MA Students

Cadence Dangerfield
I am a first-year MA student with a BA in English from The University of Akron. My academic interests are rooted in Gender and Sexuality Studies from a range of historical periods with a specific focus on gendered gazes in literature.

Katherine Manwell
I am a second-year MA student and hold a BA in Creative Writing from Saginaw Valley State University. I am interested in Victorian Realism, particularly the evolution of the novel during this period, and children’s fiction.

Ryan Pfeiffer
I am a second-year MA student and hold a BS in English from Hillsdale College. My academic interests include formal prosody—particularly the ontology of verse and the implications of meter and rhythm for aesthetic judgements—as well as the role of literature in education.

Hannah Potantus
The 2022-2023 school year is my first year as an MA student. I received my BA in English from Bowling Green State University. My main interests lie in the academia of the past and the connections they have with the texts of today. My focus is on ancient teachings that have stood the test of time from writers such as Homer, the Prophets, and Snorri.

Anthony Raffin
I am a first-year MA Student with a BA in English Literature and Professional Writing from Miami University (2021). My academic interests range from the early Beatniks to contemporary postmodernist writers. Specifically, I am particularly interested in conversations surrounding the construction of masculinity and the role of information in a post-truth society.

Ellard Stolze
I am a first-year MA student with a BS in English and minor in French from the United States Air Force Academy. My interests have aligned themselves with death and the life and love before it as written in war literature, as well as by Shakespeare.

Alyssa Viscounte
I am a first-year MA student with a BA in Psychology and minors in biology, philosophy, and English from Walsh University. I intend to specialize in gender and sexuality studies in modern and contemporary American literature, and am interested in studying trauma and race as intersectionality elements in modern and contemporary American literature as well.

PhD Students

Leah Davydov
I am a sixth-year PhD student focusing on 19th century British literature and its relationship to medical history, particularly with regards to trends in psychiatry, medical hypnosis, and the understanding and treatment of trance-like states. I hold a BA in Classical Civilization from Oberlin College and an MA in English Literature from Cleveland State University.

Charlie Ericson
I am a third-year PhD candidate with an MA from the University of Chicago. My research focuses on aesthetics and the novel at the turn of the 20th century, with a special interest in how traditions of aesthetic autonomy manifest in novelistic practice. My BA is from the University of Evansville.

Amber Kidd
I am a third-year PhD candidate with my MA from Case Western and my BA from Agnes Scott College. My work explores the intersections of trauma and narrative theory especially as they are reflected in modernist literature.

Benjamin Nuttall
I am a fourth-year PhD student with an MA from the University of Nottingham and a BA from the University of Liverpool. My research focuses on the relationship between utopianism, teleological narratives of history, and British modernist literature.

Camila Ring
I am a fifth-year PhD candidate. My research focuses on poetic innovation as a form of theological inquiry, particularly in the poems of Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and several contemporary poets. Additional interests include questions related to aesthetics and poetics, theodicy and biblical poetry, and poetic expressions of physical pain. I hold a BA in English from Cedarville University (2012) and an MA in English from Case Western Reserve University (2015).

Joseph Spieles
I am a third-year PhD student with a BA in English from the University of Dayton and an MA in Rhetoric and Writing Studies from the University of Findlay. My research is focused on the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine and I am specifically interested in the translation process that takes place in making healthcare information readable and accessible for lay audiences.

Hayley Verdi
I am a fourth-year PhD candidate. My primary research areas are in literature and medicine and 19th-century British literature, with a specific focus on illness narratives. My other research interests include composition and creative writing pedagogy. I hold a BA in English from Grove City College (2010), an MEd in Secondary Education from the University of Missouri-St. Louis (2012), and an MA in English from Case Western Reserve University (2018).