slapstick Comedy and American Culture, 1912-1928
Committee: David Cook, Advisor;

Sarah Jane Smith, Ph.D., Spring 2001
Madame Jeanne Guyon and Her Justifications
Committee: Robert Paul, Advisor; Joyce Flueckiger, Judith Miller

Angela Cotten, Ph.D., Summer 2001
Alice Walker & Revolution
Committee: Cris Levenduski, Advisor; Ivan Karp, Thomas Flynn, Mark Sanders

Jean-Marie Dauplaise, Ph.D., Summer 2001
H.D./D.H. & Textual Healing
Committee: Robert Paul, Advisor; Maximilian Aue, Robert Detweiler, Ronald Schuchard

Michelle Wilkinson, Ph.D., Summer 2001
Socio-Aesthetics of Black and Puerto Rican Arts Movements, 1962-1982
Committee: Rudolph Byrd, Advisor; Richard Long, Angelika Bammer, Mark Sanders

Robert Arjet, Ph.D., Fall 2001
Gunplay: Men, Guns and the Hollywood Action Film
Committee: Catherine Nickerson, Advisor; Michael Bellesiles, David Cook

Victoria Hesford, Ph.D., Fall 2001
The Feminist as Lesbian Figure and the Forgetting of the Women’s Movement
Committee: Amy Lang, Advisor; Julie Abraham, Angelika Bammer

Edward Gamarra, Ph.D., Spring 2002
Comedy and Perversion
Committee: Robert Paul, Advisor; Matthew Bernstein, Angelika Bammer

Calinda Lee, Ph.D., Spring 2002
Gender, Race, and Class and African-American Suburbanization 1837-1999
Committee: Dana White, Advisor; Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Cindy Patton

Dan Madera, Ph.D., Spring 2002
At Home in the Tropics: American Writers in Latin America
Committee: Daniel Cottem, Advisor; Catherine Nickerson, Thomas Flynn

Lisa Madera, Ph.D., Spring 2002
The Virgin and The Volcano: Helaing Alliances in the Equadorian Andes
Committee: Paul Courtwright, Advisor; Angelika Bammer, Robert Paul, Ellen Schattschneider

Krista Thompson, Ph.D., Spring 2002
The Picturesque and the Aesthetics and Politics of Space: Jamaica and Bahamas
Committee: Ivan Karp, Advisor; Judith Bettleheim, Richard Long, Natasha Barnes

Mark Nunes, Ph.D., Fall 2002
Virtual Topographies: The Internet and the Spaces of Everyday Life
Committee: Cynthia Patton, Advisor; Allen Tullos, John Johnston

John Richardson, Ph.D., Fall 2002
Green Chain: Work in a Western Mill
Committee: Robert Paul, Advisor; Ivan Karp, Cory Kratz

Brant Vogel, Ph.D., Fall 2002
Weather Prediction in Early Modern England
Committee: Edna Bay, Advisor; Shigehisa Kuriyama, Robert Silliman, c. Woodbridge Hickcox

Amy Wood, Ph.D., Fall 2002
Spectacles of Suffering: Witnessing Lynching in the New South, 1880-1930
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Catherine Nickerson, Gary Laderman, Dan Carter

Jason Breyan, Ph.D., Fall 2003
Traumatic Returns: War Neurosis and American Home in 1940’s Hollywood Film and
Popular Culture
Committee: Catherine Nickerson, Advisor; Robert Paul, Angelika Bammer

Francis Desiderio, Ph.D., Fall 2003
Centering the City: John Portman and Private Plans for Public Space in Atlanta and Detroit
Committee: Dana White, Advisor; Allen Tullos, Judith Rohrer

Amira Jarmakani, Ph.D., Spring 2004
Disorienting America: The Legacy of Orientalist Representations of Arab
Womanhood in US Popular Culture
Committee: Angelika Bammer, Advisor; Catherine Nickerson, Kristen Brustad

Michael McGovern, Ph.D., Spring 2004
Unmasking the State: Developing Modern Political Subjectivities in 20th Century Guinea
Committee: Ivan Karp, Advisor; Cory Kratz, Bruce Knauft, Edna Bay

Miriam Petty, Ph.D., Spring 2004
Doubtful Glory: 1930’s Hollywood and the African American Actor as Star
Committee: Rudolph Byrd, Advisor; Matthew Bernstein, Mark Sanders,
Kimberly Wallace-Sanders

Angela Kreider, Ph.D., Summer 2004
To Love All That Pleases: Autobiography, Dialectic and the Women’s International
League for Peace and Freedom, 1919-1939
Committee: Angelika Bammer, Advisor; Catherine Nickerson, Walter Adamson

Heidi Nordberg, Ph.D., Summer 2004
Imagining the Virus: A Discourse Analysis of Contemporary Fiction
Committee: Robert Paul, Advisor; David Jasper, Walter Reed

David Pratt, Ph.D., Summer 2004
Fit Food for Madhouse Inmates: The German Film Invasion of 1920-1922
Committee: Angelika Bammer, Advisor; David Cook, Matthew Bernstein

Jay Straker, Ph.D., Summer 2004
The Fate of an African Revolutionary Curriculum: Forest Youth and The Cultural
Production of Guinea Nationalism
Committee: Ivan Karp, Advisor; Edna Bay, Cory Kratz, Valerie Loichot

Eldon Birthwright, Ph.D., Spring 2005
Rastafari as a Theology of Liberation: Toward a Re-Engineering of Blackspace
Committee: Richard Long, Advisor; Leroy Davis, Noel Erskine

Steven Cook, Ph.D., Spring 2005
Remembering and Forgetting Abram Kardiner: His Life and Legacy in the Show
of Freud’s Influence
Committee: Robert Paul, Advisor; Brad Shore, Beth Seelig

Kent Glenzer, Ph.D., Spring 2005
Politics is a thing that passes: A Historical Ethnography of Power, Democracy, and Development in the Pondori Flood Plains, Mali, c. 1818-2004
Committee: Edna Bay, Advisor; Ivan Karp, John Boli

Michael Hill, Ph.D., Spring 2005
New Age in the Andes: Mystical Tourism and Cosmopolitan Religious Culture
in Cusco, Peru
Committee: Ivan Karp, Advisor; Robert Paul, Gary Laderman, Kathryn Kozaitis

Steven Levin, Ph.D., Spring 2005
The Capacity to be at Home: Commodity Aesthetics and Anglophone Travel Writing
of the Late Twentieth Century
Committee: Robert Paul, Advisor; Angelika Bammer, Paul Courtwright

Julie Sexeny, Ph.D., Spring 2005
Oops, I did it again: An Evaluation of Girl Subjectivity in Children’s Films, 1989-2000
Committee: Angelika Bammer, Advisor; Robert Paul, Matthew Bernstein

James Steffen, Ph.D., Spring 2005
A Cardiogram of the Time: Sergei Parajanov and the Politics of Nationality and Aesthetics
in the Soviet Union
Committee: David Cook, Advisor; Angelika Bammer, Matthew Payne, Karla Oeler

Lynnell Thomas, Ph.D., Spring 2005
Race and Erasure in New Orleans Tourism
Committee: Cynthia Patton, Advisor; Mark Sanders, Dana White

Saul Tobias, Ph.D., Spring 2005
Pathos and the Human Sciences: Reading Nietzsche, Weber and Mannheim
Committee: Ivan Karp, Advisor; Thomas Flynn (Co-Director), Kevin Corrigan

Antonio de Velasco, Ph.D., Summer 2005
Claiming the Center: The Rhetoric of Political Transcendence in the Clinton Era
Committee: Elizabeth Goodstein, Advisor; Cris Levenduski, Jeff Walker

Emily Satterwhite, Ph.D., Summer 2005
Locally Colored: Popular Fiction of Appalachia and Geographies of Reception
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Cris Levenduski, Michael Elliott

Katherine Skinner, Ph.D., Fall 2005
That We All Be Free: Music and Social Change
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Cris Levenduski, Timothy Dowd

Terry Easton, Ph.D., Spring 2006
Temporary Work, Contingent Lives: Race, Immigration, and Transformations of
Daily Work, Daily Pay
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Dana White, Mary Odem

Robert Goddard, Ph.D., Spring 2006
Sugar as Stranger: Sugar Monoculture and the Coming of Creole Consciousness
in the Caribbean
Committee: Ivan Karp, Advisor; David Eltis, Judith Roark, Jeffrey Lesser

Martin Halbert, Ph.D., Spring 2006
New Models for Research Libraries in the Digital Age
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Billy Frye, Joan Gotwals, Cynthia Patton 

George Johnston, Ph.D., Spring 2006
Drafting Culture: A Social History of Architectural Graphic Standards
Committee: Dana White, Advisor; Ivan Karp, Cris Levenduski

Rohit Chopra, Ph.D., Summer 2006
Mediated Visions: Technology and Nationalism in India from the Colonial Era
to the Current Age
Committee: Allen Tullos and Cynthia Patton, Advisors; Irene Browne, Laurie Patton

Ellen Spears, Ph.D., Summer 2006
Toxic Knowledge: A Social History of Environmental Health in the New South’s
Anniston, Alabama, 1872-Present
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Cris Levenduski, Howard Frumkin, Dan Carter

Eddy von Mueller, Ph.D., Fall 2006
The Acme Aesthetic: Violence, Visual Culture and the Impact of the Animation on
Contemporary Cinema
Committee: David Cook, Advisor; Matthew Bernstein, Catherine Ross

Stuart Patterson, Ph.D., Fall 2006
A New Pattern of Life: The Public Past and Present of Two New Deal Communities
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Ivan Karp, Steven Tipton

Gordon Jones, Ph.D., Spring 2007
Gut History: Civil War Reenacting and the Making of an American Past
Committee: Ivan Karp, Advisor; Dana White, Corinne Kratz, James Roark

Pellom McDaniels, III, Ph.D., Spring 2007
The Angle of Ascent: Race, Class, Sport and Representations of African American Masculinity
Committee: Rudolph Byrd, Advisor; Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, Dana White

Margaret McGehee, Ph.D., Spring 2007
On Margaret Mitchell's Grave: Women Writers Imagining Atlanta, 1941-2006
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Cris Levenduski, Michael Elliott, Dana White

Robert J. Patterson, Ph.D., Spring 2007
Many Are Invited, But Few Are Chosen: Civil Rights, Historical Memory, and the Figure of the 'Chosen' One in the African American Literary Tradition, 1971-1989
Committee: Michael Awkward, Advisor; Rudolph Byrd, Dianne Stewart

Donna Troka, Ph.D., Spring 2007
The Kings of the Midwest: An Oral History of Three Midwestern Drag King Troupes
Committee: Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, Advisor; Saralyn Chestnut, Layli Phillips (GA State)

Stacy Boyd, Ph.D., Summer 2007
Black Men Worshipping: Intersecting Anxieties of Race, Gender and Christian Embodiment
Committee: Rudolph Byrd, Advisor; Mark Sanders, Diane Stewart, Kimberly Wallace-Sanders

Brent Campney, Ph.D., Summer 2007
"And This is Free Kansas': Racist Violence, Black and White Resistance, Geographical Particularity and the 'Free State' Narrative in Kansas, 1865 to 1914
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, Jonathon Prude

Meheli Sen, Ph.D. Spring 2008
Discontented Modernities: Gender, Genre and Nation in Post-Independence Hindi Cinema
Committee: Matthew Bernstein, Advisor; Deepika Bahri, Kevin Corrigan and Paul Courtright

Petrina Dacres, Ph.D., Spring 2008
Modern Monuments: Fashioning History and Identity in Post-Colonial Jamaica
Committee: Richard Long, Advisor; Natasha Barnes, Dahlia Judovitz

Steve Bransford, Ph.D., Summer 2008
Trying to Make it Real: The Documentary Imagination of American Roots Music
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Anna Grimshaw, Tim Dowd

Ryan Hays, Ph.D., Summer 2008
Fashioning Our Own Freuds: Psychoanalysis and Religion
Committee: Allen Tullos, Advisor; Angelika Bammer, Kevin Corrigan, Dean Robert Paul

Charles Ngugi, Summer 2008
Free Expression and Authority in Contest: The Evolutiion of Freedom of Expression in Kenya
Committee: Edna Bay, Advisor; Abdullah An-Naim, Angelika Bammer