Valiavitcharska Wins 2007 Outstanding Dissertation Award

Asst. Professor Vessela Valiavitcharska has been selected as the winner of the 2007 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Society for the History of Rhetoric.

The selection committee judged her "dissertation outstanding in many respects, including the significance and uniqueness of the subject, facility with primary and secondary sources, and skillful analysis of complex material," and the committee applauded her for her "imaginative and capable treatment of an important topic in the history of rhetoric." The title of Professor Valiavitcharska's dissertation, completed in Comparative Literature at the University of Texas, is entitled "Rhetoric and Poetics in Byzantine Homilies: The Case of Rhythm."