2022
LeTriece Calhoun, Visiting Lecturer (NTS), University of Pittsburgh
Dissertation Title: “In Her Words: Conjuring the Technogothic Archive of Mary Ellen Petty”
Chair: Annette Vee
Readers: Nancy Glazener, Michael Sawyer, Carla Nappi (History)
Thomas Lawson, Assistant Professor of English (TTS), Fairmont State University
Dissertation Title: “Toward a Networked Rhetorical Ethics of Response-Ability”
Chair: Annette Vee
Readers: Zach Horton, Elizabeth Pitts, Giuseppina Mecchia (French & Italian)
2021
Kimberly Hoover, Part-Time Instructor, University of Pittsburgh
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Dissertation Title: "The Ambivalent Promise of Integrative Medicine: Reforming Integration Discourse and Practices"
Chairs: Stephen L. Carr, Elizabeth Pitts
Readers: Cory Holding, Olga Kuchinskaya (Communication)
Nic Marsellas
Dissertation Title: "Care and Rigor in Higher Education"
Chair: Benjamin Miller
Readers: Peter Campbell, Khirsten Scott, Stacey Waite (University of Nebraska - Lincoln)
2020
Jordan Hayes, Postdoctoral Teaching Associate in the Writing Program, Northeastern University
Dissertation Title: “Trajectories of Belonging: Literacies and Intersectionality in the Mobile Phone and Home-building Practices of Syrian Refugees in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq”
Chairs: Tyler Bickford and Annette Vee
Readers: Shalini Puri, Dana Moss (Sociology), Edith Szanto (English, University of Alabama)
Daniel Libertz, Assistant Professor of English and Associate Director of First-Year Writing, Baruch College (CUNY)
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Dissertation Title: “A Technology of Distance: Circulation of Statistics in U.S. Public Texts”
Chair: Cory Holding
Readers: Stephen L. Carr, Annette Vee, Joanna Wolfe (Carnegie Mellon University)
Sandra Nelson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of Sussex
Dissertation Title: “Computers Can’t Get Wet: Queer Slippage and Play in the Rhetoric of Computational Structure”
Chair: Annette Vee
Readers: Peter Campbell, Benjamin Miller, Alison Langmead (History of Art and Architecture)
2019
Sarah Hakimzadeh, Assistant Teaching Professor, Syracuse University
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Dissertation Title: “Reclaiming the Commons: Law, Rhetoric, and C.S. Peirce's Pragmatic Philosophy”
Chair: Don Bialostosky
Readers: Peter Campbell, Philip Smith, Jules Lobel (School of Law)
Moriah Kirdy, Associate Director, The William S. Dietrich II Institute for Writing Excellence, University of Pittsburgh
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Dissertation Title: “Paper Programs: Notebook-based Information Systems and the Generative Potential of Constraint”
Chair: Cory Holding
Readers: Stephen L. Carr, Annette Vee, Alison Langmead (History of Art and Architecture)
Jennifer Saltmarsh
Dissertation Title: “Bacterial Rhetorics and Human Boundary Seepage, A History”
Chair: Don Bialostosky
Readers: Stephen L. Carr, Cory Holding, Richard Doyle (English, Penn State University)
Melissa Yang, Lecturer in Rhetoric and Composition, Emory University
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Dissertation Title: “Avian Rhetoric: Murmurations”
Chair: Cory Holding and Annette Vee
Readers: Troy Boone, Peter Trachtenberg, John Walsh (French & Italian)
2018
Laura Feibush, Assistant Professor of English (NTS), Juniata College
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Dissertation Title: “Looking for Listening: Towards a Rhetoric of Listening in Scenes of Writing Instruction”
Chair: Cory Holding
Readers: Stephen L. Carr, Neepa Majumdar, Lisa Jackson-Schebetta (Theatre Arts)
Carrie Hall, Assistant Professor (TTS), City College of Technology (Brooklyn, NY)
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Dissertation Title: “The Boredoms: How the Economics of Attention Affect Struggling Literacy Learners”
Chair: Stephen L. Carr
Readers: David Bartholomae, Cory Holding, Daniel Gross (English, UC Irvine)
Matthew Overstreet, Assistant Professor, Khalifa University (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates)
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Dissertation Title: “Writing the Fragments: William James and Composition in an Age of (Dis)connection”
Chair: David Bartholomae
Readers: Nancy Glazener, Paul Kameen, John Lyne (Communication)
Noel Tague, Assistant Professor of English, Rhetoric and Technical Communication (TTS), University of Maine at Augusta
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Dissertation Title: “The Winds: Susceptible Livelihood and Industrial Wind Development in Rural Northern New York”
Chair: Cory Holding
Readers: Mark Anderson, Don Bialostosky, Shalini Puri, Caitlin Bruce (Communication)
Kyle Winkler, Assistant Professor (TTS), Kent State University-Tuscarawas
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Dissertation Title: “Resemble, Assemble, Reply; or Reading Among Misfit Tropes in Student Writing”
Chair: Cory Holding
Readers: Ryan McDermott, Benjamin Miller, Jacques Bromberg (Classics)
2017
Kerry Banazek, Assistant Professor of English (TTS), New Mexico State University
Dissertation Title: “Complex Descriptive Systems: An Object-Oriented Poetics for Rhetoric and Writing”
Chair: Annette Vee
Readers: Stephen L. Carr, Cory Holding, James Brown, Jr. (English, Rutgers University)
Samuel Hamilton, Assistant Professor of English (TTS), Bridgewater College (VA)
Dissertation Title: “(Re)Presentations of Self-Culture: Sampling Digital Literacies and American Citizenship”
Chair: Stephen L. Carr
Readers: Peter Campbell, Matthew Lavin, Annette Vee, Laurie Gries (Communication, Program of Writing and Rhetoric, University of Colorado)
Matthew Kelly, Assistant Professor of Digital Rhetoric and Online Writing in the Department of Literature and Languages, University of Texas at Tyler
Dissertation Title: “Now You're Playing With Pedagogy: Video Games, Digital Literacies, and Trans-Media Participatory Cultures”
Chair: William Scott
Readers: Tyler Bickford, Annette Vee, Stuart Selber (English, Penn State University)
Tara Propper, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature and Languages (NTS), University of Texas at Tyler
Dissertation Title: “(Re)Presenting the Public in Print: Examining African American Media Activism at the Century's Turn”
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: Troy Boone, Stephen L. Carr, Lily Saint (English, Wesleyan College)
2016
Justin Sevenker, Lorain County Community College, Assistant Professor (TTS), Department of English
Dissertation Title: “Old English Composition: Literacy and the History of English in the United States”
Chair: Stephen L. Carr
Readers: Hannah Johnson, Annette Vee, Peggy Knapp (English, Carnegie Mellon University)
2015
Trisha Campbell, Professor of Practice, First-Year Writing Program (NTS), Tulane University
Dissertation Title: “Public History and Social Archives: Toward a New Look at Murder in the 21st Century”
Chair: Stephen L. Carr
Readers: Paul Kameen, Annette Vee, and Brenton J. Malin (Communication)
Jessica Isaac, Associate Director, Books@Work, (Cleveland, OH)
Dissertation Title: “Compliant Circulation: Children's Writing, American Periodicals, and Public Culture, 1839-1882”
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: David Bartholomae, Stephen L. Carr, Courtney Weikle-Mills, Amanda Godley (Instruction and Learning, School of Education)
Peter Wayne Moe, Associate Professor of English and Director of Campus Writing, Seattle Pacific University
Dissertation Title: “Toward a Rhetoric of Syntactic Delivery”
Chair: David Bartholomae
Readers: Don Bialostosky, Cory Holding, Paul Kameen, and Bruce Horner (English, University of Louisville)
Jarrell D. Wright, Visiting Lecturer of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh
Dissertation Title: “Dancing before the Lord: Renaissance Ludics and Incarnational Discourse”
Chair: John Twyning
Readers: Colin MacCabe, Jennifer Waldron, Peggy Knapp (Department of English, Carnegie Mellon University)
2014
Erin Anderson, Assistant Professor of English (TTS), University of Pittsburgh
Dissertation Title: “The Material Poetics of Digital Voice: A Creative-Critical Inquiry”
Chair: Don Bialostosky
Readers: Stephen L. Carr, Neepa Majumdar, Lisa Jackson Schebetta (Theatre Arts)
Nathaniel Heggins Bryant, Instructor of English (NTS), Dept. of English, California State University - Chico
Dissertation Title: “Working in the Belly of the Beast: The Productive Intellectual Labor of US Prison Writers, 1929-2007.”
Chair: Philip Smith
Readers: David Bartholomae, Nick Coles, Sabine von Dirke (German)
Katie Homar, Academic and Technical Writing Coordinator, Graduate School, North Carolina State
Dissertation Title: “Juggling Rhetorical Histories and Traditions: The Wordsworth Circle as Romantic Rhetoricians”
Chair: Don Bialostosky
Readers: Thora Brylowe, Stephen L. Carr, Jon Klancher (English, Carnegie Mellon University)
Danielle Koupf, Assistant Teaching Professor of Writing, Wake Forest University
Dissertation Title: “Invention through Textual Reuse: Toward Pedagogies of Critical-Creative Tinkering”
Chair: Stephen L. Carr
Readers: Don Bialostosky, Jean Ferguson Carr, John Lyne (Communication)
Pamela VanHaitsma, Assistant Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences, and Associate Director of Center for Humanities and Information (TTS), Penn State University
Dissertation Title: “Teaching and Learning ‘the language of the heart’: Rhetorical Education for Romantic Engagement”
Chair: Don Bialostosky and Jessica Enoch (Language, Writing, and Rhetoric, University of Maryland)
Readers: Jean Ferguson Carr, Nancy Glazener
2013
Jean Bessette, Assistant Professor of English (TTS), University of Vermont
Dissertation Title: “Composing Historical Activism: Anecdotes, Archives, and Multimodality in Rhetorics of Lesbian History”
Chairs: Jean Ferguson Carr and Jessica Enoch (Language, Writing, and Rhetoric; University of Maryland)
Readers: David Bartholomae, Annette Vee, Lester Olson (Communication)
Steph Ceraso, Assistant Professor of Digital Writing and Rhetoric (TTS), University of Virginia
Dissertation Title: “Sounding Composition, Composing Sound: Multimodal Listening, Bodily Pedagogies, and Everyday Experience”
Chair: Don Bialostosky
Readers: Stephen L. Carr, Annette Vee, Jessica Enoch (Language, Writing, and Rhetoric, University of Maryland)
2012
Hannah Gerrard, Senior Lecturer (TTS) English and Media Studies, Massey University, New Zealand
Dissertation Title: “The Teaching of Writing and the Public Work of the Transnational University”
Chair: Stephen Carr
Readers: David Bartholomae, Jamie Bianco, James Seitz, Amanda Godley (Instruction and Learning, School of Education)
Ryan Smith Madan, Associate Teaching Professor (NTS) and Writing Center Director, Department of Humanities and Arts, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Dissertation Title: “Narrative Disruptions in Composition's Culture of Scholarship”
Chair: James Seitz
Readers: Mariolina Salvatori, Paul Kameen, Gonzalo Lamano
Dahliani Reynolds, Assistant Professor of Writing Studies (TTS), Rhetoric, and Composition, Roger Williams University
Dissertation Title: “Composition and Public Engagements: Project English, NEH Seminars, and the National Writing Project”
Co-chairs: Don Bialostosky and Jessica Enoch (English, University of Maryland)
Readers: David Bartholomae, Nicholas Coles
Emily Wender, Associate Professor of English, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Dissertation Title: “The Critical / Ordinary Reader: School, Emotion, Reading and Writing”
Chair: Philip Smith
Readers: Don Bialostosky, Paul Kameen, Amanda Thein (Language, Literacy and Culture, University of Iowa)
2011
Stacey Waite, Associate Professor (TTS), University of Nebraska
Dissertation Title: “Teaching Queer: Possibilities for Writing, Reading, and Knowing”
Chair: James Seitz
Readers: David Bartholomae, Mariolina Salvatori, Todd Reeser (French and Italian Languages and Literatures)
2010
Jennifer Whatley Schwartz, Senior Communications Analyst, Government Accountability Office
Dissertation Title: “Writing with Readers: Written Comments and the Teaching of Composition”
Chair: Kathryn Flannery
Readers: Mariolina Salvatori, David Bartholomae, Don Bialostosky, Adam Shear (Religious Studies)
2008
Jean A. Grace, Senior Lecturer in English (NTS) and Director of The William S. Dietrich II Institute for Writing Excellence, University of Pittsburgh
Dissertation Title: “Working Knowledge: Composition and the Teaching of Professional Writing”
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: David Bartholomae, Paul Kameen, Noreen B. Garman (Administrative and Policy Studies, School of Education)
Tara Lockhart, Associate Professor, English (TTS), San Francisco State University
Dissertation Title: “Revising the Essay: Intellectual Arenas and Hybrid Forms”
Chair: David Bartholomae
Readers: Don Bialostosky, Nancy Glazener, Jacquelyn Jones Royster (English, Ohio State University), Mariolina Salvatori
Margaret Stahr, Assistant Professor, English, and Director of the Writing Center, Catawba College
Dissertation Title: "'As If Through Another's Eyes': A Study of Peer Tutoring and First-Year Students' REvision Behaviors"
Chair: Stephen L. Carr
Readers: Jean Ferguson Carr, James Seitz, and Amanda Godley (Instruction and Learning, School of Education)
2007
Malkiel Choseed, Associate Professor, English/Reading/Communication, Onondaga Community College
Dissertation Title: “Representations of Teaching, Curriculum Reform, and the Formation of Collegiate English”
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: Paul Kameen, John Twyning, Dennis Looney
Ellen Gerber Carillo, Associate Professor / Writing Coordinator, Waterbury Campus, University of Connecticut
Dissertation Title: “Modernist Pedagogies: Conrad, Wolf, Pound, and the Reading Public”
Co-Chairs: James Seitz and Troy Boone
Readers: Colin MacCabe, Phil Watts (French and Italian Languages and Literatures)
Brenda M. Glascott, Associate Professor of Humanities, Portland State University
Dissertation Title: “The Ends of Literacy Education: Evangelical Protestantism and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of Contemporary Writing Instruction”
Chair: Kathryn Flannery
Readers: Stephen L. Carr, Nancy Glazener, Donna Strickland
Kirstin Collins Hanley, Associate Professor of Composition and Rhetoric, Director of Composition Program, Point Park University
Dissertation Title: “Redefining Didactic Convention: Mary Wollstonecraft and Feminist Discourses of Appropriation”
Chair: Stephen L. Carr
Readers: Don Bialostosky, Jean Ferguson Carr, Amanda Godley (Instruction and Learning, School of Education)
Holly Middleton, Associate Professor of English and Director of First-Year Writing, High Point University
Dissertation Title: “Literacies of Membership: The Nineteenth-Century Politics of Access”
Chair: Stephen L.Carr
Readers: Mariolina Salvatori, James Seitz, Carol Stabile (Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
Juli Parrish, Director of the Writing Center, Teaching Associate Professor, University of Denver
Dissertation Title: “Inventing a Universe: The Reading and Writing of Internet Fan Fiction”
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: Nick Coles, John Twyning, Amanda Godley (Instruction and Learning, School of Education)
2006
Christopher Warnick, Associate Professor and First-Year Writing Coordinator, English, College of Charleston, South Carolina
Dissertation Title: “Student Writing, Politics, and Style, 1962-1979”
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: David Bartholomae, James Seitz, Lester Olson (Communication)
2005
Richard E. Parent, Senior Instructional Designer, University of New England
Dissertation Title: “The Digital Affect: A Rhetorical Hermeneutic for Reading, Writing, and Understanding Narrative in Contemporary Literature and New Media”
Chair: Mariolina Salvatori
Readers: Philip Smith, James Seitz, Stuart Moulthrop
2002
Patricia Sullivan, Lecturer and Writing Center Director, University of Virginia
Dissertation Title: “Avant-Garde Composition: Pedagogies of Experimental Writing”
Chair: James Seitz
Readers: Jonathan Arac, Paul Kameen, Kathryn Flannery
2001
Christine Abbott, Professor, Director of Writer’s Center, LaRoche College
Dissertation Title: “Heresies, Dreams, and Emotions Reclaimed: Feminist Refigurings of Composition’s Outposts”
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: James Seitz, Lorraine Higgins, Noreen Garman
Anne A. Stafford, deceased 2014, formerly Lecturer, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Dissertation Title: “Looking at Voice in Composition through the Lens of Drama from Rhetoric to Roleplay: Twentieth-Century Dramatic Pedagogies”
Co-Chairs: Joseph Harris and Philip Smith
Readers: James Seitz, Stephen M. Koziol, Jr.
1999
Linda Huff-Paul, Marketing Writer at Lincoln Financial Group and Freelance Editor
Dissertation Title: “Mapping Voices: Reading the Textual Discourses of Emerging Black Public Intellectual Women”
Chair: Joseph Harris
Readers: Toi Derricotte, Nancy Glazener, Maurine Porter (School of Education)
John Nichols, Assistant Professor and Director of Film Studies, Christopher Newport University
Dissertation Title: “Instituting Interpretation: Amateurs and Advice Texts”
Co-Chairs: Susan Harris Smith and Mariolina Salvatori
Readers: David Bartholomae, Jean Ferguson Carr, David Shumway
Cherise Pollard, Associate Professor, English, West Chester University
Dissertation Title: "'They Can Burn All the Papers But They Can't Burn Conscious': An Exploration of the Problematics of Historical Experience in African-American Culture "
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: Kirk Savage, Brenda F. Berrian, Jonathan Arac, Jim Knapp
Julia Sawyer, Early Childhood Consultant, Williamsport, PA
Dissertation Title: “Telling Time: Temporality and the Educational Enterprise”
Chair: David Bartholomae
Readers: Jonathan Arac, Jean Ferguson Carr, Tony Petrosky
1998
Gwendolen Gorzelsky, Associate Professor, English, Executive Director of the Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT), Colorado State University
Dissertation Title: “Echoes Half Heard: Community Activists, Collective Moments”
Chair: David Bartholomae
Readers: Jonathan Arac, Stephen L. Carr, Marianne Novy, James Thompson
James Zukowski, Associate Professor, English, Lake Superior State University
Dissertation Title: “Negotiating Reading and Writing through History: The British Novel and Other Instructional Texts, 1740-1829”
Chair: Stephen L. Carr
Readers: Mariolina Salvatori, James Seitz, Janelle Greenburg (History)
1997
Melanie Dawson, Assistant Professor, English, College of William and Mary
Dissertation Title: “From Carnival to Nostalgia: The Play of Cultural Literacy in the Nineteenth-Century Parlor”
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: Joseph Harris, Susan Harris Smith, Paula Kane
Bianca Falbo, Associate Professor of English and Director of the College Writing Program, Lafayette College
Dissertation Title: “Authorship and the Circulation of Literate Practices in the Anglo-American Field of Cultural Production, 1790-1860”
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: Joseph Harris, Stephen L. Carr, Nancy Glazener, Patrizia Lombardo (French and Italian Languages and Literatures)
1996
Jeff Galin, Associate Professor, English, Florida Atlantic University
Dissertation Title: “Sixty Years of Multicultural Education Unmasked: A Study of Discursive Strategies and Institutional Practices”
Chair: Paul Kameen
Readers: Nicholas Coles, Michael Helfand, William Smith, Glynda Hull
Paula Kristofik, Associate Professor, English, Eastern Kentucky University
Dissertation Title: “The Signification of Chalk: Teacher/Students-in-the-Classroom, John Dewey and U.S. Progressive Education, and the Desire of Pedagogy”
Chair: Mariolina Salvatori
Readers: David Bartholomae, Stephen L. Carr, Mark B. Ginsburg
Linda Jordan Platt, Professor, English, La Roche College /p>
Dissertation Title: “Learning to Read in the Real Sense: Stories of Reading and American Schooling”
Chair: Jean Ferguson Carr
Readers: David Bartholomae, William L. Smith, Isabel Beck
Stephen Sutherland, Assistant Professor, English, University of Massachusetts Boston
Dissertation Title: “In-Citing Change: The Pedagogical Politics of Revision and Citation”
Chair: David Bartholomae
Readers: Philip Smith, Mariolina Salvatori, Joseph Harris, Suan Wall
1995
Barbara McCarthy, Dean of Academic Affairs, Asnuntuck Community College
Dissertation Title: “Riding the Brake: Disciplinary Change in Contemporary English Studies”
Chair: Paul Bové
Readers: Lynn Emanuel, David Bartholomae, Mariolina Salvatori, Iris Marion Young (Graduate School of Public and International Affairs)
Stephen Parks, Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, Syracuse University
Dissertation Title: “A History of ‘The Students’ Rights to Their Own Language’ Resolution as Promulgated by the Conference on College Composition and Communication, 1974”
Chair: Jonathan Arac
Readers: David Bartholomae, Joseph Harris, Nancy Glazener, John Beverley (Hispanic Languages and Literatures)
Matthew Willen, Associate Professor, English, Elizabethtown College
Dissertation Title: “Composing Mountaineering: The Personal Narrative and the Production of Knowledge in the Alpine Club of London and the Appalachian Mountain Club, 1858-1900”
Chair: David Bartholomae
Readers: Philip Smith, Margaret Marshall, Mariolina Salvatori, Tony Petrosky
1994
Barbara Schroeder, Director, Corporate and Foundation Relations, Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC
Dissertation Title: “Educating Female Subjects in England, 1780-1850: A Study of How the Literary and Cultural Representation of the Education of Women Illustrate the Ways in Which Education Both Subjugates and Empowers”
Chair: Stephen L. Carr
Readers: Carol Kay, Marianne Novy, Janelle Greenberg (History)
Kathleen Welsch, Associate Professor, English, Clarion University
Dissertation Title: “19th-Century Composition: Relationships Between Pedagogical Concerns and Cultural Values in American Colleges, 1859-1890”
Chair: David Bartholomae
Readers: Jean Ferguson Carr, Joseph Harris, Noreen Gorman
1993
Rita Capezzi, Associate Professor, Canisius College
Dissertation Title: “Materializing ‘Domesticity’: Women and the Material and Discursive Practices of Culture in the United States, 1800-1916”
Chair: Stephen L. Carr
Readers: Jonathan Arac, Jean Ferguson Carr, Patrizia Lombardo (French and Italian Languages and Literatures)
Donna Dunbar-Odom, Professor of English, Director of Graduate English Studies, Department of Literature and Languages, Texas A&M University - Commerce
Dissertation Title: "Speaking for others: Failed Claims of Liberatory Pedagogy"
Chair: David Bartholomae
Readers: Jean Ferguson Carr, Mariolina Salvatori, Philip Smith
1992
Richard Miller, Professor, English, Rutgers University
Dissertation Title: “Representing The People: The Problems and Promises of Popular Reading Practices”
Chair: David Bartholomae
Readers: Joseph Harris, Jane Feuer, Danae Clark