Congratulations to all of our graduate students for the completion of another successful year. In particular, we would like to extend our warmest congratulations to the following students for successfully securing academic positions and winning prestigious external and internal fellowships, awards, and prizes. Their success contributes to ensuring that the Graduate Program of Literatures in English at Rutgers continues to be ranked as one of the top twenty programs in the country.
Graduate Placement
Danielle Bobker, Villanova University (Villanova, PA)
Dissertation: “The Shape of Intimacy: Private Space and British Writing, 1650-1770”
Soyica Diggs, Postdoctoral Fellowship, Stanford University (Stanford, CA), 2006-2007
Dartmouth University (Hanover, NH), 2007
Dissertation: “From Repetition to Reproduction: African American Drama in the African American Literary Tradition”
Kristin Girten, University of Nebraska at Omaha (Omaha, NE)
Dissertation: “Trivial Wonders: Fascination with the Negligible in British Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century”
Karin Gosselink, Yale University (New Haven, CT)
Dissertation: “The Terms of Refuge: Collectivity in Contemporary Fiction”
Natasha Hurley, Macalester College (St. Paul, MN)
Dissertation: “Novel Sexuality: The Queer World-Making of Nineteenth-Century American Literature”
Kelly Josephs, York College, City University of New York (Jamaica, NY)
Dissertation: “Defining Madnesses: Representations of Insanity in Twentieth-Century Anglophone Caribbean Literature”
Shalene Moodie Vasquez, Dartmouth University (Hanover, NH)
Dissertation: “A Serious Joke Dat: Exploring the Role of Humor in Appropriate Black Diasporic Texts”
James Mulholland, Wheaton College (Norton, MA)
Dissertation: “The Sound of Print: Voice in Eighteenth-Century British Poetry”
Carrie Preston, Boston University (Boston, MA)
Dissertation: “Women’s Solo Performance in Dramatic Monologue, Modern Dance, and Autobiography”
Jeffrey Scraba, University of Memphis (Memphis, TN)
Dissertation: “The Politics of Nostalgia and the Signification of Space: Walter Scott and Washington Irving”
Kenneth Urban, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA)
Dissertation: "Cruel Britannia: British Theatre in the 1990s"
Brian Walsh, Yale University (New Haven, CT)
Dissertation: “The Past of Performance: Imagining History through Theater on the Early Modern Stage”
Fellowships, Awards, and Honors
Candice Amich
Jacob K. Javits Fellowship
Paul Benzon
Center for Cultural Analysis Fellowship ( Rutgers University)
Angela Florschuetz
Rutgers Writing Program Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Writing Program by a Teaching Assistant
Virginia Gilmartin
Center for Historical Analysis Fellowship ( Rutgers University)
Massachusetts Historical Society Fellowship
Devin Griffiths
Graduate School–New Brunswick Special Study Opportunity and Pre-Dissertation Research Travel Award: Middlebury College Summer Immersion Program in French ( Middlebury, VT)
Alia Habib
Alumnae Association of Barnard College Graduate Fellowship
Dickens Universe Fellowship ( University of California, Santa Cruz)
Sarah Kennedy
Dickens Universe Fellowship ( University of California, Santa Cruz)
Lauren Lacey
Rutgers Writing Program Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Writing Program by a Teaching Assistant
Regina Masiello
Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education by a Teaching Assistant
Colleen Rosenfeld
Graduate School–New Brunswick Special Study Opportunity and Pre-Dissertation Research Travel Award: “Aestiva Romae Latinitas” ( Rome, Italy)
Alison Shonkwiler
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Dissertation Fellowship ( University of Texas at Austin)
Graduate School–New Brunswick Dissertation Teaching Award
Alexandra Socarides
Emily Dickinson International Society Scholar-in-Amherst Award
Graduate Symposium Prizes
Marius Bewley Prize (for the best essay written in coursework)
Winner: Colleen Rosenfeld
Title: “ ‘Then was I contented, now perplexed’: Epistemology and Style in Wroth’s Urania”
Honorable Mention: Ezra Nielson
Title: “The Deep Sea of One’s Endeavour: Representation and Epistemology in Henry James’ ‘Preface’ to The Golden Bowl”
Catherine Musello Cantalupo Prize (for the best essay on the relationship between literature and religion)
Winner: Colleen Rosenfeld
Title: “Piteous Imitation and Spenser’s ‘Afflicted Style’”
Spencer L. Eddy Prize (for best literary essay accepted for publication in a general or professional journal)
Winner: Alexandra Socarides
Title: “Rethinking the Fascicles: Dickinson’s Writing, Copying, and Binding Practices”
Forthcoming in The Emily Dickinson Journal (Fall 2006)
Catherine Moynahan Prize (for essay of merit on a literary topic)
Winner: Hillary Chute
Title: “‘The Shadow of a Past Time’: History and Graphic Representation in Maus”
Graduate Symposium Papers
Joshua Gang
“Heavenly Bodies, Earthly Understandings: Reading, Re-Reading, and Allegorical Interpretation in The Kingis Quair”
Michael Gavin
“Female Spectators, Women of Understanding, and Gendered Authority in the Periodical Literature of Steele, Addison, and Haywood”
Alan Herring
“Reading the ‘Preface’ to Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac”
Nellickal Jacob
“Wilde, Photography, and the Ownership of Images”
Shakti Jaising
“From Slave to Servant: Christophine’s Journey in A Wide Sargasso Sea”
Alexander Lin
“Dialectics of Nationhood: Zhang Yimou’s Hero and the (R/N)ational Subject”
Piia Mustamaki
“Why Complicity? Suzan-Lori Pak’s Venus and the Politics of Masochism”
Emma Raub
“Foreskins, State Properties, and Ethnic Ambiguity in Robert Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk”
Scott Trudell
“Performing Nostalgia in Campion’s ‘Awake, thou spring of speaking grace’ ”
