Undergraduate Research

向日葵视频English majors have many opportunities to pursue research with faculty mentors through advanced literature and writing courses, the Capstone class, the Honors in Humanities Program, and the Write Fellows Program at the Ott Memorial Writing Center. Undergraduate research has been funded through grants from the University Honors Program as well as the Mellon Foundation and other sources.

向日葵视频English majors have presented their research at local, regional, and national conferences including the 向日葵视频Undergraduate Humanities Conference, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the annual conference of the International Writing Centers Association, and the annual conference of Sigma Tau Delta. Students have published research co-authored with faculty in the . A sample of undergraduate research completed in English courses is available on are also available.

Recent Honors Senior Theses include:

2023-24:

  • Elizabeth Andrzejewski '24, 鈥淕ender Roles and Reform in Charles Dickens鈥檚 A Tale of Two Cities鈥� (Mentor: Dr. Melissa Ganz)

  • Margarita Buitrago '24, 鈥淏etween Fact and Fiction: Ambiguity of Identity, Fourteenth Century Warfare, and Exoticizing Depictions of Iberia in the Voyage en B茅arn鈥� (Mentor: Dr. Liza Strakhov)

  • Bridget Neugent '24, 鈥淛ourneying to the Bitter End: An Introduction and Examination of the Archetypal Medieval Death [Anti]-Quest鈥� (Mentor: Dr. Liza Strakhov)

  • Mariah Olmo-Santiago '24, 鈥淚f he wants me broken, then I will have to be whole:鈥� The Hunger Games Trilogy and Feminism: Katniss as a Feminist Heroine鈥� (Mentor: Dr. Gerry Canavan)

  • Emily Schultz '24, 鈥淎merican Media Representations of the British Royal Women: Feminist Rhetorical Analysis on the Weddings of Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle鈥� (Mentor: Dr. Lilly Campbell)

2022-23:

  • Grace Dawson '23, "The Defictionalization of Pre-21st Century Pandemic Narratives in Social Media Responses to COVID-19鈥� (Mentor: Dr. Ben Pladek)

  • Noah Smith '23, 鈥淵oung Books, Old Sins: Necromancy and Adultery in Incunables of the Gesta Romanorum" (Mentor: Lezlie Knox)

2021-22:

  • Katie Breck '22, "Reflections on the Value of the Humanities: An Argument for the Importance of Dynamic Humanism" (Mentor: Dr. Melissa Ganz)
  • Mara McAndrews '22, "A Research Journey" (Mentor: Dr. Leah Flack)
  • Courtney Michaelson '22, "Embellishing Reality: Analyzing Various Versions of Historiographic Metafiction in Contemporary Historical Fiction" (Mentor: Dr. Leah Flack)
  • Emma Wyngaard '22, "The North Side" (Mentor: Prof. C.J. Hribal)

2020-21:

  • Benjamin Aquino '21, "Feeding Back" (Mentor: Dr. Angela Sorby)
  • Lily Regan '21, "Building Relationships and Breaking Barriers: Professional Development for Secondary Educators" (Mentor: Dr. Jenn Fishman)
  • Betsy Richards '21, "Embracing Quiet, Defying Silence: The Journey of a Writer through a Virtual Year" (Mentor: Dr. Leah Flack)

2019-20:

  • Jessica Brown '20, "Identifying and Categorizing Language Discrimination in the Legal Field" (Mentor:  Dr. Jenn Fishman)
  • John Godfrey (Dec.) '19, "'You're the Expert Here': Evaluating Expertise and Collaborative Potential in Peer Writing Conferences" (Mentor:  Dr. Rebecca Nowacek)
  • Aishah Mahmood '20, "Mind the (Acculturation) Gap: Hybridity in First-Generation Asian American Diaspora" (Mentor:  Dr. Christine Krueger)
  • Maya Mocarski '20, "Aesthetic and Ecological Ideologies in Contemporary Science Fiction" (Mentor: Dr. B. Pladek)
  • Jack Moore '20, "Dickens鈥檚 Rejection of Panopticism: The Justice of Observation in Bleak House" (Mentor:  Dr. Melissa Ganz)

2018-19:

  • Oscar Guzman '19, "Rabbits and Tricksters: Narrative Sympathetic Imagination in American and British Children's Literature" (Mentor:  Dr. Sarah Wadsworth)
  • Katherine Stein '19, "Legacies of Empire and Tides of Reform: The Perplexing Popularity of Charles Dickens in Nineteenth-Century Ireland" (Mentor:  Dr. Timothy McMahon)
  • Abby Vakulskas '19, "Art in the Open: Milwaukee, Murals, and Community Engagement" (Mentor:  Dr. Deirdre Dempsey)