Dissertations

DISSERTATIONS COMPLETED 2006-07

Lison Baselis-Bitoun (French):Le proche et le lointain: herméneutique du cannibale chez Jean de Léry. Advisor: Tom Conley [Virginie Greene, Christie McDonald, Larry Kritzman]
Kim Beauchesne (Spanish):Narrativas de la América marginada: La construcción discursive de la periferia en el imaginario colonial. Advisor: Jose Antonio Mazzotti, [Doris Sommer, Tom Conley]
Jennifer Brown Ickentstein (Italian): Tommaso Landolfi: between the Giubbe rosse and middle Europe: 1930-1945. Advisor: Franco Fido [Lino Pertile, Francesco Erspamer]
Iliana Pagan-Teitelbaum (Spanish):Visible e invisible: La doble violencia en dos ciudades Latinooamericanas.  Advisor: Jose Mazzotti [Joaquim-Francisco Coelho, Nelson Vieira (Brown Univ.)]
Santiago Morales Rivera (Spanish): Los Pretextos de la Culpa: Javier Marías, Juan José Millás y el compromiso de la novela posfranquista con el azar. Advisor: Luis Fernandez-Cifuentes [Brad Epps, Mary Gaylord.]
Meriel Baines Tulante (Italian):  The Impulse to History: The Novels ofSebastiano Vassalli. Advisor: Lino Pertile [Franco Fido, Diego Zancani.]

DISSERTATIONS COMPLETED 2005-06

Marco Arnaudo (Italian): Chi ha incastrato Don Quijote? Il tema della biblioteca nella letteratura moderna. Advisor: Franco Fido [Lino Pertile, Francesco Erspamer]
Mahalia Gayle (French): An Imperiled Inheritance: The Decline of Politeness in 20th Century French Literature. Advisor: Susan Suleiman [Christie McDonald, Tom Conley.]
Regine Jean-Charles (French): Gendering Violence: Francophone Women Writers, Representations of  Violence, and the Violence of Representation Advisor: Alice Jardine [Abiola Irele, Verena Conley, Odile Cazenave.]
Dieter Kühl (Spanish): Elementos de tradicionalidad popular en Tirso de Molina. Advisor: Francisco Márquez [Samuel Armistead, Luis Girón Negrón.]
Wanda Rivera-Rivera (Spanish): Literatura Presa LiberArte: la escritura de cuatro prisioneros politicos latinamericanos.  Advisor: Doris Sommer [José Antonio Mazzotti, Diana Sorensen, Julio Ramos.]
Jennifer Talbot (Italian): The English Garden in Italy: a Literary, Cultural and Artistic Debate. Advisor: Franco Fido [Lino Pertile, Francesco Erspamer]

DISSERTATIONS COMPLETED 2004-05

Patrick Bray (French): Novel Selves: Mapping the Subject in Stendhal, Nerval, and Proust Advisor: Janet Beizer, [Tom Conley, Christie McDonald]
Jérôme Brillaud (French): French Tragedies from 1759 to 1789.  Advisor: Christie McDonald [Alexia Duc, James Engell]
Maria Colbert (Spanish): Reading the Ideology of Domesticity: Woman, Identity, and the Marketplace in Restoration Madrid.  Luis Fernandez Cifuentes [Brad Epps, Elena Delgado.]
Daniela Difrancesco (Italian): Language and style in Vincenzo Consolo's novels.  Advisor: Franco Fido [Lino Pertile, Dante della Terza.]
Maggie Flinn (French): Architectures of social being: Space In French cinema of the 1930s.  Advisor: Tom Conley [Susan Suleiman, Virginie Greene.]
Daniel Frost (Spanish): Cultivating the City:  Perspectives on the Garden in Spanish Literature, 1833-1934.  Advisor: Brad Epps [Luis Fernandez Cifuentes, Jo Labanyi.]
Ji-Hyun Philippa Kim (French): Pour Une Litterature Medievale Moderne. Advisor: Virginie Greene [Janet Beizer, Kevin Brownlee; J. Cerquiglini-Toulet.]
Michelle Mielly (French): Werewere Liking and the Aesthetics of Necessity:  Re-Considering Culture and Development in Post-Colonial Africa.  Advisor: Samba Diop, [Susan Suleiman, Verena Conley, Odile Cazenave.]
Viviane Mahieux (Spanish):  Popularizing the Intellectual:  the crónicas of Roberto Arlt, Mario de Andrade and Salvador Novo. Advisor:  Doris Sommer [Joaquim-Francisco Coelho, Luis Cárcamo-Huechante.]
Amelia Moser (Italian): The ‘Fantastic’ in the Writings of Anna Maria Ortese.  Advisor: Franco Fido [Laura Benedetti, Paolo Valesio, Dante Della Terza.]
Francisco Ramirez (Spanish): Mateo Alemán’s Diagnosis of Humanity: Medical Discourse in ‘Guzmán de  Alfarche.  Advisor: Francisco Marquez [Luis Giron, Antonio Carrena.]
Cintia Santana (Spanish): Influence in Translation:  Realismo Sucio in Spain.  Advisor:  Luis Fernandez Cifuentes [Doris Sommer, Dru Dougherty.]
Phil Usher (French): The Holy Lands in Early Modern Literature: Negotiations of Christian Geography and Textual Space. Advisor: Tom Conley, [Virginie Greene, Michael Randall.]
John Walsh (French): What the Other Children Say: Accounts of Childhood in the French Antilles and Francophone Africa.  Advisor: Tom Conley, [Susan Suleiman, Samba Diop, Abiole Irele]

DISSERTATIONS COMPLETED 2003-04

Irit Kleiman (French): Traitor, Author, Text: four late medieval narratives of betrayal. Advisor: Tom Conley [Virginie Greene, Dominique de Courcelles]
Brian Martin (French): Uniform Manhood: Literary/Military Masculinity in France, 1870-1914. Advisor: Tom Conley [Alice Jardine, Emily Apter.]
Phil Usher (French): The Holy Lands in Early Modern Literature: Negotiations of Christian Geography and Textual Space. Advisor: Tom Conley, [Virginie Greene, Michael Randall.]
Amelia Moser (Italian): The 'Fantastic' in the Writings of Anna Maria Ortese. Advisor: Franco Fido [Laura Benedetti, Paolo Valesio, Dante Della Terza.]
Daniel Frost (Spanish): Cultivating the City: Perspectives on the Garden in Spanish Literature, 1833-1934. Advisor: Brad Epps [Luis Fernandez Cifuentes, Jo Labanyi.]

DISSERTATIONS COMPLETED 2002-03

Susan Antebi: Grotesque Morphologies: the Monstrous Body in Contemporary Latin American Literature. Advisor: Doris Sommer [Luis Fernandez Cifuentes, Rachel Adams.]
Sharon Bhagwan (French): A Logic of Distraction: Spectacle, Thought and Capital in French New Wave Cinema. Advisor: Susan Suleiman [Tom Conley, Brad Epps.]
Gabriela Carrion (Spanish): The Making and Unmaking of Marriage in Spanish Golden Age Drama. Advisor: Mary Gaylord [Abby Zanger, Anthony Cascardi.]
Catalina Espinosa (Spanish): Palabras, palabras y nada mas que palabras. Advisor: Doris Sommer [José Mazzotti, Ted MacDonald.]
Nicola Cooney (Portuguese): The Image of the 'Dama Fatal' in the Lyrical Universe of Cesário Verde. Advisor: Joaquim-Francisco Coelho [Doris Sommer, Helder Macedo.]
Paolo De Ventura: Il dialogo nella. Commedia di Dante. Advisor: Lino Pertile [Franco Fido, Dante Della Terza.]
Ombretta Frau (Italian): Appunti di Paesaggio nel Taccuino Houghton. Advisor: Laura Benedetti [Franco Fido, Lino Pertile, Dante della Terza.]
Cristina Gragnani (Italian): Studio di Alcuni Taccuini Pirandelliani. Advisor: Laura Benedetti [Franco Fido, Lino Pertile, Dante della Terza.]
Natasha Lee: Unsettling Signs Nature, Society and the Novel in the French Enlightenment, 1760-1802. Advisor: Christie McDonald [Tom Conley, Lynn Festa.]
Jenny Lefcourt (French): The Uses of the Cinema: French Cinema and Everyday Life, 1918-1932. Advisor: Tom Conley [Susan Suleiman, Christie McDonald].
Gina Miele: Stretta e' la foglia: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Italian Folktales from Luigi Capuana to Italo Calvino. Advisor: Laura Benedetti [Franco Fido, Maria Tatar.]
RoseMary Peters: Aux Voleurs! Theft and Thieves in the French 19th Century. Advisor: Tom Conley [Barbara Johnson, Alice Jardine.]
Timothy Tomasik: Textual Tastes: The Invention of Culinary Literature in Early Modern France. Advisor: Tom Conley [Steven Greenblatt, Mary and Philip Hyman.]
Claret Vargas: Marxism and a Poetics of the Human: Esthetic Responses to Epistemiological Crises in the Poetry of Cesar Vallejo and Carlos Drummond de Andrade. Advisor: Jose Antonio Mazzotti [Joaquim Coelho, Luis Fernandez Cifuentes.]

DISSERTATIONS COMPLETED 2001-02

Maxime Blanchard (French): Deux intellectuels engagés: André Malraux et Fernand Dumont. Advisor: Susan Suleiman.
Horacio Chiong Rivero (Spanish): Maker of Masks: Fray Antonio de Guevara's Pseudo-Historical Novelizations. Advisor: Francisco Marquez.
Andrea D'Amore (Italian): Ariosto's Rewriting of Boccaccio and the novella tradition in the Orlando Furioso. Advisor: Laura Benedetti.
Michelle Duran (Spanish): Oscar Arias Sánchez: President of Costa Rica (1986-1990) and Nobel Peace Prize Winner (1987): A Literary Biography. Advisor: Doris Sommer.
Karina Galperin (Spanish): Bernardim Ribeiro y Núñez de Renoso: Conversos, Genéros, y la Emergencia de la voz femenina en la Narrativa Ibérica del Siglo de Oro. Advisor: Mary Gaylord.
Simone Pinet (Spanish): Archipelagoes: Insularity and Fiction in Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Advisor: Mary Gaylord.
Ernesto Guerra (Spanish): El poeta como héroe: La reevaluación de la tradición épica en La Araucana. Advisor: Mary Gaylord.
Michael Hemment (Italian): The Genesis and Evolution of Tasso's Textual Identity. Advisor: Laura Benedetti.
Elisabeth Hodges (French): City View: Writing and the Topography of Frenchness in the Renaissance. Advisor: Tom Conley.
Frank Loveland (Spanish): Visibilidad y Discurso en la narración de José Revuelta. Advisor: Jose Mazzotti.]
Kathleen Richman (French): Good Works: Altruism and Authorship in the Nineteenth Century French Novel. Advisor: Barbara Johnson.
Maribel Roig (Spanish): Las retórcas de la decadencia: Martí, Palés Matos, Drummond. Advisor: Joaquim-Francisco Coelho.

DISSERTATIONS COMPLETED 2000-01

Diane Brown: Private Lessons: Mentors, Bodies, and Pedagogical Authority in 18th Century French Literature. Advisor: Christie McDonald [Tom Conley, Nadine Berenguier.]
Nina Cannizzaro: The Cultural Activity of the Accademia degli Incogniti. Advisor: Franco Fido [John Shearman, Mario Infelise.]
Jose Cartagena Calderón: Los dilemas de la hombría: el teatro español del siglo de oro y la construcción cultural de la masculinidad en la España, seiscentista. Advisor: Mary Gaylord [Brad Epps, Adrian Martin.]
Keeryung Hong: On the Discourse of the Family in the 18th Century. Advisor: Christie McDonald.
Carmen Hsu: The Literature of the Courtesan in the Spanish Golden Age. Advisor: Francisco Marquez [Antonio Carreno, Luis Girón.]
Michelangelo LaLuna: La Figura e la presenza di Girolamo De Rada nella cultura letteraria italiana dell'Ottocento. Advisor: Franco Fido [Lino Pertile, Diego Zancani.]
Karen Peña: Modernism's Gambit: Poetry Problems and Chess Stratagems in Fernando Pessoa and Jorge Luis Borges. Advisor: Joaquim-Francisco Coelho [Doris Sommer, Sabrina Karpa-Wilson, Brad Epps.]
Rosanna Rivero El Badaoui: Texts that Resist. Advisor: Doris Sommer, [Luis Girón, Leo Cabranes.]
Maribel Roig: Las retorícas de la decadencia: Martí, Palés Matos, Drummond. Advisor: Joaquim-Francisco
Coelho. [Brad Epps, Doris Sommer.]
Esther Whitfield: Buying In, Selling Out: Fiction(s) of Cuba in post-Soviet Cultural Economies. Advisor: Doris Sommer [Jorge Dominquez, Brad Epps, Gustavo Pérez Firmat.]

Michael Armstrong: Civilized Barbarians, Barbaric Christians, Heroic Lovers, and Responsible Dreamers: A Study of Cervantes' Valedictory Novel, Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda: Historia Septentrional. Advisor: Mary Gaylord
Seth Graebner: Out of Time, Out of Place: History, Nostalgia and the City in France and Algerian literature since 1830. Advisor: Susan Suleiman
Marveta Ryan: Race, Culture and Nation in Late 19th Century Poetry from the Dominican Republic. Advisor: Doris Sommer.
Maurice Samuels: Realizing the Past: History, Spectacle and the Novel in Nineteenth-Century France. Advisor: Naomi Schor.
Juan Silva: Imitar: Sobre la imitación y las anotaciones en el Siglo de oro. Advisor: Mary Gaylord.

DISSERTATIONS COMPLETED 1998-99

Marillina Cirillo: Il Volgarizzamento dei Salmi Penitenziali de Simone da Cascina. Advisor: Dante Della Terza.
Juan Egea, La Poesía del Nosotros: Jaime Gil de Biedma y la Secuencia Círica Moderna. Advisor: Luis Fernandez Cifuentes.
Andrea Flores: The Writing of Space in the Moroccan narrative: 1968-1983. Advisor: Tom Conley.
Michael Fodor: De l'ancien regime a la nouvelle economie: les idees economiques dans la litterature francaise de 1715 a 1789. Advisor: Christie McDonald.
Brigitte Goutal: Du Berger au Courtisan: le Deguisement dans la littérature comique du XVIIè sieclè. Advisor: Per Nykrog.
Andrea Malaguti: Giorgio Caproni: Poetry and Allegorical Poetics 1938-1986. Advisor: Franco Fido.
Fatima Monteiro: The Post-Colonial Poetics of Rui Knopfl, a luso-Mozambian Writer. Advisor: Mary Gaylord [George Monteiro, Eugenio Lisboa.]
Lilian Porten: The Mâle du Siècle: Creation and Procreation in French Romantic Literature. Advisor: Barbara Johnson.
Lesley Raffay: Dino Buzzati: His Careers and Critics. Advisor: Franco Fido.

DISSERTATIONS COMPLETED 1997-98

Susan Amatangelo: The Representation of Women in the Works of Giovanni Verga. Advisor: Franco Fido.
Rosemary Ashby: Writing as Monument in the Poetry and Fiction of Victor Hugo. Advisor: Susan Suleiman.
Chiara Frenquellucci: Girolamo Gigli and 18th Century Italian Theater. Advisor: Franco Fido.
Sabrina Karpa Wilson: Memory Against the Grain: Autobiographical Practice in Graciliano Ramos. Advisor: Joaquim-Francisco Coelho.
Elizabeth Mozzillo: Dante's Art of Reason: A Study of Medieval Logic and Semantics in the Monarchy. Advisor: Dante Della Terza.
Frank Nesbitt: Revolutions in Discourse: Writing History in French Antillean Literature. Advisor: Susan Suleiman.
Juan Otero: Rhythmic Nations: the Construction of National Imaginaries in Literature and Popular Music in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Advisor: Doris Sommer.
Ricardo Padrón: Travels Without a Hipogriffe: Empire, Cartography and Literature in Early Modern Spain. Advisor: Mary Gaylord.
Lynn Ramey:Christians and Saracens: Imagination and Cultural Interaction in the French Middle Ages. Advisor: Per Nykrog.
Paulette Smith: Exorcismes de l'exotisme: pratiques d' intertextualité et d'extraterritorialité dans la littérature francophone. Advisor: Susan Suleiman.

For information about dissertations in progress, go to our list of Graduate Student Research Interests.

Updated June 2006

Last updated on February 26, 2008