2008-2009 Graduate Students
Joshua Adams
Track II: Literature and Philosophy
Research Interests: Lyric poetry
Fourth Year
Melissa Anderson
Track II: History of Science
Research Interests: 19th-Century Science, the Novel, 19th-Century British Literature, 19th-Century French Literature
Dissertation Title: "Pathological Relations: Inheritance, Heredity, and the Family in the Victorian Novel"
Teaching Experience: The Writing Program, The College, UIC College of Medicine
Advanced Residence
Millie Bahn
Track II: Literature & History of Science
Research Interests: Late Nineteenth/Early Twentieth Century American Literature, History of the Neurosciences
Dissertation Title: "American Genius: Character and Representivity"
Teaching Experience: Humanities Core Instructor, "Media Aesthetics" (Fall 2002) and "Readings in World Literature (Winter 2003)
Advanced Residence
Michael Baltasi
Track II: Philosophy and Literature
Research Interests: Ethics, 19th and 20th C Irish Literature, the history of educational systems in Europe and Britain, the German concept of Bildung
Teaching Experience: CMLT 24700 (Modern Anglo-Irish Literature), German Department 100-300 levels, Little Red Schoolhouse, Graham School
Dissertation Title: Ethical Revivals: Irish Literature and Moral Questions
Advanced Residence
Katarzyna (Kasia) Bartoszynska
Track I: English, Polish
Research Interests: Irish literature, the novel, intersections between History and literature, narrative theory, modernity, irony, sympathy, humor, perspective
Teaching Experience: Humanities Core Intern (Readings in World Literature, Philosophical Perspectives in the Humanities); Polish language Drill Instructor; CA for English 24102 “The Idiot as Hero”
Fourth Year
Tristan Bates
Track I: 20th Century German and Turkish Literature
Research Interests: Translation theory, representations of nationality, "body" theory, thing theory, memoirs, lyric poetry
Teaching Experience: Writing tutor at the Colorado College Writing Center 07-08
First Year
Greg Baum
Research Interests: Interested in translation theory, especially the translations from Spanish and Italian to English that were produced during the Baroque/ Early Modern periods. Also interested in how translation theory applies to adaptations across media, primarily from literature to film
Teaching Experience: Oral English teacher at DaoXian No. 2 High School, Hunan Province, China
First Year
Arno Bosse
Track II: German and Film Studies
Research Interests: German Film, Modernism, Film Sound
Teaching Experience: MAPH Preceptor; German Language Instructor; Little Red Schoolhouse Writing Intern
Dissertation Title: "From Kinema to Caligari: Expressionist Cinema in Wilhemine Germany"
Advanced Residence
Joel Calahan
Track II: Literature and Translation
Research Interests: 20th-century American and Italian poetry,
translation theory, multilingual literature, linguistics, philosophy of language
First Year
Ketlen Celestin
Track: II: Literature & Religion
Research Interests: French & Francophone literature; theory and practice of literary interpretation/translation; narratology; anthropology of religion; African spiritualism; phenomenology & epistemology; the aesthetics and politics when traditional culture meets modern society
Teaching Experience: Visiting Instructor, English I &II and African-American Literature (Suffolk Univ-Dakar); Instructor, English I & II (Suffolk Univ); Teacher of English, Literature & Rhetoric (The Governor's Academy); Graduate Assistant, Revisiting the Old World (Kokrobitey Institute)
First Year
Beppi Chiuppani
Track I: English, French, Arabic
Research Interests: 20th c American and Anglophone Literature, Modern Arabic Fiction, Postcoloniality, Theory of Comparative Literature and World Literature, Comparative
Conceptions of Literature
First Year
Gerard Cohen-Vrignaud
Track I: English, French
Research Interests: Romantic Popular Culture; Exoticism in Literature and the Visual Arts; the Aesthetics of Historicist Genres; Race, Sexuality and Imperial Politics
Teaching Experience: French Lecturer in the College, TA for "The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Film and Literature"
Advanced Residence
Don Fette
Track I: British and German Literature and Philosophy
Research Interests: 19th Century British Literature (Romantic and Gothic); German Romanticism; 18th /19th Century German Philosophy; Nietzsche; Epic (Esp. Greek); Aesthetics; History of Philosophy
Teaching Experience: Course Assistant: Fairy Tales; Lector: Little Red Schoolhouse; Humanities Core Instructor: Greek Thought and Literature, Human Being and Citizen, Readings in World Literature; Lector: Effective Writing in Business and the Professions; Writing Intern Training Specialist: Pedagogies of Writing; Lector: Writing for Research: The Critical Importance of 'Problem'; Teaching Assistant: English Composition (Arizona State)
Advanced Residence
Justin Anthony Flosi
Track II: Literature and Music
Research Interests: Lyric in the Italian Renaissance; Epic/Chivarlric Poetry and Opera in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Italy, France, and England; Courtesans, Castrati, and Issues of Gender in Performance
Teaching Experience: French and Italian in the College
Advanced Residence
Laura Freseman
Track I: English, Urdu, Arabic
Research Interests: Orientalism in British literature; 19th Century Urdu Literature; Abbasid Poetry
Teaching Experience: Lector, Little Red School House, Intern, Readings in World Literature
Advanced Residence
Rebecca "Rivi" Handler-Spitz
Track I: Chinese, French
Research Interests: The essay form, economics and literature, history of education, autobiography & self-representation, Renaissance humanism, late Ming dynasty prose, friendship
Dissertation Title: Sign and Substance in the Essays of Li Zhi and Montaigne
Teaching Experience: The University of Chicago: Spring 2006 Lecturer: "Essaying the Essay." Comparative Literature Department. Self-designed course. Winter 2006 Lecturer: "Philosophical Perspectives on the Humanities." Humanities Core. Spring 2004 Writing Intern: "The Bildungsroman East & West." Humanities Core. Full Year 2002-2003 Preceptor: Comparative Literature Department. 2001-2002 Lector: Romance Languages Department. French 101-102 sequence. Fudan University, Shanghai China: 1999-2000 Lecturer: Freshman English. College English Department. Lycee Vial, Nantes, France: 1998-1999 English teacher.
Advanced Residence
Susan L. Hohl
Track II: Music
Research Interests: Romanticism, Nineteenth Century English, French & German Literature and European Art Music,reader-response theory and cognition, creative process
Dissertation Title: "The Reading Liszt: The Alchemy of Words and Music in the Reading Life and Song Composition of Franz Liszt"
Teaching Experience: Graduate Affairs, English (ESL); International House, Writing (ESL)
Advanced Residence
Selena Monika Horn
Track II: Philosophy and Literature
Research Interests: American and German Modernism, History of Literary Theory and Criticism
Dissertation Title: "Unlikely Muse: Rilke in American Poetry"
Teaching Experience: Humanities Intern, and Global Fictions TA
Advanced Residence
Haitham Ibrahim
Track II: Philosophy and Literature
Research Interests: Literature, Philosophy and the social sciences in the Modernist period; interdisciplinary approaches to literature; Modernism; English, Arabic, German literature
Teaching Experience: Instructor: Historical Introduction to Literary Theory (Univ of Jordan, summer 2007), Reading Cultures (Fall 2006), Introduction to English Lit (Univ of Jordan, summer 2003), Humanities Intern: (Reading Cultures, Media Aesthetics, Philosophical Perspectives); Arabic language instruction
Advanced Residence
Fumiko Kitamura
Track I: Japanese as the Major and the 20th C American Literature as the Minor, Spanish (Latin American Lit in the Viewpoint of Modernism Movements in the Future)
Research Interests: Modernism Movements in Early 20th C in Japan and America
Dissertation Title: "Aesthetics and Politics of Modernism in the Japanese Empire"
Advanced Residence
Wing Sze Leung
Track II: Ethics
Research Interests: Ethics and Aesthetics in Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries
Dissertation Title: "Feeling and Judgement: Kant's and Wordsworth's Responses to Rousseau"
Teaching Experience: Instructor in "Reading Cultures", Writing Intern in "Philosophical Perspectives" and "Greek Thought and Literature"; TA, Chinese University of Hong Kong ("Introduction to Comparative Literature", "Literary Criticism", "Stylistics")
Advanced Residence
Valerie M. Levan
Track I: Modern Chinese Literature (1890s-1940s), German 19th C Literature
Research Interests: Chinese May Fourth/New Culture Movement,
new vernacular literature; translation, importation, adaptation of European literature and thought in modern Chinese context. Specifically: Yu Dafu, Creation Society, Romanticism and Irony
Dissertation Title: A Case for Self-Consciousness: Rereading Yu Dafu’s Longing for a World Literature
Teaching Experience: HUM Core Instructor (Readings in World Lit), Preceptor for Comp Lit undergraduate major, Writing Intern (Readings in World Lit), Elementary German for Beginners
Advanced Residence
Stephen Longmire
Track II: Literature and Art
Research Interests: Autobiography; Photography; Image/Text Relations; Landscape Studies
Dissertation Title: "Placing a Life: Autobiography in the Photo-texts of Wright Morris"
Teaching Experience: Dept. of Art, Music & Theatre, Georgetown University; Photo. Dept., Columbia College Chicago; Humanities Common Core, the College
Advanced Residence
William Martin
Track I: German/Polish
Research Interests: Literature, Film, Translation
Dissertation Title: The Better, More Cheerful Life: Socialist
Comedy in the GDR, Poland, and Czechoslovakia
Teaching Experience: (2007-present) Preceptor, MAPH Program, Univ. of Chicago; (2005-2006) Lecturer, Core Humanities
Program, The College, Univ. of Chicago; (2000-2007) Lecturer,
German Dept., Univ. of Chicago; (2000-2002) Adjunct
Instructor, Writing Program, School of the Art Institute of
Chicago
Advanced Residence
Catherine Joan McChrystal
Track I: Latin and Ancient Greek/Modernism/Translation Theory
Research Interests: Classical poetry, especially Ovid, and the Classical Tradition; Classical literature in translation and translation theory; Modernist literature and poetry
Teaching Experience: English writing tutor at the University of Pennsylvania Writing Center and the UIC Writing Center
First Year
Scott Mehl
Track II: Literature and Cinema/Media Studies
Research Interests: Translation theory; emotion theory; narratology
Teaching Experience: EFL (3 years); positions at the Univ of Wisconsin/Madison & the Univ of Wyoming
Third Year
Marta Napiorkowska
Track I: American, Polish, and Czech Literatures
Research Interests: 20th century poetry, philosophy, social thought; social and literary imaginary; non-theological conceptions of soul; the Avant-garde; the Disillusionment
Teaching Experience: Writing Program, Polish Language Instructor
Advanced Residence
Monica Olaru
Research Interests: History of the novel; political philosophy of the 17th and 18th century, the market economy and other forms of social transcendence; time and narrative; heroism, individualism and the autobiographical genre
Second Year
Chandani Patel
Track II: Literature and History
Research Interests: Postcolonial studies, migration & translation theory; modernism and immigrant literature; Indian Ocean & South Asian studies
Teaching Experience: English & Writing tutor at the Upward Bound Program, New York University (3 years)
First Year
Brian Patrick Quinn
Track II: Literature and Anthropology
Research interests: The poetics of poverty and development; political debate in artistic media; theories of media; philosophy of mind
First Year
Jeffrey A Rufo
Track I: English/French
Research Interests: 16th century Anglo-French relations Historiography
Dissertation Title: "Channel Crossings" (topic = Anglo-French Politics and the English History Play)
Teaching Experience: Professor of English (Roosevelt University) - Introduction to Shakespeare (Spring 2007/Fall 2007), Lector (Univ of Chicago Little Red Schoolhouse), Pedagogies of Writing, Univ
of Chicago (Spring/Summer 2007), Instructor (Univ of Chicago Humanities Core), Readings in World Literature (2007/08)
Advanced Residence
Theresa Semler
Track II: Literature and Philosophy
Research Interests: Psychoanalysis, Continental and analytic philosophy, the representation and concept of antisemitism, English, German, French, Israeli literature
Fourth Year
Lauren Silvers
Track II: Literature and History
Research Interests: Fin-de-siècle (1848-1914) French and
German literature; French Symbolism; the intersection of 19th
century literature with the history of science and psychology;
psycho-physiology; pragmatism and phenomenology
Teaching Experience: The Writing Program, University of Chicago; Cowell T.A.ship, UC Santa Cruz—Humanities Core Course
Advanced Residence
Dustin Simpson
Track I: Modern American, British and French Poetry
Research Interests: Poetry and poetry criticism, translation
Teaching Experience: Six years teaching ESL and college
Advanced Residence
John Edward Stone-Mediatore
Track I: American Literature (Major) and 20th-Century French Literature (Minor)
Research Interests: Postmodernist Fiction, Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics, Interrelations of Music and Literature
Teaching Experience: taught courses in Comparative Literature, Indiana University; Intern and Lector in the Writing Program and Humanities, University of Chicago; currently teaching courses in Philosophy and Humanities-Classics at Ohio Wesleyan University
Dissertation Title: "Postmodernism and Schizophrenia: Theory, Literature, Culture"
Advanced Residence
Kathryn Swanton
Track I: Early modern English, Spanish, and Italian drama, and theater theory
Advanced Residence
Arthur T. Thornton
Track II: Literature and Geography
Research Interests: 20th century Anglo-American urban literature and the city
Teaching Experience: Currently at Yokohama National University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Rikkyo University
Dissertation Title: "Representing the Modern City: Tokyo in Late 19th and Early 20th Century Visual and Verbal Arts"
Advanced Residence
Jeanne Tillman
Track I: English and French
Research Interests: Sixteenth and seventeenth English drama, especially plays about France; seventeenth and eighteenth century French drama, especially plays about England
Advanced Residence
Jonathan Ullyot
Track I: French and German 19th-20th century
Research Interests: 20th C German and French novel and theater, philosophy and cultural theory
Dissertation Title: "Aesthetics of Failure: Beckett, Céline, Kafka"
Advanced Residence
Lyubomir-Michele Todorov Uzunov
Track II: History and Literature
Research Interests: English, French, and Italian late 17th and 18th century literature; Moral philosophy; Historical anthropology; Theory and practice of literary interpretation
Third Year
Shengyu Wang
Track I: Chinese, English
Research Interests: Chinese vernacular fiction, Renaissance literature, the epic genre, gender studies, chaos theory, literature and science
Teaching Experience: Fall 2006-Spring 2008: Instructor of Freshman Composition at Iowa State University; Summer 2007: Language facilitator (Mandarin) in Upward Bound Program, Iowa
First Year
Dongfeng Xu
Track II: Religion and Literature
Research Interests: Missionary literature in China
Dissertation Title: "The Culture and Rhetoric of Friendship: When the Occident Meets the Orient"
Advanced Residence