Contact one of our Current Students

Below is information on some of our current students who are willing to speak with prospective students about the program. Feel free to contact them with your questions about life in MAPH, Chicago, or the University. This also offers a cross section of the variety of people who come to the University of Chicago as MAPH students.

Nadja Hansen

Nadja Hansen graduated from The University of Wisconsin- Madison in 2005 with a BA in Art History and spent the last two years interning in the art field in her native NYC. After a year in the Old Masters Department at Christie’s she went on to work as a research intern at an art gallery on the upper east side. She spent much of her time in between college and graduate school traveling and working on her Italian. She hopes to eventually go on to PhD work in Art History and aspires to be a curator at an art museum. She enjoys reading literature and poetry, cooking, wine, and of course a good movie. Guilty pleasure: mysteries by Agatha Christie.
nhansen@uchicago.edu

Dan Gross

Dan Gross graduated from Northwestern University in 2007 with a B.A. in Philosophy and Creative Writing. Finding himself in philosophical upheaval after completing his largely historical continental undergraduate education, he is taking his time at the University of Chicago to explore the contemporary analytic side of things. He has continued his interest in creative writing and makes weak attempts at writing poetry in his free time.
dgross1@uchicago.edu

Carrie Caine

Carrie Caine came to MAPH directly after completing a BA in English Literature with minors in Philosophy, Education, and Leadership and Global Understanding at La Salle University in Philadelphia. Though she thought that she would use the year to study trauma literature and Nietzsche, she’s instead chosen the Cultural Policy Studies option and will spend the year learning how governments and neighborhoods can use culture to create social change. Carrie loves knitting, running, and reading and finds Chicago quite friendly compared to the East Coast.
caine@uchicago.edu

Daniel Robert Siakel

Daniel Robert Siakel graduated from the University of Chicago in 2005 with a B.A. in philosophy and copious academic debt. After eradicating the latter by slaving and slave driving at an industrial supply company that he refuses to name, Dan effected his uncanny return to the University of Chicago by entering the MAPH in 2007. An aspiring philosopher and active musician, Dan has lived in and outside of Hyde Park for the past six years and held internships at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, the Neighborhood Schools Program, and the Community Health Council. Philosophically, Dan has focused primarily on phenomenology, Platonic philosophy, and thinkers of the continental tradition. Ask and ye shall receive.
wizard@uchicago.edu

Alicia Bleuer

Alicia Bleuer came to the University of Chicago from St. Mary’s College of California where she completed her M.F.A. in nonfiction writing. After those two years of creative work, she decided to return to the interests she developed as an undergraduate in English at the University of Iowa, including some unfinished business her BA thesis had with the historical novel and war narratives. In MAPH, Alicia is concentrating her course work in post-colonial literatures, American Modernism, and narrative theory, but is excited also to be able to take classes in film and creative writing this spring. Alicia’s favorite distractions include wandering through the Art Institute, scouring Chicago for California-comparable burritos and sushi, and working tirelessly to master public transportation.
ableuer@uchicago.edu

Lyndsay Walsh

Lyndsay graduated from Columbia College in 2003, where she majored in film editing. After a few years of mediocre jobs she decided to go back to school and change her field of study. She is currently studying art history and is thinking of getting a PhD after the year of MAPH. Lyndsay lives on the north side, at a nice middle point between campus and her family’s house where they feed her if she shows up. As well as attending school she still bartends occasionally, and works for the Chicago Film Archives cataloging films, but if she had free time she would probably be reading anyway.
lyndsayw@uchicago.edu

Brianna Jewell

Brianna received her BA from UC Berkeley in 2003 in English with a minor in Women’s Studies. Before entering MAPH, she worked at an immigration law firm, and at several community-based rape crisis and reproductive rights organizations in the Bay Area and Argentina. She is interested in language, literature, and gender constructions.
bcjewell@uchicago.edu

Chaya Litvack

Chaya Litvack received her A.B. in Classics from Princeton University in 2005. After assisting a literary agent in a theatrical agency in New York for one year, she returned to her native land, Canada, where she privately tutored English and Math while waiting tables. Her current interests include literacy in Ancient Greece, Archaic Greek poetry, and Greek Tragedy.
chayalitvack@uchicago.edu