Peace Through Education

Alumni

Listed below are our alumni who have graduated from the M.A. and Ph.D. Programs in English since 2013.  Current positions are also included, if that information has been provided to us. If you would like to contact our alumni, please e-mail lxp04@uark.edu.

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Portfolio
 Position Employer
Justin Barfield
 Portfolio No Information Currently  Available                                                                       
Luke Carothers Portfolio No Information Currently  Available  
Robert Ellis Portfolio Administrative Records Analyst Records and Data Services, Office of University Development
Sait Ibisi
 “Middle Eastern Themes in Contemporary American Fantasy: The Political and Socio-Religious Implications” No Information Currently  Available  
Kimberly Marquez
  Portfolio No Information Currently  Available  
David Morledge  Portfolio No Information Currently Available   
Allison Treese “A Flourynge Aege: Tracing the Sacred and Secular in the Book of St. Albans”  No Information Currently Available
  
Mitchell Simpson Portfolio No Information Currently Available   
John Stout “Pynchon and Place: A Geocritical Reading of Thomas Pynchon” No Information Currently  Available  
Mary (“Katie”) Voss Portfolio No Information Currently  Available  
Amanda White Portfolio No Information Currently  Available  

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Uyen Dang
 Rhetoric and Composition
 “Activating Schemata in ESL Writing” No Information Currently Available  
Jonathan Green Composition Pedagogy “Best Practice: Bringing the Elements of Effective Practice to the College Writing Classroom” No Information Currently Available  
Garrett Jeter 19th-Century Gothic Literature “Gothic Voids: Nineteenth-Century Reader Experience and Participation” No Information Currently Available  
Yendountien (“Noellie”) Lare-Assogba Southern Literature “Presumed Innocent: The Child Figure in U.S. Southern Literature, 1945 – 2004” No Information Currently Available  
Sara West
 Technical Communication “The Challenge of Anonymous and Ephemeral Social Media: Reflective Research Methodologies & Student-User Composing Practices” Assistant Professor of Professional and Technical Writing San Jose State University

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Comprehensive Exam Position Employer
Eric Bontempo “‘A Magic Deeper Still’: Sacramental Poetics in William Wordsworth, Christina Rossetti, and C. S. Lewis” Doctoral Student in English University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC)
Chris Borntrager  “Mechanisms and Implications of Identity Hybridization in Online Advertorials”  Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas
Karly Eaton  “Race, Place and Young Adulting in Southern and Adolecscent Literature”  English Teacher Haas Hall Academy (Bentonville, AR)
Amanda Elmore Comprehensive Exam No Information Currently  Available  
Benjamin Enyart Comprehensive Exam No Information Currently  Available  
Logan Hilliard Comprehensive Exam No Information Currently  Available MAT Program at Rockford University
Myles Melancon Comprehensive Exam 6th Grade Language Arts Teacher St. Mark's Episcopal School (Houston, TX)
Morgan Scholz “Curricular Analysis of the University of Arkansas Composition I Pilot Course: ENGL 1013, Community Ethnography” Communications Manager Community Clinic of Northwest Arkansas (Springdale, AR)
Shavawn Smith "We Can Come Back From This: Navigating the Perils of the Anthropocene in The Walking Dead"  Travel Analyst Business Services, University of Arkansas
Tessa Swehla “The Two-Sided Coin: Madness and Laughter as Subversion in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Sandman” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas
Stephanie Tangman “Wayward Women, Macho Men: Linguistic Construction of Gender Binaries in Yxta Maya Murray's Locas and Denise Chavéz's Loving Pedro Infante” No Information Currently Available  
Taylor Weeks “Understanding Discourse Transition” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas
Evan Wordlaw Comprehensive Exam No Information Currently Available  

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Farzana Akhter Contemporary Ethnic and Immigrant Literature “The Net of Nostalgia: Class, Culture, and Political Alienation and Nostalgia in Contemporary Latino and South Asian American Literature” Assistant Professor East West University (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
Christy Davis Southern Studies “The Caribbean Imaginary in Southern Women's Literature”  English Professor San Jacinto College (Houston, TX)
Sinan Gul Modern and Contemporary Drama, Drama from the Renaissance and Reformation Ages “Persistence of Memory: Revision, Nostalgia, and Resistance in Contemporary American Drama”  No Information Currently Available  
Whitney Martin African American Literature “The Hollow Class: African-American Class—Passing and the Popular”  Assistant Teaching Professor in African American Literature University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Park (Long Beach, MS)
Linda Shaffer Southern Studies and Indigenous Women's Studies “Cultural Reimagin​ing and Literary Voice: Southeastern Tribal Women Negotiate Cultural, Social, and Political Identity through Literature” Part-Time Faculty, Department of Languages and Literature Northeastern State University (Tahlequah, OK)
Megan Vallowe Indigenous Studies “Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, and Colonial Patriarchy” No Information Currently Available  
Paula White African American Literature  “The Black Maternal and Cultural Healing in Twentieth Century Black Women's Fiction” Instructor Department of English, University of Mississippi (Oxford, MS)

 

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Comprehensive Exam Position Employer
Judith Bell “‘Deliberate Voluptuousness’: The Monstrous Women of Dracula and Carmilla” No Information Currently  Available  
Alex Blomstedt “Divining the Southwest: Liminality, Pragmatism, and Regionalism in Death Comes for the Archbishop” No Information Currently  Available  
Sally Ferguson “[Re]Visiting the Rime: A Case Study of Adaptation as Process and Product with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” Adjunct English Faculty Texarkana College (Texarkana, TX)
Sharon Fox “Dandy as Disease: Gender Hygiene and British Nineteenth-century Literature” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
Luis Marin “The Stories of Junot Díaz: Genre and Narrative in Drown and This is How You Lose Her” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
Kristi Pierse “‘Everyone Has Thought about Killing Someone - One Way or Another′: Cannibalism and the Question of Morality in Bryan Fuller's Hannibal” Office Manager of New Student & Family Programs University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR) 
Jessica Schnebelen “Literature as Virtual Reality: An Exploration of Subjectivity Formation in the Digital Era” Tutor Coordinator for the Business Communication Lab Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
Alicia Troby “Revision and Re-Writing as Adaptation: Using Adaptation Theory to Encourage Student Recognition of Rhetorical Situations” Social Studies Teacher Heritage High School (Rogers, AR)

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Edward Ardeneaux, IV 20th- and 21st-Century American Literature (with a focus on representations of technology and digital subjectivities) “Mapping the System, Completing the Circuit: The Hacker Figure as Techno-Interface in Contemporary Novels of Speculation and in Popular Films” English Instructor  Department of English, University of the Ozarks (Clarksville, AR)
Angela Cox Rhetoric, Composition, and New Media “The Power Fantastic: How Genre Expectations Mediate Authority” No Information Currently Available   
Paige Hermansen Rhetoric and Composition/Rhetoric of Education Policy “Selling College: Student Recruitment and Education Reform Rhetoric in the Age of Privatization” Assistant Professor of English Westfield State University (Westfield, MA) 
Sarah (Nikki) Holland Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy “Designing Place-sensitive Professional Development: A Critical Ethnography of Teaching and Learning Argumentative Writing” Writing Center Course Mentor Western Governors University
Eric Larson British Literature “Telling New Tales: Modernizations of Chaucer in the Eighteenth Century” Writer/Editor
Headquarters Office for the Transportation Security Administration (Arlington, VA)
 
Note: Eric is also an 
Adjunct Professor for George Mason University and an Online Instructor for Central Michigan University.
Rebecca Moore Renaissance Literature “The Threat at Court: Subversive Uses of Translation, Transcription, and Tradition in the Henrician Court” 2016-2017 Fulbright Teaching Fellow Department of English, University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
Amy Oatis American Literature and Literary Theory “‘The Best Soil of Their Hearts’: Protestant Explorations of Catholic Spirituality in Cooper, Longfellow, and Hawthorne” Associate Professor of English University of the Ozarks (Clarksville, AR)
Lindsey Zachary Panxhi Medieval Literature “Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature” Assistant Professor of English, Oklahoma Baptist University (Shawnee, OK) Oklahoma Baptist University (Shawnee, OK) 
Jennifer Pastoor Medieval Literature  “‘Good to Think With’: Women and Exempla in Four Medieval English Texts” No Information Currently Available   
Rachael Price Modern and Contemporary American Literature  “Beyond Main Street : Small Towns in Post-‘Revolt’ American Literature”  Assistant Professor of English  Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (Tifton, GA) 
Ashley Robinson 19th-Century American and British Literature  “Cowboys and Victorians: The American West in English Victorian Literature”  No Information Currently Available    
Amanda Schafer 19th-Century British Literature  “‘A Band of Sisters’: Female Detectives, Authority, and Fiction from 1865 to the 1930s"  Adjunct English Faculty University of Arkansas - Fort Smith and NorthWest Arkansas Community (Bentonville, AR) 
 Justin Tinsley  20th-Century American Literature, Modernism, and Postmodernism "Ecological Approaches to Modernism, the U.S. South, and 20th Century American Literature" 11th-Grade English Teacher Arkansas High School (Texarkana, AR)

 

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Comprehensive Exam Position Employer
Alex Abrams “Decoding Literary AIDS: A Study on Issues of the Body, Masculinity, and Self Identity in U.S. AIDS Literature from 1984-2011” Fire Protection Publications Senior Editor Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK) 
Kimberly Allen “Past Traumas, Present Griefs: Exploring the Effects of Colonialism, Microaggressions, and Stereotyping from Wild West Shows to Indigenous Literature” Doctoral Student in English Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK)
Allison Carter Comprehensive Exam Social Media Marketing Specialist Engage Target Media (Little Rock, AR)
Rebecca Chatham “The Many Faces of Cleopatra: How Performance and Characterization Change Cleopatra in Geoffrey Chaucer's ‘The Legend of Cleopatra,’ William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, and John Dryden's All for Love; or, The World Well Lost” Adjunct Teaching Faculty Program in Rhetoric and Composition, University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
Jason Curlin Comprehensive Exam English Teacher, Arkansas Teacher Corps Lee County High School (Marianna, AR)
Marisa Grippo Comprehensive Exam Administrative Specialist College of Science & Engineering, Southern Arkansas University (Magnolia, AR)
Joshua Jackson “Architectures for a Future South: Posthumanism and Ruin in the Novels of Cormac McCarthy” Doctoral Student in English Georgia State University (Atlanta, GA)
Laurel Loh “Intersectionality in Jane Eyre and Its Adaptations” No Information Currently Available  
Shirley Rash “Maybe It Was You: The Implications of Southern Gothic Elements of Criminality, Sexuality, and Race in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood”  Assistant Editor New Leaf Publishing Group (Green Forest, Arkansas)
Phillip Stephens “The Technological Singularity: An Ideological Critique”  Blackboard Support Specialist  University Information Technology Services, University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR) 
Alexis Stephenson “What the Fuck Is This?:  Aesthetic Nature of Being or Ontology in the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins”  No Information Currently Available   
Ian Whitlow “‘Keep Funding or Else . . . It's Mustaches’: Building a Community of Literacy at Owl Creek School”  Video Production Manager Tyson Foods, Inc. (Springdale, AR)

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Huseyin Altindis Southern Literature  "Immigrant Labor in Southern Literature, 1980-2010" No Information Currently Available   
Jennifer Mallette Rhetoric and Composition “Engineer as Writer and Woman: Gender, Identity, and Professional Discourse” Assistant Professor of English (Technical Communication Program) Boise State University (Boise, ID) 
Mindy Trenary Modern and Contemporary American Literature “Jewish-American Immigrant Narratives and Modernist Cosmopolitan Aesthetics” English Instructor Humanities & Social Sciences Department, Butler Community College (El Dorado, KS) 
Andy Trevathan 20th-Century Literature (Secondary Emphasis in Rhetoric and Composition) “At Home In Exile: Ezra Pound and the Poetics of Banishment”  Full-Time Instructor Department of English, Louisiana State University--Baton Rouge (Baton Rouge, LA)
Megan Troutman American Popular Culture “(Re)Animating the Horror Genre: Explorations in Children's Animated Horror Film”  English Instructor King's HIgh School (Seattle, WA)
Afrin Zeenat American Literature and Culture before 1900 “The Spectacle of Orphanhood: Reimagining Orphans in Postbellum Fiction” Assistant Professor of English Literature Department of English, University of Dhaka (Dhaka, Bangladesh) 
Malek Zuraikat Medieval Literature  “The Anti-Crusade Voice of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales” No Information Currently Available   

 

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Comprehensive Exam Position Employer
Laura Leighann Dicks “The Influence of Literacy on the Lives of Twentieth Century Southern Female Minority Figures” Doctoral Student in English University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS)
Natalie Hotary Comprehensive Exam No Information Currently Available  
Jacqueline Lawrence “Queer Tastes: An Exploration of Food and Sexuality in Southern Lesbian Literature” Associate Business Partner in Human Resources J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc. (Lowell, AR)
Timothy Nelson “Welsh Manipulations of the Matter of Britain” Doctoral Student in English University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)
Aaron Nugent Comprehensive Exam English Teacher Fayetteville High School (Fayetteville, AR)
Sara Putman Comprehensive Exam English Teacher Alma High School (Alma, AR)
Benjamin Ring Comprehensive Exam English Teacher Bentonville High School (Bentonville, AR)
Rachael Schaffner “Facing the Wreck: Death, Optimism, and the Fragmented Form” Sustainability Coordinator City of Fayetteville (Fayetteville, AR)
Katie Smith “Transitioning to Writing about Writing: A Consideration of the Metawriting Teaching Approach at the University of Arkansas” No Information Currently Available  
Elizabeth Vammen “A Melting Pot of Voices: Public Discourse and the Latino Immigrant Experience in the United States” No Information Currently Available  
Mia Wendel Comprehensive Exam Produce Development Specialist Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Bentonville, AR) 

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Aya Akkawi Postmodern Literature  “Salman Rushdie in the Postmodern Current: New Venues, New Values” Assistant Professor of English Literature Yarmouk University, (Irbid, Jordan) 
James Anderson  Rhetoric and Composition “‘We can’t reclaim what we don’t understand’: Teachers’ Perceptions of Advocacy and Voice in a Rural Institute of the National Writing Project” Assistant Professor of English and English Education Lander University (Greenwood, SC) 
Jeremy Burns  American Popular Culture after 1945 “Monsters in Common: Identity and Community in Post-apocalyptic Science Fiction After 9/11” Assistant Director Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR) 
Mary Leigh  19th-Century British Literature  “The Cultural Crime of Femininity: Advocating for Viable and Successful Womanhood in Charles Dickens and George Eliot” Humanities Instructor  Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts (Hot Springs, AR) 
April (Thompson) Young  Southern Literature  “Trashed Whites: The Myth of the Southern Poor White” Assistant Professor of English  Volunteer State Community College (Gallatin, TN) 

 

M.A. Graduates

Name Thesis or Comprehensive Exam Position Employer
Rachel Hancock “Humor and Howells: From Sit Down to Stand-Up” Academic Adviser and Scholarship Coordinator Walton Honors Program, Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas 
Drew Walker Comprehensive Exam No Information Currently Available  
Elizabeth Walker Comprehensive Exam Manager of Executive Communications Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Bentonville, AR)

 

Ph.D. Graduates

Name Area of Specialization Dissertation Position Employer
Jack Ayres Modern British Literature  “After Orwell: Totalitarian Fears and the English Political Novel, 1950-2010” Assistant Professor of English Texas A&M University--San Antonio (San Antonio, TX)
Eve Baldwin Rhetoric and Composition “Reading and Religion: Reconciling Diverse Reading Patterns and the First-Year Composition Classroom” Lecturer of Writing and Critical Inquiry in Undergraduate Education University at Albany (Albany, NY)
Jake Edwards Rhetoric and Composition “E-Readers, Reading Practices, and Adolescent Readers: Observations on the Intersection of Technology, Literacy, and Identity” Assistant Professor of English Georgia Gwinnett College (Lawrenceville, GA)
Karon Reese Modern and Contemporary American Literature “Occupying the Pedestal: Gender Issues in Ellen Gilchrist” Associate Broker Gardner Realtors (New Orleans, LA)
Nancy Romig Modern and Contemporary American Literature  “‘A Man Is Hard Enough to Be’: History and Masculinity in the Texts of E. L. Doctorow” Assistant Professor of English Howard Payne University (Brownwood, TX) 
Carol Westcamp Modern and Contemporary American Literature “A Place Where You Can Reckon with Yourself: Loss of Place in Sam Shepard’s Plays” Assistant Professor of English University of Arkansas—Fort Smith (Fort Smith, AR)

 

Key Statistics for Our M.A. and Ph.D. Programs
Updated Spring 2017

M.A. Graduates since 2011
59

Ph.D. Graduates since 2011
47

Avg. time to degree for M.A.'s graduating since 2011
3 years, 2 semesters

Avg. time to degree for Ph.D.'s graduating since 2011
6 years

Select Placement Information for M.A. Graduates Over the Last 10 Years:

Ph.D. Program Enrollment
39

Secondary Education Careers
17

Library Science Graduate Programs or Library Administrative Positions
6

College English Instructor Positions
4

Select Placement Information for Ph.D. Graduates Over the Last 10 Years:

Assistant or Associate Professors
26

Non-Tenure-Track Positions
19

Alternative-Academic Positions 7