2009-2010 Dissertation Fellowships Annnounced

Departmental and University support helps enable student success.

Thomas (Jody) Lawton, whose dissertation, "Sophistry and Humanism in the Northern Renaissance" is being directed by Jane Donawerth, has won a Mary Savage Snouffer Dissertation Fellowship for 2009-2010. Three students receive Snouffer Dissertation Fellowships, with its stipend of $20,000, from the College of Arts and Humanities.

Deborah Bailin, who is writing her dissertation, "From the Prehistoric to the Post-human: Animality, Inheritance, and Identity in American Literary Naturalism," under David Wyatt's direction, and Margaret Rice, whose dissertation, "The Ethics of Allegory in Paradise Lost," is being directed by Marshall Grossman, have been awarded Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowships for 2009-2010.  The Wylie Dissertation Fellowship, which carries a stipend of $10,000, is awarded by the Graduate School.

Joanne Roby, whose dissertation, " Private Scandal in the Public Sphere: The Polemical Mode of the Early Eighteenth Century?", is being directed by Laura Rosenthal, has been selected as the English Department's Harman-Ward Fellow for 2009-2010.

Director of Graduate Studies Kandice Chuh was also pleased to announce that departmental dissertation fellowships, in the form of fellowship funding or through multiple course release, have been awarded to three students who submitted exceptionally strong applications as part of this year's departmental fellowship application process.  They are:  Jennifer Wellman, who is writing her dissertation, "Oral Storytelling and the Paradox of Modernist Narrative," under Brian Richardson's direction; Mary Frances Jimenez, whose dissertation, "'This twin of slavery': White Slaves and American Domesticity in U.S. Fiction and Culture, 1839-1914," is being directed by Carla Peterson; and Heather Brown, who is writing her dissertation, "Personal Testimony, Emotional Evidence, and Public Debate: A Case Study of the Post-Abortion Movement," under Jeanne Fahnestock's direction.

The Graduate Studies Committee and department chairr Kent Cartwright keenly recognized the all too limited opportunities available to students for the various campus competitions, and the high quality of all of the dissertation projects as described in the applications submitted for fellowship nomination and support consideration.  Chuh reports that that recognition materialized in the form of course release awards for Katy D'Angelo, Schuyler Esprit, James Goodwin, Stephanie Graham, and Dave Rettenmaier, and as $1,500-$2,500 dissertation research support fellowship awards for Eric Curry, Caroline Egan, Gillian Knoll, Christine Maffuccio, and Kelly McGovern (these latter are students beyond their TA lines and thus ineligible for support by course release).

That there is considerable depth to the scholarly talents of our students is indicated by the fact that two of our doctoral students -- James Hodapp and Jasmine Lellock -- who are just arriving at the dissertation stage of their studies, have been awarded Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowships for 2009 by the Graduate School.