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certificate students
Alyssa Adamson
2013- present, PhD student, Philosophy
Areas of interest: history of feminism, history of Marxist-feminism, Hegel, Marx,
queer theory, queer politics, critical theory, decolonial theory, philosophy of music
(esp. jazz), relationship between aesthetics and politics.
Sophia Basaldua
2013-present, PhD student, Comparative Literature
Areas of interest: representations of cities in literature, urban studies, space and
place, postcolonialism, early twentieth century, Buenos Aires, New York, and Paris,
the novel as a genre, modernism, cosmopolitanism, the metropolis.
Adam Blair
2015-present, PhD student, Philosophy
I am interested in the intersection of subjecthood and culture—the ongoing, reciprocal
process through which culture is born and subjects are constituted. What has piqued
my curiosity most is the role played by the phenomenological experience of visual
art, music, literature, and film within the formation of subjects and at the foundation
of cultures. While I'm not philosophizing, I make movies, take pictures, play piano,
and write fiction.
Eva Boodman
PhD, Philosophy, 2017
My research focuses on questions of collective responsibility--specifically how we
should define responsibility for structural wrongs. My dissertation addresses the
problem of structural forms of ignorance (like white ignorance) that are inadvertently
reproduced when they are motivated by moral absolution. I am interested in exploring
alternative models of responsibility that are not motivated by guilt, blame, and absolution
and their relationship to collective knowledge habits. Other current projects focus
on prisons and the problem of reform, gender, and immanent critique.
Mia Brett
201?-present, PhD student, History
Natalia Chamorro
2012-present, PhD student, Hispanic Languages and Literature
Literatura latinoamericana, poesía contemporánea, narrativas reflexivas, poéticas
satíricas y cosmovisiones poéticas. Teoría crítica, la construcción de espacios marginales
y de otredades.
Kim Coates
2014-present, PhD student, Comparative Literature
Areas of Interest: French and Francophone Literature, Feminist and Gender Theory,
Queer and Existential Fiction, Psychoanalytic Theory, Buddhism.
Linnea Conelli
2014-present, PhD student, English
Linnea Conelli is currently a Ph.D. student in Stony Brook University’s English Department.
Her research is concentrated on Modernism and American Realism, as well as gender
and sexuality studies. She is particularly interested in the literary implications
of America’s involvement in the First World War. In 2014, Linnea received her Masters
degree in British and American Literature from Hunter College. During her time at
Hunter College, the English Department awarded Linnea with the Randolph and Eliza
Guggenheimer Prize, Wendell Stacy Johnson Prize, and the Helen Gray Cone Fellowship
(second prize). Linnea also taught several undergraduate writing courses while attending
Hunter College, as well as tutoring at the Hunter College Reading/Writing Center.
She is currently a senator for the Stony Brook University Graduate Student Organization.
In addition to her literary studies, Linnea is an opera and musical theater enthusiast.
Brendan Conuel
2013-present, PhD student, Philosophy
Brendan T. Conuel is a forth-year doctoral student. Trained as an astrophysicist, he is interested in philosophy of science, the hard
problem of consciousness, Nietzsche, moral skepticism, philosophy of sexuality, and
psychoanalysis.
Robby Cserni
2013-present, PhD student, Sociology
Helana Darwin
2014-present, PhD student, Sociology
Anne Deger
2012-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Areas of Interest: Media studies; internet and social media; history of science; media
archaeology; digital communications.
Nathaniel Doherty
2009-present, PhD student, English
Nathaniel Doherty received his B.A. from Vassar College with a major in English, and
his MA in American literature from University College Dublin (National University
of Ireland). He is currently ABD in the Ph.D. program at SBU. His dissertation work
is focused on how the cyborg and the trickster - two figurations popular in discussions
of postmodernism - took shape in actual literary work. My project examines the degree
to which literary artists (and filmmakers and comic book producers to a smaller extent)
diverge from, enhance, and/or contradict the formulations of literary theory and philosophy
in twentieth and twenty-first century culture.
Rachel Dushkewich
2014-present, PhD student, English
Rachel Dushkewich is studying British literature of the long nineteenth century, spanning
Romanticism through early Modernism with a feminist lens. Her favorite authors include
Jane Austen, George Eliot, and especially Virginia Woolf. She grew up in Greenville,
Rhode Island and obtained her undergraduate at Saint Anselm College in Manchester,
N.H.
Audrey Ellis
201?-present, PhD student, Philosophy
My philosophical interests intertwine with my professional dance work as a director,
choreographer and performer in New York City.
Hewan Girma
2010-present, PhD student, Sociology
Christina González-Aguirre
2016-present, PhD student, Hispanic Languages and Literature
My interests include Latinx media, cinema, and literature, with a particular focus
on gender. In addition, I am interested in contemporary Cuban cultural production
in the context of Cuba-US relations.
Elena Granik
2013-present, PhD student, Philosophy
I am a third year student in the philosophy doctoral program specializing in ancient
Greek philosophy (especially Plato), moral psychology, and virtue ethics. I am also
interested in classical Chinese and medieval Islamic philosophy's discourses on concepts
of personhood, ethical
cultivation, and nous. Courses I have taught include: Introduction to Critical Reasoning
(SFSU and SBU), Introduction to Philosophy (SFSU), Introduction to Philosophy and
Religion (SFSU).
Michelle Ho
2012-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Areas of interest: affect theory, queer theory, Japanese popular culture, genders
and sexualities in East Asia.
Laura James
PhD, English, 2017
Laura James is a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department and she holds a B.A. and
M.A. from the University of Leeds, UK. Her dissertation explores dirt, waste, and
the modern woman in British literature and culture, 1890-1945. Laura has completed
the Women’s and Gender Studies Graduate Certificate and her work has been published
in
Victorian Networks. Her wider research interests include gender and sexuality studies, along with contemporary
Anglophone and postcolonial literature.
Helen Jolly
2008-present, PhD student, Sociology
Jane Jones
201?-present, PhD student, Philosophy
Contemporary French philosophy, continental and feminist ethics, comparative religion,
ancient philosophy.
Kelly Hacker Jones
2011-present, PhD student, History
Interests: gender and the history of medicine, public health policy in Progressive-Era
America, specific research interests include women and the professionalization of
medical practice, prescriptive literature for expectant mothers.
Michael Kryluk
2013-present, PhD student, Philosophy
Interested primarily in political philosophy, particularly Marx and Marxism. Other
interests include Kant, Hegel, and critical theory.
Cliff Leek
2011-present, PhD student, Sociology
Yanling Li
2016-present, PhD student, Comparative Literature
Areas of Interest: Contemporary Chinese Literature, Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies,
Transnational Studies, Japnese pop culture, Fan Culture.
Ali Linder
2013-present, PhD student, Sociology
Chatham Lovette
2013-present, PhD student, Philosophy
My research explores alternative methodologies and strategies for continuing the practice
of philosophy in the wake of certain demands posed by intersectional, non-clinical,
difference-affirming histories of thought. In particular, I am concerned with how
we might re-think madness, dreaming and poetry (as well as their interrelation) as
viable and necessary philosophical processes.
Briana Martino
2008-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Areas of Interest: Feminist Cultural Studies, Queer & Disability Theory, Madness Studies,
Transversality, Temporality, Institutional Analysis, Social Movements, Documentary.
Matthew Mosher
2012-present, PhD student, English
Matthew Mosher holds an M.A. in English and American Literature from New York University
and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Emerson College. His research interests are
in twentieth-century American literature and cultural studies, with a specific focus
on representations of mobility in American fiction.
Sarah Paruolo
2008-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Areas of Interest: US & Caribbean Latina/o Literatures and Cultural Productions, Female
Subjectivities, Latinidad, Queer of Color Critique, Bodies/Embodiments,Urban Spaces
& Places, Decoloniality, and Feminist Pedagogies.
K.T. Pinion
2015-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Areas of Interest: Film Studies; Queer Media Cultures; New Queer Cinema; AIDS Activist
Media; AIDS Cinema; Queer Historiography; Gay Pornography; Porn Studies; Moving Image
and Media Archaeology; Theories and Notions of the "Archive"; and Feminist Film Theory.
Heidi Rademacher
2010-present, PhD student, Sociology
Amy Rahn
201?-present, PhD student, Art
Andrew Rimby
2014-present, PhD student, English
He recently completed his B.A. in English (summa cum laude) while minoring in History
and Gender Studies at Kean University (North Jersey). While attending Kean, he spearheaded
the literary magazine, The Cougars' Blank Slate and served as the editor-in-chief
for two consecutive years. He is a member of Sigma Tau Delta and Phi Kappa Phi (the
English and National collegiate honor society, respectively). At Stony Brook, Andrew
is interested in researching the Victorian and Modernist literary periods from a transatlantic
approach while investigating feminist and queer elements. He is currently serving
as a GES senator and is leading the Q/F/T* reading group in the humanities department.
Cody Rossler
2015-present, PhD student, History
Areas of interest: Nineteenth-century British Empire, focusing on topics related to
gender, race, and science in the social and cultural spheres. My current research
focuses on how images of gender were communicated through the popularization of scientific
racism.
Joy Schaefer
2011-present, PhD student, Comparative Literature
Areas of interest: European & American cinemas; postcolonial/transnational film &
feminist theories; North African/French crossings; women's, gender, and sexuality
studies; politically engaged theories of affect & emotion.
Elizabeth Schmermund
2012-present, PhD student, Compartive Literature
Areas of interest: Arabic Literature, Islam and Representations of Islam in The US,
French Post-Colonial Studies, Critical Theory, Women's Studies and Feminist Theory.
Ryn Silverstein
2013-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Areas of Interest: detective fiction, epistemologies of concealment and disclosure,
queer theory, film and media theory, reception studies, fandom studies, literary studies,
Jewish studies.
Brandi So
PhD, English, 2015
Brandi So is an American Association for University Women (AAUW) fellow, a New York
Council for the Humanities Fellow, and a Pieper Merit Scholar finishing her dissertation
on American literary regionalism and ekphrasis. Her teaching and research interests
include cyber-pedagogy, mining the digital archive, and feminist critical theory in
American literature. She holds an advanced graduate certificate in Women's and Gender
Studies. Her dissertation, “Regionalism and the Sister Arts: Local Color Outside the
Lines,” argues for the necessary role of visual arts in American literary regionalism,
and recovers women regionalist authors’ artistic lives as subjects of critical inquiry.
Brandi is the Associate Executive Director of the Northeast Modern Language Association
(NeMLA), the past president of the Stony Brook Graduate English Society, and a Quality
Matters in Online Education peer reviewer.
Brent Smith-Casanueva
2011-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Areas of Interest: Marxist, Postcolonial and Queer Theory; Science Fiction and Fantasy
Television and Film; Continental Philosophy and Social Theory; History of Media Technologies;
Globalization and Transnationalisms; Punk Rock Subcultures; New Media and Social Movements.
Brent Strang
2011-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Areas of Interest: design and culture of media technologies, social media, STS apparatus
theory, media archaeology of the home entertainment zone, masculinities in american
cinema/television.
Oli Stephano
PhD, Philosophy, 2016
My dissertation develops an immanent ethics, drawn from Spinoza, to address ecological
harm. I argue that human flourishing requires sustaining relations with the more-than-human
world, so that our striving to endure enhances rather than imperils the ecological
communities and systems within which we live.
Jenny Strandberg
2012-present, PhD student, Philosophy
I’m a firth
year doctoral student in Philosophy interested in environmental ethics and ancient
Greek philosophy. For my dissertation, I read Plato’s dialogues with the end of determining
how they contribute constructively to understanding contemporary environmental attitudes
and behaviors. I have a Graduate Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from Stony
Brook University (2012), and in my work I highlight connections between feminist theory
and ancient thought to demonstrate how these perspectives are not incommensurate but
complementary.
Julia Sukho
2015-present, MA student, English
Anne Summers
2012-present, PhD student, English
Before coming to Stony Brook, Anne Summers received her B.A. in English from Barnard
College, Columbia University. Her research interests include Victorian and transatlantic
19th-century literature, gender and sexuality, women’s writing, and material culture.
She is also pursuing a graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies.
Caity Swanson
2014-present, PhD student, English
Caity Swanson received her undergraduate degree from St. John's College, Annapolis.
Her interests center around feminism, race, ethnicity and identity in 20th century
and contemporary American literature.
Suzanne Swartz
201?-present, PhD student, History
Interests:
Holocaust studies, Polish-Jewish relations, children's history.
Sofia Varino
2010-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Research interests: body studies; history & philosophy of the life & health sciences; critical immunologies;
feminist science studies; new materialisms & materialist philosophies; environmental
theory; visual & material culture; aesthetics.
Suzan Walters
201?-present, PhD student, Sociology
Caleb Ward
2013-present, PhD student, Philosophy
Areas of interest: Sexual ethics, feminist and queer approaches to ethics, existentialism,
risk and necessity, play, aesthetics and the philosophy of art, perspective, philosophy
of nature and the organism.
Simone West
2013-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Areas of Interest: The Spatial Humanities, Experimental and Non-representational Geographies,
Gender and Sexuality Studies, Feminist and Queer Theory, Contemporary Rhetorical Theory
and Practice.
Claire Yu
2011-present, PhD student, Cultural Studies
Areas of Interest: East Asian Cinema, Colonial and Postcolonial Theories.
