Alumni Data
English M.A. and Ph.D. Alumni
English M.A. and Ph.D. Alumni
English M.A. and Ph.D. Alumni
Welcome to our graduate English alumni page!
This page provides:
- key statistics and placement data for our graduate programs
- a list of alumni who have graduated from the M.A. and Ph.D. Programs in English since 2013
We encourage you to review our list of alumni to get a sense of the wide range of careers, both academic and nonacademic, that our graduate students have chosen to pursue.
Key Statistics and Placement Data for Our M.A. and Ph.D. Programs
(Updated Summer 2026)
M.A. Statistics
- 116 M.A. Graduates from Spring 2016 to Spring 2026
- 1 year + 2 semesters – Average Time to Degree Completion for M.A. Graduates from Spring 2021 to Spring 2026
Examples of M.A. Alumni Careers
- Ph.D. Program Enrollments
- K-12 Teaching Positions
- College English Instructor
- Academic Administration
- Editorial Staff
- Researcher
- Corporate, Non-Profit, and Entrepreneurial Positions (e.g., with ArcBest, Tyson, J.B. Hunt, Walmart, KUAF, Startup Junkie Foundation, Bookish Independent Bookstore, Civil + Structural Engineer Media, and Legal Aid of Arkansas)
- Library Science Graduate Program Enrollments or Library Administrative Positions
Ph.D. Statistics
- 53 Ph.D. Graduates from Spring 2016 to Spring 2026
- 5 years + 2 semesters – Average Time to Degree Completion for Ph.D. Graduates from Spring 2021 through Spring 2026
Examples of Ph.D. Alumni Careers
- Assistant or Associate Professor Positions
- Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Positions
- K-12 Teaching Positions
- Academic Administration
- Academic Advisor
- Researcher
- Corporate Job
- Other Careers:
- Acquisitions Editor
- Researcher
- Educ. Program Spec. (U.S. Dept. of Education)
- Founder of Interrobang (brand storytelling co.)
- Real Estate Broker
List of Alumni Who Have Graduated Since 2013
M.A. Graduates
| Name | Thesis or Portfolio |
Position | Employer or Graduate Institution |
| Rasna Afroz | Portfolio | Doctoral Student | Rhetoric Program, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign |
| Zainab Aldaoseri | Thesis | Doctoral Student |
The University of Texas at Austin |
| Abel Fenwick | Thesis: “‘Some Day This Country’s Gonna Be a Fine, Good Place to Be. Maybe It Needs Our Bones in the Ground Before That Time Can Come’: Neopolitics, Native Americans, and the Nation in Post-War Western Cinema” | English Language Arts Management Trainee |
Think Academy U.S.
|
| Christopher Jester | Portfolio |
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| Mary Beth Kemp | Portfolio | High School English Teacher |
Ursuline Academy of Dallas |
| Morgan Lee | Thesis: “Dutiful Wife, Grieving Mother: Examining Medieval Joban Allusion Through a Matricentric Affective Lens” | Composition and Creative Writing Instructor |
Northwest Mississippi Community College |
| Bethany Tilley | Thesis: “Colonialist Ideologies, Environmental Warnings: Nordic Wilderness and Human Perceptions of the Nonhuman in 21st Century Folk Horror Films” | Communications Assistant / Adjunct English Faculty | School of Art, University of Arkansas / NorthWest Arkansas Community College |
| Eden Young | Portfolio | Doctoral Student | Department of English Language and Literature, University of South Carolina |
Ph.D. Graduates
| Name | Area(s) of Specialization | Dissertation | Position | Employer |
| Jessica Allee | Disability Rhetoric, Technical Communication, and Narrative Medicine |
“The Narrative Dynamics of Special Books by Special Kids YouTube Videos and Comments: A Study of Disability Rhetoric and Public Narrative Engagement” |
Adjunct Faculty | Alice L. Walton School of Medicine |
M.A. Graduates
| Name | Thesis or Portfolio |
Position | Employer or Graduate Institution |
| Md. Sayed Ali | Portfolio | Doctoral Student | Rhetoric and Writing, Virginia Tech |
| Emma Bacak | Portfolio | Doctoral Student |
English, University of Arkansas |
| Emily Birtwistle | Portfolio | Doctoral Student |
English, University of Arkansas
|
| Teyaira Bonds | Portfolio | Director |
Concurrent Credit and Early College Academy at U of A East Arkansas Community College |
| Taylor Brown | Portfolio |
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| Charlotte Cassidy | Portfolio |
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| John Hannon | Thesis: “The Rhetorical Use of the Lower Classes in Three Primary Accounts of the First Crusade” | ||
| Molly Mingo | Portfolio | ||
| Abigayle Money | Portfolio | Writing Center Tutor | NorthWest Arkansas Community College |
| Ren Phillips | Portfolio | Doctoral Student | English, University of Arkansas |
| Ahsan Tohel | Portfolio | Doctoral Student | Rhetoric and Composition, The University of Texas at El Paso |
Ph.D. Graduates
| Name | Area of Specialization | Dissertation | Position | Employer |
| Emmy Aguayo | Medieval Literature |
“Fergus of Galloway: A New Translation for a New Audience” |
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| Tate Aldrich | American Transcendental philosophy and 20th-century literary modernism | “Literary Postcritique and American Transcendentalism: Helping Students Practice Community-Building by Rewilding Literature in the Classroom” | Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director for the Secondary Education | English Department, Missouri State University |
| Dana Blair | Rhetoric and Composition | “This is Fine: A Reflexive Case Study on Beliefs, Institutional Rhetoric, and the Quiet Despair of Capstone Completion" | Learning Specialist | Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) |
| Scott Hendry | Literature and Film of the North American West / Rhetorics of Space and Place | “Space and Subjectivity in the Emerging American West” | Professor of English | Liberal Arts & Sciences Division, Rose State College |
| Samantha Meeks | 18th-century British Literature | “The Pursuit of Happiness through Reading Burney, Radcliffe, and Austen” | Assistant Professor | School of Language and Literature, University of Central Arkansas |
| Jordan Savage | Contemporary American Literature | “End Times: American Mortality, Death Materiality, and Social Death in the 1990s” | Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing | University of Arkansas - Fort Smith |
M.A. Graduates
| Name | Thesis or Portfolio |
Position | Employer or Graduate Institution |
| Shelley Aschliman | Portfolio | English Teacher | Don Tyson School of Innovation (DTSOI) |
| Collette Bliss | Portfolio | Curriculum Development Specialist and Adjunct English Instructor |
Lee University |
| Camden Burris | Portfolio | Academic Advisor |
Walton College of Business
|
| Mitchell Carabio | Portfolio | Instructor |
Rhetoric/Composition Office |
| Jenna Carey | Portfolio | Humanities Teacher |
Gloria Deo Academy |
| Aura Comer | Portfolio | Teacher |
Haas Hall Academy |
| Forhad Kasem | Portfolio | Doctoral Student | University of Arizona |
| Olivia Lynch | Portfolio | Career Coach | University of Arkansas |
| Abigail Reese Preto | Portfolio | Teacher | Farmington Junior High School |
| Ashleigh Severson | Portfolio | Instructor | Rhetoric/Composition Office University of Arkansas |
| Victoria Trammell | Portfolio | Academic Advisor | Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, University of Arkansas |
| Mohi Uddin | Portfolio | Doctoral Student |
University of Utah |
Ph.D. Graduates
| Name | Area of Specialization | Dissertation | Position | Employer |
| Gracie Bain | Neo-Victorian Texts and Gender | “Ripperature: Crossing Gender and Genre” | Assistant Professor | English and Communication Department at Nazareth University (Rochester, NY) |
| Skye Oliver | Medieval Literature and Culture | “Desire Lines: Reading Queerly Through the Forests of Medieval Love Literature” | Substitute Teacher | The New School |
| Taylor Weeks | Rhetoric and Composition |
“I'm Just Me: The Rhetorical Study of Veterans’ Experiences of Academic Labels in College Classrooms” |
Instructor | Rhetoric/Composition Office University of Arkansas |
M.A. Graduates
| Name | Thesis or Portfolio |
Position | Employer or Graduate Institution |
| Morgan Akers | Portfolio | Web Editor | Fulbright Communications Team, University of Arkansas |
| David Berg | Portfolio | Law Student | University of Michigan Law School |
| Miller Godwin | Portfolio | No Information Currently Available | |
| Kayla Green | Portfolio | Instructor | Rhetoric/Composition Office University of Arkansas |
| Anna Mercer | Portfolio | Copy Editing Manager | Walmart |
| Taylor Pike | Portfolio | Law Student | S.J. Quinney College of Law |
| Ana Rodriguez Rivera | Portfolio | Research Writer | University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences |
| Abigail Ross | Portfolio | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Braden Taylor | Thesis: “Poesis and Sympathy: Community Through Craftsmanship” | Coordinator of Student Life and Wellness | University of Arkansas - Pulaski Technical College |
| Mallory Whitson | Portfolio | Copyeditor | Walmart |
M.A. Graduates
| Name | Thesis or Portfolio |
Position | Employer or Graduate Institution |
| Jessica Allee | Portfolio | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Val Brown | Portfolio | No Information Currently Available | |
| Bethany Cole | Portfolio | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Ellie Davis | Portfolio | Instructor | Rhetoric/Composition Office University of Arkansas |
| Tyler Houston | Portfolio | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Sarah Hurst | Portfolio | English Teacher | Bentonville High School |
| Olivia Jorgensen | Portfolio | School/Community Specialist-STEM | Cherokee Nation |
| Michael Menase | Thesis: “Ghosts and Ethics in the Early Works of James Joyce” | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Martha Pearce | Portfolio | Instructor | Rhetoric/Composition Office University of Arkansas |
| Angelena Pierce | Portfolio | Digital Media Copywriter | Greater Good Charities |
| John Plavcan | Portfolio | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Bailey Rhodes | Portfolio | Teacher | Bentonville High School |
| Devin Shepherd | Portfolio | Website Specialist | Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance |
| Lauren Shively | Portfolio | English Instructor |
Rhetoric/Composition Office |
| John Strange | Portfolio | Strategic Initiatives Associate | WhyteSpyder |
Ph.D. Graduates
| Name | Area of Specialization | Dissertation | Position | Employer |
| Christopher Borntrager | Discourse Studies, Literacy Studies, and Rhetoric Studies | “Media Ideologies and the Politics of Digital Literacy: Discourses on Media and Technology in a Small School District in the U.S. Heartland” | Coordinator for the Writing Studio | Student Success Center University of Arkansas |
| Ann Riley-Adams | Literary History; Medieval Celtic Literature; Medieval and Early Modern English and Welsh History | “Elis Gruffydd and the Welsh Historical Tradition” | Assistant Professor of English | Wayne State College |
| Tessa Swehla |
Science Fiction, Medical Humanities, and Disability Theory | “The Child in the Basement: Debilitating Mechanisms in American Science Fiction” | Associate Editor | MovieJawn |
M.A. Graduates
| Name | Thesis or Portfolio |
Position | Employer or Graduate Institution |
| Melody Berry | Portfolio | Adjunct Instructor | NorthWest Arkansas Community College |
| Renee Brochu | Portfolio | English Instructor | Department of English University of Arkansas |
| David Cajías Calvet | Thesis: “Self-Deceive and Conquer: A Rhetoric of Cunning” | Editor |
European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) |
| Olivia Cash | Portfolio | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Gabrielle Causey | Portfolio | English Teacher | Drew Central High School (Monticello, AR) |
| Aaron East | Portfolio | Proposal Coordinator | ERS Corp. (Jacksonville, FL) |
| Tenzin Kunsang | Portfolio | Program & Operations Associate | Tibet House US |
Ph.D. Graduates
| Name | Area of Specialization | Dissertation | Position | Employer |
| Ebtesam Alawfi | American Literature from the Late 19th century through Today | “Diversifying Woolf’s Room: Private Spaces and Creativity in the Works of Willa Cather, Kate Chopin, Gayl Jones, and Alice Walker” | Faculty Member/ Vice Dean for Quality and Development |
Alasala Colleges |
| Meagon Clarkson-Guyll | Rhetoric and Composition | “Mapping the Pathways to Campus Writing Sites: Implications for Writing Program Administrators” |
Associate Vice President for Student Success
Director of Advising |
|
| Erin Daugherty |
Rhetoric and Composition | “Rewriting Web 2.0 Discourses of the Local for Socio-Spatial Literacy Theory” | Freelance Storyteller | Interrobang |
| Kristen Figgins | 19th Century British Literature and Culture, Adaptation Studies, and Critical Animal Studies | “Adapting Animals: Nineteenth-Century British Literature, Science, and Media.” | Assistant Professor | Department of Languages, Literature, and Philosophy at Mississippi University for Women |
| Katie Wilson Powell | Rhetoric and Composition; Story/Memory Project | “Memory and Rememory: Critically Cultivating an Appropriate Response Through a Storied Approach to Listening” | Assistant Professor Educator with the Department of English | Professional Writing Track, University of Cincinnati |
| Sharla Rosenbaum | U.S. Women Authors from 1865-1910 and Their Alternative Constructions of Courtship, Marriage, and Family, Dealing with Gender and Sexuality, Political Movements, and Women Moving into the Workforce | “Queering the Metanarrative of Domesticity: Chosen Families in Late Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Literature” | Professor of English | Arizona Western College |
M.A. Graduates
| Name | Thesis or Portfolio |
Position | Employer or Graduate Institution |
| Anna Burton | Portfolio | Client Engagement Representative - Copywriter/Digital Marketer | Hugg & Hall Equipment Company |
| Addison Cornwell | Portfolio | Doctoral Student | Indiana University (Bloomington, IN) |
| Brigitta Field | Portfolio | Marketing Coordinator | VCBO Architecture (Salt Lake City, UT) |
| Dylan Henderson | Thesis: “Providence Lost: Natural and Urban Landscapes in H. P. Lovecraft's Fiction” | Doctoral Student | Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) |
| Sheffield Spence | Portfolio | Sales Representative | Spence Sales Associates |
| Vee Lawson | Portfolio | Doctoral Student | Program in Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures, Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) |
Ph.D. Graduates
| Name | Area of Specialization | Dissertation | Position | Employer |
| Luis Paganelli Marin |
Modern and Contemporary American Literature and Culture |
“Empire Rules: Cultures of U.S. Imperialism in Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S.” | Research Writer | University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences |
| Tim Nelson | Medieval Literature and Culture | “The Medieval British Legacy of the Founding Myth of Britain” | Full-time Instructor of English | Shawnee State University (Portsmouth, OH) |
| Kelly Westeen | Renaissance Literature and Culture | “From the Womb to the Word: Pregnancy and Pregnancy Metaphors in 16th and 17th Century English Literature” | Faculty Support Coordinator | University of Arkansas |
M.A. Graduates
| Name | Thesis or Portfolio |
Position | Employer or Graduate Institution |
| Patrick Angyal | Portfolio | No Information Currently Available | |
| Gracie Bain | Thesis: “Feeling Clumsy, Feeling Alien: Affect and Gender in Victorian Sensation Fiction” | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Dana Blair | Portfolio | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Andrew Blume | Portfolio | No Information Currently Available | |
| Coty Darst | Portfolio |
Senior Manager |
Walmart |
| Isaiah "Bo" Desmond | Portfolio | 7th Grade English Language Arts Teacher | Hellstern Middle School, Springdale, AR |
| Michelle Gibeault | Thesis: “The Anonymous Web in Adichie’s Americanah” | Scholarly Engagement Librarian for the Humanities | Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University (New Orleans, LA) |
| Erin Gloster | Portfolio | Research Assistant | Office of Community Health and Research, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Northwest (Fayetteville, Arkansas) |
| Emily Holmes | “Losing Faith: Emily Brontë's Revolutionized Religion” | Law School Student | University of Arkansas |
| Phyllis LeBert | “‘A Woman’s Story’: Lady Macbeth and Performing Femininity in the Early 1600s – Late 1900s” | Adjunct Instructor | NorthWest Arkansas Community College |
| William "Kelly" Reeder | “On the Variations of Occupatio in Richard II” | Freelance Writer | |
| Nathan Riggs | “Spirit Don't Ever Die: Apocalypse and Denial in an Infinite Universe” | Long-Term English Substitute Teacher | Haas Hall Academy |
| Autumn Weese | “Monstrous Mobility in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula” | Library Staff | Rogers Public Library |
| Noel Wheeler | Portfolio | Doctoral Student in Comparative Literature | Indiana University (Bloomington, IN) |
Ph.D. Graduates
| Name | Area of Specialization | Dissertation | Position | Employer |
| Nathan Fayard | Medieval Literature and Culture | “Recovered Images: Medieval Echoes in C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy” | Assistant Professor of English | Indiana Wesleyan University (Marion, Indiana) |
| Nathan Haydon |
Medieval Literature and Culture |
“‘We Are Strangers in this Life’: Theology, Liminality, and the Exiled in Anglo-Saxon Literature” | 7th and 8th Grade Literature Teacher | Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy (Bentonville, AR) |
| Brent Linsley | Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Fictions of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Centuries | “A Sense of Unending: Apocalypse and Post-Apocalypse in Novels of Late Capitalism” | Essay Rater | Educational Testing Service (ETS) |
| MaryKate Messimer | Ecofeminism, Queer Ecologies, and Science Fiction | “Gender in Apocalyptic California: The Ecological Frontier” | Academic Advisor | Southern New Hampshire University |
| Stuart "Sam" Morris | Literacy Theory and Instruction, Secondary English Education, and Young Adult Literature | “Remembering How to Listen: A Pedagogical and Theoretical Approach to Literacy, Adolescence, and Young Adult Literature” | Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of English and the Program Coordinator for the English with Secondary English Language Arts Licensure Bachelor of Arts | University of South Carolina-Beaufort (Bluffton, South Carolina) |
| Michael Pitts | Science Fiction Novels and Television Programs of the Latter 20th and Early 21st Centuries, Critical Theory of Technologies, and Masculinities in Those Texts and Programs | “A New Man: Feminist Utopias and the Representation of Alternative Masculinities” | Lecturer | University of New York in Prague |
| Leila Sadegh Beigi | Literature by Contemporary Iranian Women Writers | “Exile, Translation, and Contemporary Iranian Women Writers” | Instructor | University of Arkansas |
M.A. Graduates
| Name | Thesis or Portfolio |
Position | Employer |
| Justin Barfield |
Portfolio | Resolution Specialist | Contact Center Operations, Walmart |
| Luke Carothers | Portfolio | Editor and Content Specialist | Civil + Structural Engineer Media / Zweig Group |
| Robert Ellis | Portfolio | Assistant Director | Office of Nationally Competitive Awards University of Arkansas |
| Sait Ibiši | “Middle Eastern Themes in Contemporary American Fantasy: The Political and Socio-Religious Implications” | No Information Currently Available | |
| Michel LaCrue | “Establishing Influence and Authority in Ancient Civilizations and Modern Politics: The Rhetoric of Oracles and the Oracular Maneuvers of Political Action Committees” | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Kimberly Marquez |
Portfolio | Director of Communications | Legal Aid of Arkansas |
| David Morledge | Portfolio | Teacher | Huntsville Public School District |
| Allison Treese | “A Flourynge Aege: Tracing the Sacred and Secular in the Book of St. Albans” | No Information Currently Available |
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| Mitchell Simpson | Portfolio | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| John Stout | “Pynchon and Place: A Geocritical Reading of Thomas Pynchon” | English Teacher | Haas Hall Academy |
| Mary (“Katie”) Voss | Portfolio | Corporate Communications Director | Greystone Communities |
| Amanda White | Portfolio | Communications and Marketing Specialist | Hirsh Precision |
Ph.D. Graduates
| Name | Area of Specialization | Dissertation | Position | Employer |
| Uyen Dang |
Rhetoric and Composition |
“Activating Schemata in ESL Writing” | Instructor of English | Hung Vuong Specialized High School, Binh Duong province, Vietnam |
| Jonathan Green | Composition Pedagogy | “Best Practice: Bringing the Elements of Effective Practice to the College Writing Classroom” | Writing Center Director and Assistant Professor | Cottey College (Nevada, MO) |
| Garrett Jeter | 19th-Century Gothic Literature | “Gothic Voids: Nineteenth-Century Reader Experience and Participation” | Assistant Professor of English | Louisiana Christian University (Pineville, LA) |
| Yendountien (“Noellie”) Lare-Assogba | Southern Literature | “Presumed Innocent: The Child Figure in U.S. Southern Literature, 1945 – 2004” | Substitute Teacher in the Combined Middle and High School System ("Secondaire") | Marie-Victorin Board, Quebec, Canada |
| Sara West |
Technical Communication | “The Challenge of Anonymous and Ephemeral Social Media: Reflective Research Methodologies & Student-User Composing Practices” | Assistant Professor in Writing Studies | Middle Tennessee 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” | Tenure-Track Position | Abilene Christian University |
| Chris Borntrager | “Mechanisms and Implications of Identity Hybridization in Online Advertorials” | Doctoral Program |
Department of English |
| Karly Eaton | “Race, Place and Young Adulting in Southern and Adolecscent Literature” | English and AP Psychology Teacher | Haas Hall Academy |
| Amanda Elmore | Comprehensive Exam | 6th Grade Teacher | eStem Public Charter Schools |
| Benjamin Enyart | Comprehensive Exam | Senior Corporate Communications Specialist | AMN Healthcare |
| Logan Hilliard | Comprehensive Exam | Director of Career Development and First Year Programs | Rockford University |
| Myles Melancon | Comprehensive Exam | PhD Student and Graduate Assistant | Mississippi State University College of Business |
| Morgan Scholz | “Curricular Analysis of the University of Arkansas Composition I Pilot Course: ENGL 1013, Community Ethnography” | Vice-President of Human Resources | AcreTrader |
| Shavawn Smith | "We Can Come Back From This: Navigating the Perils of the Anthropocene in The Walking Dead" | Chief Financial Officer | Arkansas Archeological Survey, 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” | AP Teacher | Science & Engineering Magnet High School (Dallas, TX) |
| Taylor Weeks | “Understanding Discourse Transition” | Doctoral Student in English | University of Arkansas |
| Evan Wordlaw | Comprehensive Exam | Instructor | Rhetoric/Composition Office University of Arkansas |
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” | Associate Professor of English; Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences | 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 Reimagining 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” | Assistant Director of Programs | Emory University School of Medicine |
| Paula White | African American Literature | “The Black Maternal and Cultural Healing in Twentieth Century Black Women's Fiction” | Assistant Professor of English | Department of Languages and Literature at Austin Peay State University (Clarksville, TN) |
M.A. Graduates
| Name | Thesis or Comprehensive Exam | Position | Employer |
| Judith Bell | “‘Deliberate Voluptuousness’: The Monstrous Women of Dracula and Carmilla” | 6th Grade Literacy Teacher | Creekside Middle School |
| Alex Blomstedt | “Divining the Southwest: Liminality, Pragmatism, and Regionalism in Death Comes for the Archbishop” | Intelligence Officer | U.S. Navy |
| Jessi Brewer | “Literature as Virtual Reality: An Exploration of Subjectivity Formation in the Digital Era” | Doctoral Student in English | Brandeis University |
| Sally Ferguson | “[Re]Visiting the Rime: A Case Study of Adaptation as Process and Product with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” | English Faculty | University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana |
| Sharon Fox | “Dandy as Disease: Gender Hygiene and British Nineteenth-century Literature” | Interim Dean of Communication and Arts | NorthWest Arkansas Community College |
| Luis Paganelli Marín | “The Stories of Junot Díaz: Genre and Narrative in Drown and This is How You Lose Her” | Research Writer | University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences |
| Kristi Pierse | “‘Everyone Has Thought about Killing Someone - One Way or Another′: Cannibalism and the Question of Morality in Bryan Fuller's Hannibal” | Carrier Compliance Representative | KLLM Transport Services |
| 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” | Associate Professor | 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 | |
| Wyatt Paige Hermansen | Rhetoric and Composition/Rhetoric of Education Policy | “Selling College: Student Recruitment and Education Reform Rhetoric in the Age of Privatization” | Associate 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 Faculty | 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 Quoss-Moore | Renaissance Literature | “The Threat at Court: Subversive Uses of Translation, Transcription, and Tradition in the Henrician Court” | Associate Professor in Early Modern British Literature | Department of English, University of Central Oklahoma (Edmond, OK) |
| Amy Oatis | American Literature and Literary Theory | “‘The Best Soil of Their Hearts’: Protestant Explorations of Catholic Spirituality in Cooper, Longfellow, and Hawthorne” | Professor of English | University of the Ozarks (Clarksville, AR) |
| Lindsey Zachary Panxhi | Medieval Literature | “Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature” | No Information Currently Available | |
| 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” | Associate 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” | Founder and Lead Storyteller | Interrobang (a brand storytelling company) |
| 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 at Fort Smith |
| Justin Tinsley | 20th-Century American Literature, Modernism, and Postmodernism | "Ecological Approaches to Modernism, the U.S. South, and 20th Century American Literature" | English Instructor | Arkansas Arts Academy |
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” | Director of Media Relations | High Point University |
| Kimberly Allen | “Past Traumas, Present Griefs: Exploring the Effects of Colonialism, Microaggressions, and Stereotyping from Wild West Shows to Indigenous Literature” | No Information Currently Available | |
| 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” | Assistant Professor of English | North Dakota State University |
| Jason Curlin | Comprehensive Exam | PhD student | Indiana University Bloomington |
| Allison Carter Fanney | Comprehensive Exam | Assistant Vice President, Public Relations | LPL Financial |
| Marisa Grippo | Comprehensive Exam | Registrar | Southern Arkansas University (Magnolia, AR) |
| Joshua Jackson | “Architectures for a Future South: Posthumanism and Ruin in the Novels of Cormac McCarthy” | Faculty Lecturer | Georgia State University |
| Laurel Loh | “Intersectionality in Jane Eyre and Its Adaptations” | Program Coordinator of Experiential Learning | Stony Brook University |
| Shirley Rash | “Maybe It Was You: The Implications of Southern Gothic Elements of Criminality, Sexuality, and Race in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood” | Freelance Editor | Shirley Rash Editing |
| Phillip Stephens | “The Technological Singularity: An Ideological Critique” | Social Worker | |
| Alexis Stephenson | “What the Fuck Is This?: Aesthetic Nature of Being or Ontology in the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins” | Coordinator, Operations & Projects | American Dental Association |
| Ian Whitlow | “‘Keep Funding or Else . . . It's Mustaches’: Building a Community of Literacy at Owl Creek School” | Senior Creative Strategist | 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" | Assistant Professor | Selcuk University (Turkey) |
| Jennifer Mallette | Rhetoric and Composition | “Engineer as Writer and Woman: Gender, Identity, and Professional Discourse” | Associate 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” | Professor of English, OER Coordinator | Department of English & Literature, 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” | Senior 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” | Instructional Coach | Bellevue School District (WA) |
| Afrin Zeenat | American Literature and Culture before 1900 | “The Spectacle of Orphanhood: Reimagining Orphans in Postbellum Fiction” | Professor of English | School of World Languages, Cultures & Communications, Richland College (Dallas, TX) |
| Malek Zuraikat | Medieval Literature | “The Anti-Crusade Voice of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales” | Associate Professor | Department of English Language and Literature, Yarmouk University (Irbid, Jordan) |
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” | Senior Research Analyst | Kansas Legislative Research Department (Topeka, KS) |
| Natalie Hotary | Comprehensive Exam | Interior Designer | Natalie Noren Design |
| Jacqueline Lawrence | “Queer Tastes: An Exploration of Food and Sexuality in Southern Lesbian Literature” | Vice President, People Relations | J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc. (Lowell, AR) |
| Timothy Nelson | “Welsh Manipulations of the Matter of Britain” | No Information Currently Available | University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR) |
| Aaron Nugent | Comprehensive Exam | Secondary English Teacher | Matthew Flinders Anglican College, Buderim, Queensland, Australia |
| Jimmy Peebles | “Middle-earth’s War on Terror: A Post-9/11 Reception Study on the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien” | No Information Currently Available | |
| Sara Putman | Comprehensive Exam | Co-Owner | Bookish, an independent bookstore (Fort Smith, AR) |
| Benjamin Ring | Comprehensive Exam | English Teacher | Bentonville High School (Bentonville, AR) |
| Rachael Schaffner | “Facing the Wreck: Death, Optimism, and the Fragmented Form” | Director, Impact and Information | Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) |
| Katie Smith | “Transitioning to Writing about Writing: A Consideration of the Metawriting Teaching Approach at the University of Arkansas” |
Senior Content Marketing Manager |
Current Health, a Best Buy Health Company |
| Liza Vammen | “A Melting Pot of Voices: Public Discourse and the Latino Immigrant Experience in the United States” | Associate Director | Business Communication Lab, Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas |
| Mia (Wendel) Edwards | Comprehensive Exam | Product Development & Sourcing Manager | Walmart Corporation |
Ph.D. Graduates
| Name | Area of Specialization | Dissertation | Position | Employer |
| Aya Akkawi | Postmodern Literature | “Salman Rushdie in the Postmodern Current: New Venues, New Values” | Associate 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” | Associate 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” | Associate Dean for Communications & Information | Enrollment Services, 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 |
| Joel Blair | Comprehensive Exam | No Information Currently Available | |
| Megan Grizzle | “Contentious Conversations, Missing Voices: The Ongoing Debate about Style” | No Information Currently Available | |
| Rachel Hancock | “Humor and Howells: From Sit Down to Stand-Up” | Analyst, Strategic Projects and Relationships | Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art |
| Drew Walker | Comprehensive Exam | Executive Communications | Walmart Corporation |
| Elizabeth Walker | Comprehensive Exam | Senior Manager, Digital Strategy & Brand Engagement | Walmart Corporation |
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” | Associate 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, Honors Program Director | Georgia Gwinnett College (Lawrenceville, GA) |
| Karon Reese | Modern and Contemporary American Literature | “Occupying the Pedestal: Gender Issues in Ellen Gilchrist” | Broker | Reese & Co. Real Estate |
| 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” | Professor of English | University of Arkansas—Fort Smith (Fort Smith, AR) |