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English

In its Honors Program the English Department awards only Honors to successful student research projects (effective May 2017). The projects listed below have been defended successfully, and a copy of the thesis deposited in Swem Library. Click on highlighted links to access the thesis.

Key:
  • Student, "Thesis" (Honors level)
    Committee Chair + Other Committee Members
2023-2024
2022-2023
2021-2022
2020-2021
2019-2020
2018-19
2017-18
2016-17
2015-16
2014-15
2013-14
2012-13
2011-12
2010-11
2009-10
2008-09
2007-08
2006-07
  • Ashley Ahlbrand, "Katherine Anne Porter's Search for a Narrative for the Female Artist as a Young Woman" (High Honors)
    Susan Donaldson + Liz Barnes, Walter Wenksa, Kathleen Slevin
  • Naomi Dreyer, "'We Belong Nowhere': Exile and Identity in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Rohinton Minstry's A Fine Balance, and Arundhati Roy's The God of Sma" (Honors)
    Simon Joyce + Deborah Morse, Nancy Gray, Chitralekha Zutshi
  • Lauren Klapper-Lehman, "'That All-Presupposing Fact': Darwinian Narratives and Gender Concerns in Elizabeth Gaskell's Sylvia's Lovers and Wives and Daughters and George Eliot" (High Honors)
    Deborah Morse + Christy Burns, Simon Joyce, Kathrin Levitan
  • Sally Masters, "Secular Pilgrims: Nineteenth-Century American Refigurations of The Pilgrim's Progress" (Honors)
    Melanie Dawson + Jennifer Putzi, Susan Donaldson
  • Kelli Monahan, "Li Chi" (High Honors)
    Henry Hart + Tom Heacox, Emily Pease, Xin Yang
  • Jenna Morgan, "Duende's Shadow: A Novel" (High Honors)
    Eva Burch, + Emily Pease, John Gamber, Silvia Tandeciarz
  • Brittney Pescatore, "Beyond the Boundaries of Definition: A Vocabulary of Process Applied to the Contemporary American Short Story" (Honors)
    Nancy Gray + Colleen Kennedy, Jackie McLendon, Laurie Wolf
  • Vandhana Rao, "The Re-Writing of Feminine Aesthetic in Charlotte Bronte's Villette and George Eliot's Daniel Deronda" (High Honors)
    Deborah Morse + Simon Joyce, Christy Burns, Laurie Wolf
  • Colleen Schneider, "Reinterpreting the Word and Redefining the Sacred: Johannine Language and Themes in the Works of the Bronte Sisters" (Honors)
    M. Potkay, D. Morse + Terry Meyers, Mary Ann Melfi, John Morreall
  • Matthew Sherrill, "The Anxiety of Acquaintance and the Inevitability of Influence: Matthew Arnold, William Wordsworth, and their Personal and Poetic Relationship" (High Honors)
    Terry Meyers + Deborah Morse, Kim Wheatley, Kathrin Levitan
  • Kirsten Simonsen, "A Comedian's Tragedy: Colley Cibber versus the Canon" (Honors)
    Brett Wilson + Paula Blank, Erin Minear, Richard Palmer
  • Robin Smith, "The Poetics of Duty: Revovering the Poetry of Rose Terry Cooke" (High Honors)
    Jennifer Putzi + Liz Barnes, Hermine Pinson, Philip Daileader
2005-06
  • Margo Dey, "Capturing 'The Whole': The Evolution of Virginia Woolf's Narrative Form" (High Honors)
    Christy Burns + Tom Heacox, Nancy Gray, Clyde Haulman
  • Michael Dominguez, "Ben Jonson, George Bernard Shaw, and Political Economy on the English Stage" (Honors)
    Paula Blank + James Savage, Tom Heacox, Christopher Owens
  • Thomas Garnett, "The Bildungsroman in World War II Fiction" (Honors)
    Chris MacGowan + John Conlee, Deborah Morse, Chandos Brown
  • Carol Gross
    Peter Wiggins + Monica Potkay, Suzanne Hagedorn, George Greenia
  • Daniella Grossman, "Rewriting Historical Discourse and Feminine Mythologies in Mexico: Carlos Fuentes' Alternative Modernity in The Death of Artemio Cruz and Terra Nostra" (High Honors)
    Christy Burns + Colleen Kennedy, Nancy Gray, Teresa Longo
  • Caitlin Melchior, "'A Lesson in the Effect of Echoes': Decoding Don DeLillo's White Noise and Americana" (High Honors)
    Henry Hart + Christy Burns, Adam Potkay, Max de Gaynesford
  • Jessica Miller, "'Of a Multitude Moved by One Sympathy' Charles Dickens and Serial Publishing" (Honors)
    Adam Potkay + Simon Joyce and Deborah Morse, Carter Hailey, Joel Schwartz
  • Virginia Pasley, "Attitudes Toward the Antebellum Past in Post-Civil War Southern Literature: Nostalgia, Anti-Nostalgia, and Escapism" (Honors)
    Robert Scholnick + Melanie Dawson, Chris MacGowan, Kim Phillips
  • Angela Polidoro, "'The animal withinÉ' The Gentleman and the Animal in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heighs, Charles Dicken's Great Expectations and Robert LouisÉ" (High Honors)
    Monica Potkay + Simon Joyce and Deborah Morse, Mary Ann Melfi, Dan Cristol
  • Christina Rodriguez, "The Dolls in the Doll House: Female Sexual Repression in Dickens" (Honors)
    Kim Wheatley + Deborah Morse, Monica Potkay, Leisa Meyer
  • Christopher Scheina, "The Authorship of Edward II" (High Honors)
    Carter Hailey + James Savage, Brett Wilson, Dale Hoak
  • Kelly Singleton, "On the Use and Abuse of Narrative: A Postmodern Analysis of Terrry Pratchett's Discworld" (High Honors)
    Colleen Kennedy + Christy Burns, John Conlee, Silvia Tandeciarz
  • Emily Strauss, "To an Old Poet in Hartford: The Late Poems of Wallace Stevens" (High Honors)
    Henry Hart + Christopher MacGowan, Jack Willis, John Eisele
  • Mary Teeter, "Re-humanizing Rochester: Space and Power in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre" (High Honors)
    Kim Wheatley + Deborah Morse & Simon Joyce, Jenny Putzi,, Tamara Sonn
  • Julia Tony, "'Remember me, and these my exhortations!': Tracking Wordsworth's Self-Portrayals in 'Vaudracour and Julia,' Tintern Abbey, and 'Strange fits of passion'" (Honors)
    Adam Potkay + Kim Wheatley, Brett Wilson, Giulia Pacini
  • Maxwell Uphaus, "'You World Have Stayed Me with Some Parable': J.R.R. Tolkien, David Jones, and the Re-Mythologizing of the Great War" (Highest Honors)
    John Conlee + Walter Wenska, Stanley Kusteski, Melvin Ely
  • Meghan Whitehead, "Crossguns: A Novel" (Highest Honors)
    Susan Donaldson + Henry Hart, Emily Pease, John Moore
2004-05
  • Abigail Adams
    Chris MacGowan + Suzanne Raitt, Henry Hart, Laurie Wolf
  • Bernadette Guthrie
    Monica Potkay + Thomas Heacox, Varun Begley, Laurie Wolf
  • Selina Spinos
    Varun Begley + Christy Burns, Simon Joyce, Ron Schechter
  • Claire Wimbush
    Henry Hart + Nancy Schoenberger, Christy Burns, William Hutton