Graduate Student Research

Dissertations, masters theses, and digital humanities projects.

Dissertations

For more information, see Proquest Dissertation Abstracts

Researching North America: Sir Humphrey Gilbert's 1583 Expedition and a Reexamination of Early Modern English Colonization in the North Atlantic World

  • Nathan J. Probasco
  • Department of History
  • Graduated: January 2013
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Carole Levin


Performing Arguments: debate in early English poetry and drama

  • Maura Giles-Watson
  • Department of English
  • Graduated: 2012
  • Faculty supervisors: Dr. Paul A. Olson and Dr. Stephen M. Buhler

 

"The Future in an Instant": Posthumanism(s) in early modern English drama

  • Farrah Lehman
  • Department of English
  • Graduated: 2010
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Stephen M. Buhler


 Lifting up the serpent in the wilderness: the reader's journey through John Milton's "Paradise Lost"

  • Matthew Scott Stenson
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:2009
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Stephen C. Behrendt


Anglo-Swedish Foreign Relations During the Reign of Elizabeth I

  • Nathan James Martin
  • Department of History
  • Graduated:2008
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Carole Levin


 Borrowed Authority, Satirized Genre: Appropriations of Shakespeare in Charlotte Smith's poetry and novels

  • Joy Marie Currie
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:2006
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Stephen M. Buhler


 Ritual Speech Acts and the Shakespearean Stage 

  • Matthew C. Hansen
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:2005
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Paul A. Olson


Shylock and the Economics of Subversion in "The Merchant of Venice"

  • Hesham Khadawardi
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:2005
  • Faculty supervisors:Dr. Stephen M. Buhler and Dr. Carole Levin


 Almost the Perfect Woman: Public and Private Expectations of Catherine of Aragon

  • Timothy G. Elston
  • Department of History
  • Graduated:2004
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Carole Levin


 Origin and Adaptation of the medieval Theban narrative from Gildas to Shakespeare

  • Jason Gildow
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:2004
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Robert S. Halle


 Geistliche Gesangbuch, geistreiche Gesangbuch: The development of confessional unity in the evangelical hymnbook, 1524-1587

  • Christine Anne Hancock Dempsey
  • Department of History
  • Graduated:2003
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Amy N. Burnett


 A Sound Theology: The Vital Position of Sound and Music to Hildegard of Bingen's Theology and Public Identity

  • Geraldine E. Henderson
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:2003
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Paul A. Olson


 Women's Dress Lexicon from Fourteenth-Century England

  • Traci Leigh Austin
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:2003
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Paul A. Olson


 Studies in African and medieval European mysticism

  • Finnian Ndukwuegbulem Nwaozor
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:2002
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Paul A. Olson


 Bensington Manor and ultimogeniture: A Study of the Influence of Family Dynamics on Manorial Inheritance Practices in Early Modern England

  • Shawndra Lynn Holderby
  • Department of History
  • Graduated:2001
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Carole Levin


 Shakespeare the political man: The second tetralogy and its historical moment

  • Hyo Sik Hwang
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:2000
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Leslie T. Whipp


 Under My Thumb: Women and authority in the literature of Renaissance England

  • Linda A. Krisa
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1999
  • Faculty supervisors:Dr. Stephen M. Buhler and Dr. Leslie T. Whipp


Rhetoric, Romance, and the Structure of Authority in the "Canterbury Tales"

  • Kurtis Boyd Haas
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1998
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Paul A. Olson


 A Critical Edition of Thomas Heywood's "The First and Second Partes of King Edward the Fourth"

  • Whitney Anne Peterson
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1997
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Howard B. Norland


 David of Augsburg's "Profectus Religiosorum" in the Middle English Translation for the Nuns of Syon Abbey: an edition

  • Stephen Eric Hayes
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1997
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Paul A. Olson


 "Don Quijote": A Numismatic and Economic Analysis -- Literary Images of Coinage, Wealth, and Poverty

  • David Brian Fiero
  • Department of Modern Languages and Literatures [Spanish]
  • Graduated:1997
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Elizabeth Wilhelmsen

Chaucer's Vergil, Troy, and the medieval commentary tradition

  • Patricia Heumann Scudder
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1996
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Paul A. Olson


 John Donne's "Songs and Sonnets": In the Light of Renaissance Traditions

  • Linda Ann Schmidt
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1996
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Leslie T. Whipp


 "Assay the power you have": Compromised Subjectivities and English Renaissance literary women

  • Suzy Beemer
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1996
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Moira Ferguson


 The Image of the Blind Cupid in Dream-Vision Poems in the Late Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and early Sixteenth Centuries in England

  • Richard John Cupich
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1992
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Paul A. Olson


 Shakespeare in Korea: 1906-1989

  • Jong-hwan Kim
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1992
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson and Dr. Robert Knoll


 "Paradise Lost" and the commented epic

  • Dennis Scott Brooks
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1991
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson


 Reading the Bower: Critical responses to Edmund Spenser's Bower of Bliss in the 1980's

  • Robert Charles Miliken
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1990
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Robert D. Stock


 "Paradise Lost" as Reformation history

  • Joseph David Boocker
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1988
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson


 The Master Mined and Mimed: Shakespeare's use of Chaucer in The Two Noble Kinsmen

  • Nancy Bernhardt Holland
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1987
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson


 Titanic Rebellion: the promethean iconography of Milton, Blake, and Shelley

  • Linda M. Lewis
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1984
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson and Dr. Leslie Whipp


 Musical Imagery in the Poetry of Juan Ruiz, Guillaume de Machaut, and Chaucer: a comparative study

  • David G. Lonoue
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1981
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson


Genius and Other Related Allegorical Figures in the De Planctu Naturae, the Roman de la Rose, and the Confessio Amantis, and the Faerie Queene

  • Herbert David Brumble
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1970
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson


 Chaucer and the Just Society: conceptions of natural law and the nobility int he Parliament of Fowls, the Knights Tale, and the Portraits of Miller and Reeve

  • Bruce Kent Cowgill
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1970
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. John W. Robinson


 Middle English Debate Poems: a genre study

  • Dvaid Elwood Lampe
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1969
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson


 Chaucer and Lydgate, and the uses of history

  • Curtis Lee McCray
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1968
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. John W. Robinson


 The artes praedicandi and Chaucer's Canterbury preachers

  • Doris Evaline Thompson Myers
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1967
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson


 The Canterbury Tales and late fourteenth-century chivalry: literary stylization and historical idealism

  • Thomas Jension Hatton
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1966
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson


 Shakespeare and the golden world of the pastoral

  • Richard Harold Henze
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1965
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Robert E. Knoll


 Hercules and the Faerie Queene

  • Anthony William Wolk
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1965
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson


 The Pilgrimage of the Red Cross Knight

  • Vernon James Torczon
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:1960
  • Faculty supervisor: Dr. Paul A. Olson

Masters Theses

Lucas Cranach's Samson and Delilah in Northern European Art

  • Jacqueline S. Spackman
  • Department of Art & Art History
  • Graduated:May 2015
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Alison Stewart


From England's Bridewell to America's Brides: Imprisoned Women, Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure", and Empire

  • Alicia Meyer
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:April 2015
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Julia Schleck


 Jewel of Womanhood: A Feminist Reinterpretation of Queen Katherine Howard

  • Holly Kizewski
  • Department of History
  • Graduated:June 2014
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Carole Levin


 Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice": the 'Productions' of National Identity in the Face of the Other

  • Eder Jaramillo
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:December 2013
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Julia Schleck


 A Widow's Will: Examining the Challenges of Widowhood in Early Modern England and America

  • Alyson D. Alvarez
  • Department of History
  • Graduated:May 2013
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Carole Levin


 "In Counterfeit Passion": Cross-dressing, Transgression, and Fraud in Shakespeare and Middleton

  • Anastasia S. Bierman
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:May 2013
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Julia Schleck

Zoomorphic Penannular Brooches in 6th and 7th Century Ireland

  • Esther G. Ward
  • Department of Art & Art History
  • Graduated:December 2012
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Alison Stewart


 "So Stirring a Woman Was She": A Closer Look at Early Modern Representations of Matilda, Lady of the English

  • Megan L. Benson
  • Department of History
  • Graduated:Spring 2012
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Carole Levin


 The Cultural Significance of Precious Stones in Early Modern England

  • Cassandra Auble
  • Department of History
  • Graduated:June 2011
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Carole Levin


 "A Very Goddess of Persuasion": Mary Dudley Sidney as an Exemplar of Women's Political Significance in Elizabethan England

  • Catherine Medici-Thiemann
  • Department of History
  • Graduated:May 2011
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Carole Levin


 Piracy, Slavery, and Assimilation: Women in Early Modern Captivity Literature

  • David C. Moberly
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:May 2011
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Stephen Buhler


 Fearing the "Turban'd Turk": Socio-Economic Access to Genre and the "Turks" of Early Modern English Dramas and Broadside Ballads

  • Katie S. Sisneros
  • Department of English
  • Graduated:Spring 2010
  • Faculty supervisor:Dr. Stephen Buhler

Digital Humanities Projects

Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart by Andrea Nichols