Placement and Alumni

Robert Barrett (Graduated: 2023)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2023; B.A. English/Liberal Studies, Sonoma State University, 2013
Placement: Lecturer, Rhetoric, UC Berkeley
Research Interests: 20th Century North American Literature; LGBTQIA+ Literature, Film, Visual & Performing Arts; Cultural Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies; HIV/AIDS Activism, Trauma, and the Literary, Visual and Performing Arts; Feminist and Queer Fantasy and Speculative/Science Fiction

Edward Batres (Graduated: 2023)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2023; B.A. International Relations & French, summa cum laude, University of Redlands, 2016
Placement: IB Upper School Spanish Teacher at Annie Wright Private Schools in Tacoma, WA
Research Interests: Francophone and Hispanic Caribbean literature (19th century-contemporary); the production of space; archipelagic thinking; postcolonial studies; anthropological studies of the Martinican peasantry; the decolonization of belonging and attachment; the preservation of colonial waste

 Babak Mazloumi (Graduated: 2023)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2023; M.A. Humanities & Social Thought, New York University, 2015
Placement: Adjunct Lecturer, Houston Community College                                                                                                                       
Research Interests: Contemporary Persian literature, literary translation (theory and practice), exile literature
Select Publications: 
“Where is Akbar Radi’s Home? A Study of the Concept of Exile at Home in Through the Windowpanes by Akbar Radi,” Text & Presentation: Journal of the Comparative Drama Conference, April 2019, 111-124.
“Mapping the Unmappable: A Critical Study of Dead Reckoning: A Novel by Bahman Sho‘levar,” Iran Namag, Volume 6, Number 1 (Spring 2021), 30-45.
“Will I Be Strong Enough for You? Nasim Marashi’s I’ll Be Strong for You” World Literature Today [Online], 6/22/21
https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Fww%0Dmazloumi&title=Will%20I%20Be%20Strong%20Enough%20for%20You%3F
Translation:
Jamali, Rosa. “Here is the Promised Latitude” [“Inja Aez-e Mo’ud Ast”] by Rosa Jamali. Los Angeles Review of Books. [online]
https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/here-is-the-promised-latitude/

Ann Thuy-Ling Tran (Graduated: 2023)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2023; B.A. English, University of California, Los Angeles, 2017
Placement: Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies and Asian Studies at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB)
Research Interests: comparative race studies, humor, and popular culture/ new media, cross-racial and multicultural comedy, language, accents, critical refugee studies

Michael Berlin (Graduated: 2022)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2022; B.A. Liberal Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, New York, 2011       
Placement: Director of the Writing Program & Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Washington and Lee University                          Research Interests: Michael's dissertation The Poetry of Origins: Odes, Palinodes, and Literary History reevaluates the ode and its influence on the study of lyric poetry: "Whereas twentieth-century criticism has viewed the ode as a constitutive genre of Western literature, I show that its development is essentially modern. Examining the Atlantic context of the ode, I trace how this genre became a medium for allegories of colonial authority that relied upon a racialized sense of literary futurity. Inherently unstable, these efforts ran up against the genre of poetic recantation (“palinode”), which served as an anticipatory counterbalance to the progressive literary history encoded in the ode."
For more information see his website.

 Carlos Colmenares Gil (Graduated: 2022)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2022; M.A. Philosophy and Critical Theory, Kingston University, London, 2012, B.A. Psychology, Universidad Catolica Andres Bello, 2009
Placement: Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Indiana
Research Interests: Latin American thought, contemporary Latin American literature, film, essay as form, scientificity of form, negativity, mediation, continental philosophy, psychoanalysis

Wujun Ke (Graduated: 2022)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2021; B.A. Comparative Literature, University of Chicago, 2013
Placement: Curatorial Fellow, Fall 2022; Global Perspectives on Society Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), NYU Shanghai, Fall 2023-present
Research interests: Medical humanities; immigration and transnational/trans-cultural identities; feminist theory and critical race theory; East Asian history; autobiography; liberation movements

AJ Baginski (Graduated: 2021)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2021
Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Bryn Mawr College (2021-22); Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University, 2022-present; Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Programs and Community Engagement, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Fall 2024
Dissertation: Alta and Baja: Environments of Fantasy Along the U.S.-Mexico Border

Laura Hatch (Graduated: 2021)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, 2021; B.A. Humanities & German, Minor Scandinavian Studies, BYU, 2013
Placement: Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, 2022-present
Dissertation: Making Virtue of Necessity: Facing Uncertainty in Romance
Research Interests: Embodiment; phenomenology; Medieval and Early Modern literature and visual art

Amanda Mixon (Graduated: 2021)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2021
Placement: Lecturer, English, Texas State University, 2021; Assistant Professor of Instruction, Center for Women’s & Gender Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, present
Dissertation: Twentieth-Century White Southern Lesbian Writers & Anti-Racist Praxis

Jon-David Settell (Graduated: 2021)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2021; M.S.W. Clinical Social Work, Columbia University; M.A. Comparative Literature, SFSU; B.A. English and World Literature, Pitzer College
Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Literature, Pitzer College, 2021-2022; Clinical Social Work/Therapist, owns his own private practice
Dissertation: Bird Freedom: Lumpen Dreams and the Long Picaresque                                                                                              
Research Interests: Histories of psychoanalysis; critical theory; accumulation and enclosure; homelessness; Gothic Marxism; the picaresque novel; 20th century literature of the Americas

Anandi Rao (Graduated: 2020)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California. Irvine, 2020
Placement: Lecturer in South Asian Studies, SOAS University of London
Dissertation: In the Name of Shakespeare:(En)gendering India Through Translation

Kirsty Singer (Graduated: 2020)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2020
Dissertation: Intimate Historiographies: Racial Crisis and Poetics in the American Mid-Twentieth Century

Michael Simmons (Graduated: 2020)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2020; B.A. in Philosophy, B.A. in Women's Studies, UCI, 2012
Placement: Instructor, English Composition and Oral Communication, American Musical and Dramatic Academy, 2020-present      Dissertation: Neutrality in Queer Theory

Daniel Carnie (Graduated: 2020)  

  

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2020; B.A. Comparative Literature, UCLA 2012         
Dissertation: "A Scarecrow to the Nations": Engulfment and Historicity in Jewish Writing

Philip Anselmo (Graduated: 2019)

 

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2019
Placement: Instructor, University Writing Program, Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, August 2018 – present;
Instructor, Department of English and Communication, Nazareth College, NY, August 2018 – present             
Dissertation: In Defense of the Political: Housework and Policework in the Post-Civil Rights Era                               

---

Karen Jallatyan (Graduated: 2019)

 

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2019
Placement: Postdoctoral Fellow, Fall 2019-2020, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Dissertation: Becoming Diaspora: Global Armenian Literature and Film After 1950                                                                                 
Research Interests: Diaspora, Multilingual Multiculturalism, Survival
I am grateful for UCI Comparative Literature for having provided me with one of the most dynamic Ph.D. experiences in the country.

---

Aubrey Tang (Graduated: 2019)

 

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2019
Placement: Lecturer in Directing, Editing, & Film Studies, Chapman University, 2020-present
Advisor(s): Ackbar Abbas, Man Fung Yip, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Dissertation: Johnnie To's Cinema and the Phenomenology of the Senses
Research Interests: Film Phenomenology, Sensory Studies, Chinese and Sinophone Cinemas

Nathaniel Murphy (Graduated: 2019)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2019
Dissertation: The Utopian Call: Utopian Projects and the Struggle for the "Good" Anthropocene

---

Jamie Rogers (Graduated: 2018)

 

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2018
Placement: Fall 2017 Clemson University, English - African American Studies; Hartwick College, NY, English - Postcolonial Media Studies; One year visiting teaching position, Wooster College, 2018; Lecturer, Clemson University, 2018-2022; Digital Media Specialist, MetroConnects, 2022-2023; Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, Film Studies at Western Washington University, present
Advisor: Adriana Johnson
Dissertation: After the Revolution: Memory, Absence, and Carrying On in Black Literature and Film of the Americas
Research Interests: Postcolonial Literature and Film; Black Literature and Film; Decolonial and Black Feminist Thought

---

Parisa Vaziri (Graduated: 2018)

 

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2018; B.A. Comparative Literature & French minor, NYU, 2007
Placement: Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature and Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, 2018-present
Research Interests: Iranian film and history, theories of racialization, theories of history, intellectual histories of poststructuralism and postcolonialism, African-American film and theory, legacies of third cinema

---

Alexander Jabbari (Graduated: 2017)

 

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2017; B.A. Community Studies, UC Santa Cruz, 2008
Placement: Farzaneh Family Assistant Professor of Persian Language and Literature tenure-track, University of Oklahoma 2017-present  Dissertation: Late Persianate Literary Culture: Modernizing Conventions Between Persian and Urdu 
Research Interests: Persianate literary history and historiography; language; sexuality; modernization

---

Monica Katiboglu (Graduated: 2017)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2017
Placement: Full-time Core Faculty, Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey, 2018-present
Dissertation: Haunted Modernities: Linguistic and Cultural Change in Ottoman Turkey                                                                         
Research Interests: critical translation theory, modernity, Turkish and French literatures

---

Ryanson Alessandro Ku  (Graduated: 2017)

 

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2017; M.A. Comparative Literature, Louisiana State University, 2008; M.A. Philosophy, Louisiana State University, 2009; B.S. Economics, The George Washington University, 2004
Placement: Postdoctoral Associate in English and Asian American Studies, Duke University, 2018; Visiting Professor, Department of English, U Penn, 2021; Visiting Assistant Professor, English Literature, Swathmore College, present
Dissertation: Wounded Language/Time: History, The Novel, and the Filipino-American Relation
Research Interests: semiotics/genealogy/pragmatics; imperialism, trauma, intimacy, justice; economy, sublimation, time, and the queer

---

Chris Malcolm (Graduated: 2017)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2017; M.A. Social & Political Thought, York University, Toronto, 2011; B.A. Contemporary History & Politics, University of Sussex, UK, 2008
Placement: Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities and Coordinator of Minor in Sustainable Ecosystems: Art & Design at Maine College of Art in Portland, ME, Fall 2019-present; Visiting Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, Humboldt State University, 2018
Research Interests: Documentary film; Visual Studies; Environmental Humanities; Film and Media Studies; Critical Theory. My dissertation, Perceiving Extraction: Landscape, Use and the Conditions of Visuality, tracks a history of extraction in landscapes affected by an absence of life, value, habitat, or political possibility to show that the experience of climate change helps produce a theory of perception.

---

Ghada Mourad (Graduated: 2017)

 

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2017; B.A. English, CSU Los Angeles, 2007
Placement: Lecturer, French, UCI Humanities Core Course, 2017-present 
Dissertation: Unruly Bodies: Modernity, Dissensus, and the Political Subject in the Postcolonial Arab World
Research Interests: Modernity, politics, subjectivation, sexuality and the body in postcolonial Arabic and Francophone literature in the Middle East and North Africa. Critical theory emphasis; literary translation emphasis.

---

Sarah Kessler (Graduated: 2016)

 

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2016; M.A. English, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2008; B.A. Art-Semiotics, Brown University, 2003
Placement: Lecturer, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, USC, 2017-2020; Assistant Professor of English, USC Dornsife, 2020-present
Dissertation: Anachronism Effects: Ventriloquism and Popular Media
Research Interests: 20th and 21st Century Transatlantic Media and Culture, Film and Media History and Theory, Voice and Sound Studies, Television Studies, Queer and Critical Race Theory

---

Toru Oda (Graduated: 2016)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2016; M.A. Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, University of Tokyo, 2006; B.A. Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, University of Tokyo, 2003

Placement: Full-time Instructor, University of Shizuoka, Language and Communication Research Center, 2018-present
Dissertation: Anarchistic Hermeneutics of Utopian Desires in the Late Nineteenth Century: Defining, Narrating, and Reading Anarchism 
Research Interests: Literary anarchism; cultural history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; French naturalism; English modernism

---

Kim Icreverzi  (Graduated: 2015)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2015; B.A. Linguistics & English: Culture and Performance, Georgetown University, 2002

Placement(s): Postdoctoral Fellowship Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, 2016-17; 1 yr teaching appt, Boston University, Modern Languages & Comparative Literature, and Visiting Scholar appt in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program; Lecturer in Film & Television, Boston University, 2017-2018; Affiliate Faculty in Visual & Media Arts, Emerson College 2017-2018; Visiting Assistant Professor, Dept of Comparative Literature & Languages, UCR, Jan-July 2023; Lecturer (Part-Time Faculty) in Film and Television Studies, LMU 2020-present                                                                                                                                                                                         
Advisor(s): Rei Terada, Akira Mizuta Lippit
Dissertation: Reproduction without End: The Gendered Labor of Japanese High Growth Cinema
Research Interests: Japanese film, literature, and cultural studies; feminist theory; film theory; labor studies

---

Ameeth Vijay (Graduated: 2015)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2015; B.A. Comparative Literature, Brown University, 2004

Placement: Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Literature, UCSD Fall 2016-present; Visiting Assistant Professor of Western Languages and Literatures, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey Fall 2015-16                                                                                                                            Dissertation: Misplaced Communities: The Reproduction of Locality in Twentieth Century Planning and British Literature                    Research Interests: Migration, globalization

---

Tamara Beauchamp (Graduated: 2014)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, 2014; B.A. Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University, 2004

Placement: Writing Director / Academic Coordinator & Continuing Unit 18 Lecturer in Humanities Core Course Program, UCI 2014-present
Dissertation: Enemies of the Unconscious: Modernist Resistances to Psychoanalysis                                                                                   Research Interests: Anglo-American, Continental European, and global modernisms, critical theory, psychoanalysis as theoretical and clinical practice, feminist and critical race theory, anti-psychiatric theories of subjectivity.                                                                      Emphases: Critical Theory Emphasis and Graduate Feminist Emphasis

---

Dan Costello  (Graduated: 2014)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2014; B.A. University of Chicago, 2005

Dissertation: Publishing Words to Prevent them from Becoming True: The Radical Praxis of Gunther Anders                                        Research Interests: Post-war German and American literature, collective memory, and the tensions between fiction, memoir, and history

---

Brandon J. Granier (Graduated: 2014)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2014; M.A. Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College, 2006; M.A. French, Middlebury College, France, 2007; B.A. English, UC Santa Cruz, 2001
Dissertation: Flights from the Hermeneutic: Precisions of Reading in Derrida, De Man, and Deleuze

Research Interests: deconstruction; long 19th century European literature

---

Will Jordan (Graduated: 2014)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2014; B.S. Computer Science, Yale University, 2005

Placement: K-12 Computer Science curriculum, San Francisco, Full-Time Software Engineer at code.org, 2014-present
Dissertation: Ludocapital: The Political Economy of Digital Play
Research Interests: Media theory; Japanese; games

---

Ali Meghdadi (Graduated: 2014)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2014; M.A. English, Loyola Marymount University, 2007; M.F.A. Poetry, Otis College of Art & Design, 2008; B.A. English with Theology minor, Loyola Marymount University, 2005

Placement: Lecturer in English, UCI, Fall 2014-present                                                                                                                                     Dissertation: Translator, Traitor, or Teacher: A Neophyte-Focused Communication Pedagogy                                                                     Research Interests: My critical and creative writings articulate a hybridized language that mediates between American and Iranian cultures and their specific histories, with an explicit focus on the political and theological aesthetics established in their literatures.

---

Mark Pangilinan (Graduated: 2014)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, 2014; B.A. English with Spanish minor, Christopher Newport University, 2006

Placement: Upper School English Teacher, Chadwick School, Palos Verdes, 2016-present; Academy Summer School English Teacher, Punahou School, Honolulu, Hawaii, Summer 2016-present; Director of Critical Reading, Lead Curriculum Developer, Hamilton College Consulting, 2015-16
Dissertation: Haunting the Metropole: Return Effects, Screen Memories, and Figures of Exile in 20th Century Filipino American Literature
Research Interests: Pilipino literature and culture; cultural studies; critical theory; ethnography; Anglophone modernist literature; postcolonial theory; gender studies; translation studies

---

Sharareh Frouzesh  (Graduated: 2013)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2013; M.A. Social Sciences with Social Thought emphasis, University of Chicago; B.A. Philosophy and Political Science, UC Irvine

Placement: Continuing Lecturer, English, Comparative Literature, Humanities Core Depts, UCI, 2013-present                                Dissertation: The Use and Abuse of Guilt                                                                                                                                                          Research Interests: Modern Iranian literatures and cultural productions; transnational literatures and feminisms; political and legal theory; postcolonial literatures and theory; psychoanalysis and phenomenology; dialectics of resistance and modernisms.

---

Colby Gordon (Graduated: 2013)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2013; B.A. English & History, University of Kansas, 2007

Placement: Assistant Course Director, 39B, UCI Composition Program, 2015-2016; Lecturer, UCI Composition, 2014-2016
Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) of Literatures in English and Gender and Sexuality, Bryn Mawr College, 2016-present
Dissertation: Shakespearean Futurism: Utopia and Landscapes in Renaissance Drama                                                                                   Research Interests: Law and literature, architecture, global Shakespeare

---

Eddie Pinuelas (Graduated: 2013)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2013; B.A. Comparative Literature, UCLA

Placement: Postdoctoral Fellow, Thompson Writing Program Duke University, 2014-2016; Associate Professor, Department of English, Comparative Literature, & Linguistics, CSU Fullerton, 2016-present
Dissertation: The Sound that Broke the Back of Words: Voice, Aurality, and (Dis)embodied Subjectivity in Neo-Slave Literature of the Black Atlantic
Research Interests: Postcolonialism; diasporic literature and culture

---

Abraham Romney (Graduated: 2013)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2013; M.A. in English, University of Oregon, 2007; B.A. English with Spanish minor, BYU-Idaho, 2005

Placement: Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition 2013-2019, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition, 2019-2022, Michigan Technological University; Director, Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center; Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition, Idaho State University, 2022-present
Dissertation: Civilization/Barbarism: Indigenous and Criollo Receptions of Rhetoric in Latin America
Research Interests: History of rhetoric; translation; 19th-century Hemispheric American literature; 19th-century rhetoric and philology; digital rhetoric

---

Denise Spampinato (Graduated: 2013)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, 2013; B.F.A., Art Center College of Design, M.F.A. Writing, Cal Arts, 2002

Placement: Freelance writer, 2016-present; Lecturer, UCI Comparative Literature, Fall 2013; October 2015-Feb 2016 Fulbright Award, Universita` degli studi di Napoli “L’ Orientale”, Naples, Italy
Dissertation: From the City to the Cine-City: Re-Imagining Naples Through Goethe, Benjamin, Sohn-Rethel, and Pasolini

---

Engel Szwaja-Franken (Graduated: 2013)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, 2013; B.A. Comparative Literature and History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2005
Placement: World Languages Department Chair & Spanish Professor, Bellevue College, Seattle, WA, 2014-present
Dissertation: Inadequate Politics: Literature and Organic Thought in Borges, Arlt and Cuesta
Research Interests: Latin American literature and poetry (mostly 20th century), modernism, French literature (19th and early 20th century)

---

Jason Willwerscheid (Graduated: 2013)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, 2013; B.S. Mathematics and French Studies, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, 2003
Placement: Software developer as of 2015; PhD student of Statistics; Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Providence College, RI, 2022-present

Dissertation: Political Ecologies of the Irish Fin de Siecle                                                                                                                                           Research Interests: 19th and 20th Century British and Irish Drama, Poetry, and Fiction; Ecocriticism; Science and Literature; Theories of Games; Critical Theory

---

Robert Wood (Graduated: 2013)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, 2013; B.A. History with Minor in Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota, 2003

Placement: Lecturer, Composition and Writing Center Specialist, Soka University, 2015-2017; Adjunct Lecturer, Irvine Valley College, 2015-2023; Adjunct Lecturer, Santiago Canyon College, 2018-2023; Lecturer, English, UCI, 2023-present                                         
Dissertation: Estranging Social Reproduction in the Era of Mass Production: Science Fiction, Utopia, and the Reconstruction of and Resistance to the Labor of the Domestic Sphere                                                                                                                                                              Research Interests: Marxism, modernism, science fiction, crisis, the body and production, critical theory, the avant-garde, the fantastic

---

Anna Cavness (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; B.A., University of Virginia, 2003
Placement: Adjunct Professor, French, Soka University, 2012

Dissertation: Vernacular Optics: Phantasms of National Culture in the Postcolonial Maghreb
Research Interests: Postcolonialism; twentieth-century North African and Arabic literature and culture

---

Vuslat D. Katsanis (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; M.A. Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine, 2007; B.A. English and Studio Art, University of California, Riverside, 2004

Placement: Adjunct Professor, Department of Peace Studies, Chapman; Assistant Professor of Rhetoric & Composition/Manager of Writing Center, Soka University, Fall 2013; Tenured Professor of Literary Arts & Studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, present  Dissertation: Becoming Stranger: Identity and Estrangement in Contemporary Turkish Visual Culture                                                 
Research Interests: Postcolonial critique, Orientalism, cultural studies, race critical theory, contemporary Turkish film and visual culture

Olivia Gunn (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; M.A. Performance Studies, NYU, 2003; B.A. Norwegian and English with Dance Minor, University of Washington, 2002

Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Norwegian & Scandinavian Area Studies, Pacific Lutheran University, Fall 2012-2015; Assistant Professor, Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, 2015; Associate Professor, Sverre Arestad Endowed Chair & Graduate Program Coordinator in Norwegian Studies, Dept of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, 2015-present
Dissertation: At the Limits of Realism: Late Ibsen and Other Neo-Romantic Estrangements
Research Interests: European culture at the fin de siècle; Scandinavian literature; decadence; literary expatriation; cosmopolitanism; queer theory; deconstruction

---

Maryam El-Shall (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; M.A. in English, University of Florida, 2006; B.A. English, University of Florida, 2004

Placement: Assistant Professor of English, Santa Fe College, Gainesville, FL, 2018-2023; Proposal Writer, A. Harold & Associates, Jacksonville, FL, 2023-present
Dissertation: Technologies of the Self in Popular US Culture, 1980-2010
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Cultural Studies
Teaching Interests: English composition and research, World Culture, World Literature, Introduction to Islamic Studies

---

Anna Guercio (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; M.F.A., University of Iowa, 2007; B.A. Comparative Literature and Literary Translation, Brown University, 2003

Placement: Translation Editor of Drunken Boat; Online contributing editor of translation journals, Words Without Borders; Teacher at Pacific Ridge Schools, Carlsbad, CA, 2023-present
Dissertation: Reading and Writing the World: World Literature as Translation
Research Interests: literary translation; translation theory (particularly as it applies to ethics, authorship, and gender); poetry; contemporary and post-Franco Spanish and Catalan literature; Latin American literature; power, framing, and art objects

---

Emma Heaney (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; B.A., Smith College, 2003

Placement: Assistant Professor of English (Tenure-Track), William Patterson University, NJ, Fall 2016; Assistant Professor, John W. Draper Interdisciplinary Master's Program in Humanities and Social Thought--to spring 2016; Associate Director & Clinical Assistant Professor, XE Program in Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement, NYU, present
Dissertation: The New Woman: Literary Modernism and the Trans Feminine Allegory 

---

Vicki Hsieh (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; B.A. Comparative Literature and Psychology, Cornell University, 2006

Placement: Project Manager and Editor, K-12 and higher education research, Hanover Research, 2012-2015; Senior Editor, Public Policy Institute of California, 2016-present
Dissertation: Speech After Mao: Literature and Belonging
Research Interests: Contemporary poetry; language learning; postcolonial literature and theory; cultural comparison; disciplinary formations

---

Erin Yu-Tien Huang (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; B.A. Comparative Literature and Psychology, University of California, Davis, 2004

Placement:  Lecturer, Writing, Irvine Valley College; Lecturer, East Asian Studies Dept, UCI; Visiting Assistant Professor, East Asian Studies Dept, NYU 2013-2014; TT Assistant Professor, East Asian Studies & Comparative Literature, Princeton University, Fall 2014-2023; Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, Fall 2023-present
Dissertation: Capital's Abjects: Chinese Cinemas, Urban Horror, and the Limits of Visibility
Research Interests: East Asian Cinema; psychoanalysis; sexuality and space; the city, the body, and urbanism

Nasser Mufti (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; B.A. Political Philosophy and History, Hampshire College, 2005
Placement:  Assistant Professor of English (Tenure-Track), University of Illinois Chicago, 2014;
Associate Head & Associate Professor of English, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Illinois Chicago, 2014-present

Dissertation: Civil War by "Other Means": Internal Strife in British Colonial Culture                        Research Interests: Civil War and its relationship to the British empire, Victorian literature, Global Anglophone literature, postcolonial theory, political theory.

---

Duy Lap Nguyen (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; B.A. Modern Literature, UC Santa Cruz, 2002

Placement: Post Doctoral Fellowship, Pembroke Center, Brown Univerity; Tenure-Track Associate Professor, Department of World Cultures and Literatures, University of Houston, 2014-present
Dissertation: The Postcolonial Present: Redemption and Revolution in Twentieth-Century Vietnamese Culture and History               
Research Interests: Vietnamese colonial literature and history; Vietnamese popular fiction; Hegel and paleo-Marxist approaches to time, social space and the critique of political economy

---

Bernard Richter (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; M.A., UC Santa Cruz, 2003

Placement:  Associate Faculty, Butte College, English 2013-2018; Assistant Director of the Bruce Initiative on Rethinking Capitalism
Research Assistant, UC Santa Cruz; Instructor, Journalism & Public Relations, CSU Chico, present
Dissertation: Seeing After Auschwitz: Sebald, Conrad, Levi
Research interests: the Holocaust and related issues of affect and epistemology in postwar German literature and culture; critical theory

---

Annette Rubado (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; B.A., University of Oregon, 1996

Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish; Instructor, Department of Romance Languages; Instructor, School of Writing, Literature, & Film, Oregon State University, 2014-present
Dissertation: Expropriated Subjectivities: The Limits of Form in Twentieth Century Latin America                                                   
Research Interests: Luso-Brazilian language and culture, Hispanic language and culture, Cinema and Political Economy, Modern Subjectivities, Political Theory

---

Matthew Schilleman (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; B.A., Michigan State University, 2005

Placement: Fellow, Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Amherst College, Year-long full-time research appointment; Visiting Assistant Professor, English Dept, Clemson University, 2012-2015
Dissertation: Typewrite Psyche: Office Media, Modernism, and the Creation of the Unconscious, 1880-1930
Research Interests: media studies, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and philosophy, especially through the lens of cybernetics

---

Jonathan Tanner (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; B.A. English with Creative Writing: Poetry emphasis and second B.A. in French Language and Literature, University of Oklahoma, 2003

Placement:  Technical Director, Epic Systems, Verona, Wisconsin (Healthcare software company), present
Dissertation: The End(s) of Time: Induction and Narrative in the Works of Lyell, M. Shelley, Flaubert, and Wells
Research Interests: (will, hopefully, not forever be limited to): epic poetry; 19th-century French poetry; German and English Romanticism; scientific romance; Godzilla; and zinfandel; French and Critical Theory emphases.

---

Kyle Wanberg (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012; B.A. Philosophy, Skidmore College, 2002

Placement: Master Teacher in Liberal Studies program, NYU; Clinical Associate Professor, Global Liberal Studies, NYU, present
Dissertation: Burrowed Tongues: A Critical Pedagogy of Global Literature from Post-Colonial Translation to Orature
Research Interests: critiques of reason, poco and translation studies, psychoanalysis, “minor” languages and literatures, orature

---

Tim Wong (Graduated: 2012)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, 2012; M.A., Philosophy, UC Santa Cruz 2002; B.A., Philosophy, UC Santa Cruz, 2000

Placement: AP English Teacher, Pacific Ridge School, Carlsbad, present
Research Interests: Continental philosophy (especially Kant, Heidegger and Foucault), French post-war literature, theories of violence, aesthetic theory, U.S. modernism and post-war literature

---

Juan R. Buriel (Graduated: 2011)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2011

Placement: Department Chair, English Dept, College of the Canyons, 2014-2016; Ford Diversity Fellow with National Research Council of the National Academies; Professor of English, College of the Canyons, 2016-present
Advisor: Adriana Johnson
Dissertation: Textual Misfits: Subaltern Narratives and Chicano Representation in an Age of Multiculturalism
Research Interests: Subaltern Studies, Critical Theory, Chicano Studies
Currently, I am full professor, as well as former chair, of the English Department at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, CA. My Humanities graduate degree has, in general, fostered my ability to craft and explore critical questions on how historically disenfranchised communities are, and have been, represented and serviced. Working in a community college setting has allowed me to apply my training in theory in a variety pedagogical and administrative settings in the service of students and communities with diverse needs, challenges, and goals. In turn, these professional experiences have, sometimes in surprising ways, shaped my own scholarly orientations and work.

---

Michelle Cho (Graduated: 2011)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2011; B.A. Comparative Literature, Northwestern University, 2003

Placement:  Cogut Humanities Center Postdoctoral Fellowship in International Humanities, Departments of Modern Culture and Media & East Asian Studies, Brown University, Fall 2013; Korea Foundation Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track), Department of East Asian Studies, McGill University; Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, present
Dissertation: Generic Realities: The Transnational Spaces of South Korean Cinema

---

Polina Kroik (Graduated: 2011)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2011; M.A. English, Syracuse University, 2006; B.A. English, Boston University, 2004

Placement:  Faculty, English Dept; Lane Community College; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Israeli Cinema and Expository Writing at Hunter College; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Introductory and Advanced Hebrew at Baruch College, The City University of New York, present
Dissertation: Producing Modern Girls: Gender and Work in American Literature and Film, 1910-1960

---

Annie Moore (Graduated: 2011)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2011; M.A. Peace Studies, Lancaster University, UK, 2004; B.A. English and History, University of British Columbia, 2003

Placement: Postdoctoral Fellowship & Visiting Assistant Professor, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, University of Victoria, 2011-2013; Research Educator and Grant Facilitator, Island Health - Vancouver Island Health Authority, Canada, 2013-present
Research Interests: 20th & 21st C poetry; 20th & 21st C Irish and Canadian literatures; global Englishes; lyric theory and history; vitalisms;
biopolitics; animal studies; queer theory; ecocriticism; politics and limits of language; trauma and memory
Dissertation: Survival By Suicide: The Biopoetics of Twentieth-Century Lyric and Criticism 

---

Benjamin Bishop (Graduated: 2010)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2010

Placement:  Visiting Assistant Professor of English/Writing/Linguistics, Western Oregon University, 2010-present
Dissertation: Exacting Encounters: Objectivity and Literality in Early Victorian Realism

---

Wendy Piquemal (Graduated: 2010)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, 2011; M.A., University of Edinburgh, 1999; B.A., Duke University, 1998

Placement:  Lecturer, Composition, UCI, 2010-2012; Freelance Translator (French to English), 2010-present
Dissertation: Tradition and Transformation: Culture Recovery in the New World

---

Lindsay Puente (Graduated: 2010)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2010; B.A. Comparative Literature and Spanish, USC, 2001

Placement: Assistant Professor, Dept of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Univ of Arkansas, 2010-2014;  Educational Programs Director, Fort Worth Capoeira, TX, 2010-present; Adjunct Professor of Spanish, Tarrant County College, TX 2014-present; Adjunct Professor, Classical & Contemporary Dance, Texas Christian University - College of Fine Arts, 2018-present
Dissertation: Locating Slavery in the Modern National Imaginary: The Legacy of Haiti

---

Alexandra Sartor (Graduated: 2010)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2010

Placement:  Associate Director for Writing, Sixth College, UCSD; Lecturer, Culture, Art, and Technology Program, UCSD; Lecturer, Analytical Writing Program, UCSD, present
Dissertation: Written in Water: The Rhetorical Protests of the Owen Valley Water Wars

---

Travis Tanner (Graduated: 2010)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2010

Placement:  Postdoctoral Fellow, Tulane University-2014; Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Loyola Marymount University, 2014-2015;
Program Director, Licensed Psychoanalyst, Educator, and Social Worker, Community West Treatment Center, Los Angeles, present; Advanced Candidate in the Adult Program of Psychoanalysis at the New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles, present; on Board of Directors at New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalysis Center (NOBPC), Chair of Outreach at NOBPC, and is a representative on the Education, Curriculum and Faculty Committees at the New Center for Psychoanalysis, present
Dissertation: X-Communicated Subjects in Native American Literature

---

Kimberly Ball (Graduated: 2009)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2009; M.A. Folklore, University of California, Berkeley; B.A. Philosophy, University of California, Los Angeles

Placement:  Continuing Lecturer in the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies (ELTS), UCLA, 2015-present
Dissertation: The Otherworld Vessel as Metatraditional Motif in Northern European Literature and Folk Narrative

---

Jian Chen (Graduated: 2009)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2009; B.A. Ethnic Studies and English, University of California, Berkeley

Placement:  Assistant Professorship, English Department, The Ohio State University; Director of Asian American Studies (Autumn 2020) and Sexuality Studies (2017-2018), The Ohio State University; Associate Professor of Queer Studies, Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University, present

---

Margaux Cowden (Graduated: 2009)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2009

Placement:  Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Williams College, 2012-2016; Director, OHIO Honors Program, 2018-2020, & Director, Cutler Scholars Program, 2016-2020, Ohio University; Director, Emory College Scholars Programs, Emery University, GA, 2020-2022; Chief Program Officer, Point Foundation, Los Angeles, 2022-present
Dissertation: Late Modernism & the Landscape of Perversity: Minor Utopianism, 1930-1950

---

Jane De Leon Griffin (Graduated: 2009)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, 2009; B.A. University of Wisconsin, Madison

Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish, Indiana University, 2009-10; Associate Professor of Modern Languages, Bentley University (Boston);  Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences & Associate Professor in Department of Modern Languages, Bentley University, present
Research Interests: Material culture; minority and marginal cultural production; popular and mass culture; folk art and craft; gender studies; intellectual property and copyright laws; state and corporate sponsorship of the arts; translation studies; non-profit arts organizations
Dissertation: The Labor of Literature: Gender and Literary Culture in Chile from Dictatorship to Democracy

---

Erin Trapp (Graduated: 2009)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2009

Placement:  Lecturer, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-River Falls, 2012-2014; Senior Lecturer, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, 2014-2019; Pursuing clinical licensure as a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, Lyn-Lake Psychotherapy & Wellness, Minnesota, present
Dissertation: Estranging Lyric: Postwar Aggression and the Task of Poetry 

---

Liz Kiszely (Graduated: 2008)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2008

Placement:  Faculty Emeritus, English Department, Fullerton College, present
Dissertation: Parallel Infinities: Playing on Time in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities

---

Katherine Mack (Graduated: 2008)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2008

Placement:  Former Department Chair, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; Professor of English, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, present
Dissertation: A Generative Failure: The Public Hearings of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

---

R. John Williams (Graduated: 2008)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2008

Placement: Associate Professor of English & Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies, Yale University, present

Michael Kurt Ozment (Graduated: 2008)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2008

Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor Doctor, Cultures, Civilizations & Ideas, Bilkent University, Turkey, present

---

Rodney A. Rodriguez (Graduated: 2008)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2008

Placement: Instructional Specialist, Writing and Reading Center, Long Beach City College; Department Head of English, Long Beach City College, present
Dissertation: Allegories of Literary Medicine: Cures and Doctors in Don Quixote, Tom Jones, and Tristram Shandy

---

Matthew Ancell (Graduated: 2007)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2007

Placement:  Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Humanities, & Section Head of Comparative Literature, Brigham Young University, present
Dissertation: The Aesthetics of Disfiguration: Skeptical Perspective in Early Modern Spain and England

---

Craig Carson (Graduated: 2007)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2007; B.A. Rhetoric and Philosophy (Double Major), State University of New York, Binghamton, 1995

Placement: Harper-Schmidt Fellow & Collegiate Assistant Professor of Humanities @ The University of Chicago 2007-2010; Assistant Professor of 18th-Century, Adelphi University; Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Honors College, Adelphi University, present
Research Interests: Environmental Humanities, Restoration/18th-Century Literature, History of the Novel, Ecocriticism, Literary Theory
Dissertation: The Aesthetic Community: Eighteenth-Century Politics of the Spectacle

---

Brook Haley (Graduated: 2007)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2007

Placement: Lecturer, Pomona College; Lecturer, French, UC Irvine-2013; French Instructor, The Bishop's School, La Jolla, CA, present

Winner of the Charles Bernheimer Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association for Best Dissertation of 2008 in the U.S., for Atomic Poetry: Materialist Rhythms in Lucretius, Du Bellay and Mallarme

---

Marina Ludwigs (Graduated: 2007)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2007

Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Stockholm University; Associate Professor (Docent), Stockholm University, Sweden, present
Research Interests: Narratology, Generative Anthropology, Affect Theory, and Mimetic Theory
Dissertation: Epiphanies in Literature and Narrative Meaning

---

Erin Obodiac (Graduated: 2007)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2007; B.A., summa cum laude, Cornell University

Placement: Researcher, Leeds University, 2008-10; Lecturer, Comparative Literature, UCI, Fall 2010 2012-13; Society for the Humanities Fellowship, Cornell University, 2013-15; Post Doctoral Fellowship, Department of Comparative Literature, Cornell University; Taught at SUNY Albany and SUNY Cortland; Lecturer, UCI-DUT Joint Program, present
Research Interests: arche-writing, the philosophy of technology
Dissertation: Technics and the Sublime

---

Glenn Odom (Graduated: 2007)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2007; M.Ed. English Education, Vanderbilt University; B.A. English and Psychology, Vanderbilt University

Placement: Visiting Asst Professor of English, Grinnell College (2008-09); Asst Prof of English, Rowan University (NJ), 2009-2014; Senior Lecturer (equivalent to Associate Professor) Department of Drama, Theatre, & Performance Research, Roehampton University, London, UK; Reader in Department of Situated, Mobile & Socially Engaged Performance Practices, Roehampton University, present; Professor, Centre for Research in Arts and Creative Exchange, Roehampton University, present
Research Interests: My work involves the study of modern and contemporary theatre and performance from Africa and Asia. My current practice involves asset-led applied theatre in London. I also study world literature, comparative literature, and general critical theory, with particular attention to issues of transmission and reception.
Dissertation: Resistant Stagings: Discourses of Power and Metatheatricality in Soyinka, Jonson, and Euirpieds

Margaret Smith (Graduated: 2007) 

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2007; B.S., University of Michigan, 1980; B.A. Classics, UCI, 1992
Placement: Library Assistant, UCI
Dissertation: Athena and Minerva: Rhetoric, Gender, and Durability

---

Catherine Winiarski (Graduated: 2007)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2007

Placement: Instructor, Writing and Reading Success Center, Long Beach City College, present; Lecturer, Humanities Core and Composition, UCI, 2014-; Lecturer, English Department, UCI, present
Research Interests:  Environmental literature; early modern English literature
Dissertation: Adulterers, Idolaters, and Emperors: The Politics of Iconoclasm in English Renaissance Drama

---

Kir Kuiken (Graduated: 2006)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2006; M.A. Philosophy, University of California, Irvine, 1999; Honors B.A. Philosophy & English, Trent University, Canada, 1996

Placement: Associate Professor, Department of English, University at Albany, present 
Research Interests: Romantic Literature and Culture, Romantic moral and political philosophy, and contemporary political and aesthetic theory
Dissertation: Crises of the Imagination: Romanticism at the Limits of Philosophy

---

Mariam B. Lam (Graduated: 2006)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2006

Placement: Vice Chancellor & Chief Diversity Officer, Diversity Equity & Inclusion Dept, UCR present; Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, UCR present; Cooperating Faculty in Ethnic Studies, UCR present
Dissertation: Surfin' Vietnam: Trauma, Historical Memory, and Cultural Politics in Twentieth Century Literature and Film

---

Jason E. Smith (Graduated: 2006)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2006; Summer 2001: School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University; Université de Paris X-Nanterre, Départment de Philosophie (auditeur libre), 2000; B. A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995

Placement:  Cornell Society for the Humanities Fellow in 2013-14; Former Chair of the Graduate Art MFA program; Assistant Professor, Graduate Studies in Art, Art Center College of Design, present
Dissertation: The Pure Materiality of the Fact: Studies in Literature and Politics (Husserl, Derrida, Nancy)

Co-editor, Hegel After Spinoza: A Volume of Critical Essays, ed. Hasana Sharp
and Jason E. Smith (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2011);
editor and Introduction. Vittorio Morfino, Plural Temporality: Transindividuality and
the Aleatory between Spinoza and Althusser (Brill, 2010)

---

Lan Duong (Graduated: 2005)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2005

Placement: Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, USC
Research Interests: Feminist Film Theory, Postcolonial Literature, Asian American Cinema, Genre Studies
Dissertation: Viet Nam and the Diaspora: Gender, Nation, and the Politics of Collaboration

---

Patience Moll (Graduated: 2005)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2005; B.A., Yale University, 1991

Placement: Lecturer, USC Honors Humanities program, Thematic Option, Fall 2016; Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Dundee, Scotland, 2007-08; Lecturer, Humanities Core Program, UC Irvine, 2008-10; Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of English, Tulane University; Lecturer, USC, present
Dissertation: Inscriptions of the Multitude in Hegel, Heidegger, and Plato

---

Patricia Pierson (Graduated: 2005)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2005

Placement:  Associate Director, Literary Journalism Program & Associate Director of Center for Storytelling, UCI, present
Research Interests: Writing and rhetoric, narrative and narrative theory, collections and collection theory, critical theory, and storytelling
Dissertation: Secret Agents: Identity, Detection, and the Question of Narrative Authority

---

Jonathan Singer (Graduated: 2005)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2005; M.A. Culture Studies/Critical Theory and Analysis, Western University, 1996; B.A. English Literature & Cultural Studies, Trent University, 1993

Placement: Full Professor of English, Seneca College, Toronto, Ontario, present
Dissertation: Epistolary Exchange and the Early Modern Subject of Narrative

---

Rosemary Kwa (Graduated: 2004)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2004

Placement: English Majors Transfer Program Coordinator & Associate Professor of English, Glendale Community College, present
Dissertation: The Force of Affect in Freudian Psychoanalysis: Representation, Subjectivity, and Drive Theory 

Mark Patrick (Graduated: 2004)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2004; B.A. Comparative Literature, UCI, 1991
Placement: Faculty, Coast Guard Academy
Dissertation: Italy and the Burden of History in Sannazaro's Arcadia and Shakespeare's Late Pastoral

---

Jeffrey Atteberry (Graduated: 2003)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature with Critical Theory Emphasis, University of California, Irvine, 2003 - studied under Jacques Derrida; J.D. UC Berkeley; B.A. Princeton University 

Placement: Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship offered, UC Berkeley; Principal Attorney, The Vora Law Firm, present
Dissertation: A Gracious Freedom: The New World of Surrealist Liberation

Julia Lynn Witwer (Graduated: 2003)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2003; B.A., University of California, Santa Cruz, 1991
Placement: Librarian, Berkeley Public Library
Dissertation: Surface Tension: The Operation of the Screen in Computer and Console Video Games

---

Jennifer Bajorek (Graduated: 2002)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2002

Placement: Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow; Senior Lecturer and Convenor of MA in Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London; Research Associate, Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Johannesburg (South Africa), 2013-present; Professor of Comparative Literature and Visual Studies, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, present 
Research Interests: African photographic archives and decolonial historiography; Francophone (European, African, Caribbean) literature and film; Marxist, post-Marxist, and postcolonial theory; as well as topics in contemporary art, African and African diaspora history, and art history, and critical museum and heritage studies. Her work also includes translation, curating, and diverse forms of collaboration.
Dissertation: Technics of Production: Irony and Capital in Marx and Baudelaire
Publications: Author of Counterfeit Capital: Poetic Labor and Revolutionary Irony (Stanford UP, 2008); Unfixed: Photography and Decolonial Imagination in West Africa, Duke UP, 2020

---

Patricia Dailey (Graduated: 2002)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2002

Placement: Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University (2002-2004); Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, 2004-present (awarded tenure-track in 2013)
Research Interests: Medieval literature, medieval women's poetry and prose, Anglo-Saxon poetry, critical theory, psychoanalytic theory, psychoanalysis and cognitive studies; gender, sexuality, queer theory, and feminism; Europe; Britian
Dissertation: Promised Bodies: Embodiment and the Time of a Literary Text
Publications: Trans. of Giorgio Agamben, The Time That Remains (Stanford University Press, 2005); Promised Bodies: Time, Language, and Corporeality in Medieval Women's Mystical Texts. Columbia UP, 2013.

---

Erin Ferris (Graduated: 2002)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2002; B.A., University of British Columbia, 1992

Placement: Stanford University
Dissertation: Just Poetry

---

Benjamin Huang (Graduated: 2002)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2002; B.A. English, Yale University, 1976

Placement: Council of Library Resources Fellow, USC, 2005; Lecturer in Humanities, Mount St. Mary's College, 2007-2009
Dissertation: Framing the Self: Ideology and Subject Formation in Conrad, Joyce, and Ha Jin

---

Steven L. Miller (Graduated: 2002)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2002; B.A. Semiotics, Brown University, 1990

Placement: Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University Society for the Humanities, 2003-04;  Executive Director for the Center of Psychoanalysis and Culture, Director of Graduate Admissions, & Associate Professor, Department of English, SUNY Buffalo, present
Research Interests: psychoanalytic theory, continental philosophy, 19th- and 20th-century European literatures, translation studies
Dissertation: The Fulfillment of the Law: Contestation in Postwar Thought and Fiction
Publications: Co-translator with Jason Smith of Jean-Luc Nancy, Hegel: The Restlessness of the Negative (University of Minnesota Press, 2002); editor, Literature and the Right to Marriage (special issue of Diacritics, 2007); author, War After Death: On Violence and Its Limits (Fordham University Press, 2014)

Irene Wei (Graduated: 2001)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2001; B.A., Comparative Literature, UCI, 1988
Placement: Practicing Lawyer
Dissertation: The Birth of New Barbarians: The Theater of Encounter in Four Early Twentieth-Century French and Chinese Writers

Dwight Frederick Brooks (Graduated: 2001)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2001
Placement: Independent Scholar & Novelist (self-employed)
Dissertation: Spenser's Ingenium: A Study of Metamorphic Poetics in the 1590 Faerie Queene

Christopher Michael Diffee (Graduated: 2001)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2001; B.A. University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 1993
Placement: J.D., Stanford, Practicing Lawyer
Dissertation: A Natural Infamy: Fictions of Endangered Agency in Hardy, Norris, and Zola

---

Christopher Kuipers (Graduated: 2001)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2001

Placement: Graduate Faculty Member in Literature and Criticism, Indiana University, Pennsylvania, present
Research Interests: Pastoral literature, Classical literature, Bible as literature, History of the canon, Anthologies, The graphic novel
Dissertation: The Pastoral Initiation: An Ecology of Authorly Emergence from Plato to Milton
Publications: Canon (Taylor & Francis, 2009)

---

Naomi Silver (Graduated: 2001)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2001; B.A., University of Chicago, 1990

Placement: Associate Director and Lecturer, Sweetland Center for Writing, University of Michigan, present
Research Interests: Writing studies, digital rhetoric, writing and multiliteracy centers
Dissertation: Rituals of Contact: Sacrifice and Community in Cullen, Balzac, Larsen, James, and Rilke

Lawrence Albert De Valencia (Graduated: 2001)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2001; B.A. Yale, 1989
Dissertation: The Exigency of Character - Trees, Tables, and Triangles, Drawing Characters Upon Nature: Cervantes, Wilkins, Newton & Defoe

---

Kimberly Moekle (Graduated: 2000)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2000; B.A. English, University of California, Los Angeles, 1989

Placement:  Lecturer, Composition, UCI, 2001-2005; Lecturer, Program in Writing and Rhetoric, Stanford, 2005-2019; Senior Lecturer in Communication Studies & Core Curriculum, Loyola Marymount University, 2019-present
Dissertation: Precarious Closets: Privacy and Subjectivity in the Renaissance

---

Jennifer Thompson (Graduated: 2000)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2000; B.A., General Studies, University of Arizona, 1991

Placement: Assistant Professor of Humanities and Communication, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, 2000-unknown; Flight Test Engineer, Raytheon Missiles & Defense, present
Dissertation: Realizing Rape

David Victor Maxwell (Graduated: 1999)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1999; B.A. State University of New York at Buffalo, 1988
Placement: Graduate Student, MA English Education, CUNY Lehman
Dissertation: The Keys to the Self: Franklin, De Man, Emerson, and Melville

Julie Chung In Park (Graduated: 1999)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1999; B.A., UCI, 1989
Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor, Cultures, Civilizations, & Ideas, Bilkent University, Turkey
Dissertation: The Question of Literature in Duras, Ch'oe, and Kingston

---

Tracy McNulty (Graduated: 1998)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1998; B.A. French and English, UC Berkeley, 1989

Placement: Professor, French Studies, Romance Studies, and Comparative Literature, Cornell University, present
Research Interests: 20th-century French literature and comparative modernism, psychoanalytic theory (especially Freud and Lacan), contemporary French philosophy, and political theory
Dissertation: Under the Sign of the Hostess: Hospitality, Ethics, and the Expropriation of Identity
Publications: The Hostess, My Neighbor: Hospitality and the Expropriation of Identity (University of Minnesota Press, 2006); Wrestling with the Angel: Experiments in Symbolic Life, Columbia UP, 2014.

David De Kanter Arndt (Graduated: 1998)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1998; B.A. Yale University, 1991
Placement: Assistant Professor, Deep Springs College, 1999-2005; Visiting Assistant Professor, Bilkent University, 2005-2010; Assistant Professor, Kutztown University, 2010-Present (as of 2018); Visiting Professor, Deep Springs College, Summer 2011; Professor of Comparative Literature, Deep Springs College, 2007-present 
Dissertation: Ground and Abyss: The Question of Poiesis in Heidegger, Arendt, Foucault and Stevens

---

Thomas Albrecht (Graduated: 1997)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1997

Placement: Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Modern and Contemporary Studies, UCLA, 2002-03; Assistant Professor of English, Tulane University, 2003-?; Chair of the English Department, Professor of English, Tulane University, present
Dissertation: Petrifying Authority: The Medusa as Metaphor in Freud, Nietzsche, Swinburne, and George Eliot
Publications: Author of The Medusa Effect: Representations of Horror in Psychoanalysis and Victorian Aesthetics (Albany: SUNY Press, 2009); ed., Selected Writings of Sarah Kofman (Stanford UP, 2007).

---

Mark Calkins (Graduated: 1997)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1997

Placement: Professor, Classics Department, San Francisco State University
Dissertation: A La Recherche de Lunite Perdue: Genre, Allegory, Irony, Dilation and Decadent Style in Proust

---

Matthew Potolsky (Graduated: 1997)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1997; B.A. Comparative Literature & Philosophy, UC Davis

Placement: Professor of English, University of Utah, present
Research Interests: My research focuses on nineteenth-century British and French literature, particularly late-century movements like Decadence and Aestheticism. I also have a longstanding interest in the history of literary theory and in representations of secrets and secret keeping.
Dissertation: Teaching Decadence: Aestheticism and the Ends of Education in Gautier, Masoch, and Pater
Publications: Mimesis (The New Critical Idiom) (Routledge, 2006); co-ed. with Liz Constable and Dennis Denisoff of Perennial Decay: On the Aesthetics and Politics of Decadence (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998)

---

Gabriel Riera (Graduated: 1997)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1997

Placement: Associate Professor, Hispanic and Italian Studies Department, University of Illinois, Chicago, present
Publications: Alain Badiou: Philosophy and its Conditions (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005); Intrigues: From Being to the Other (Fordham University Press, 2006); Littoral of the Letter: Saer’s Art of Narration (Lewisburg/London: Bucknell University Press, 2006).

---

Oliver Berghof (Graduated: 1996)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1996

Placement: Professor of Literature and Writing, California State University, San Marcos, present
Dissertation: Psyche, Soul, Death, Spirit and Mind in Sterne and Diderot 

---

Michael Mageean (Graduated: 1996)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1996

Placement: Professor of English, Mt. San Antonio College, present
Dissertation: Traumatic Readings: Violence and Rhetoric 

---

Simona Sawhney (Graduated: 1996)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1996

Placement: Taught in Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and in the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Minnesota; Professor of Literature, IIT Delhi, present
Dissertation: Secular Interventions: Engaging Forms of the Sacred in Politics and Literature
Publications: The Modernity of Sanskrit (University of Minnesota Press, 2008)

---

Armando Ismael Silva (Graduated: 1996)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1996

Placement:  Director of the Doctorate in Social Studies of the Universidad Externado de Colombia and a Professor and Researcher Emeritus of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, present
Dissertation: The Family Photo Album: The Image of Ourselves
Publications: co-author, Imaginary Cities: Documenta 11; see http://www.divulgacion.unal.edu.co/exposiciones_imaginarios.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armando_Silva

---

Manya Steinkoler (Graduated: 1996)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1996; M.A. Comparative Literature, Brandeis University, 1995

Placement: Professor of English, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, present
Dissertation: "Tell Me More About the Voice": Operatic Psychoanalysis, A Lacanian Vocalise

---

Gregory Lambert (Graduated: 1995)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1995

Placement: Dean's Professor, Humanities & Founding Director of the Syracuse University Humanities Center in Central New York, present
Dissertation: The Culture of the Stranger: Reflections on European Aesthetic Ideology in 'The New World'
Publications: Who's Afraid of Deleuze and Guattari? (Continuum, 2007); The Return of the Baroque in Modern Culture (Continuum, 2005); and The Non-Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (Continuum, 2002)

---

Scott McClintock (Graduated: 1995)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1995

Placement: Associate Professor, National University, 2005-2020; Professor, Golden Gate University, 2020-present

---

Thomas Dutoit (Graduated: 1994)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1994

Placement: Professor of English, Universite de Lille-III, present
Dissertation: Ethics' Debt to Aesthetics: Then Obligation Towards an Unpresentable
Publications: A Rose, a Ghost, in Edith Wharton: Reading Proserpinean Poetics in The Custom of the Country (Editions du Temps, 2000); co-ed. with Philippe Romanski, Angles on Derrida: Jacques Derrida and Anglophone Literature), Oxford Literary Review, 2004; translator of Jacques Derrida, Sovereignties in Question (2005), Aporias (2003), and On the Name (1995)

---

Julia Watson (Graduated: 1979)

Degrees: Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, 1979

Placement: Professor Emerita, Academy Professor, Ohio State University 
Advisor(s): Alexander Gelley Richard Regosin
Research Interests: Theorizing Autobiography, Life Narrative, Feminist Theory and Women's Writing
Publications: Life Writing in the Long Run: A Smith & Watson Autobiography Studies Reader, Michigan Publishing Services, 2017.
Reading Autobiography: A Guide to Interpreting Life Narratives (revised edition, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2010).
I was a professor in English, Humanities, and Comparative Studies depts. for 35 years and have published seven books with a co-author as well as many articles, traveled widely (two Fulbrights, five NEH summer seminars), and had a rewarding career. I urge students to learn languages and travel as much as possible during their studies--! there will never be a better time. Follow your passion, but seek an academic career only if nothing else will satisfy you. It's a long, hard struggle, but ultimately rewarding--and a lifetime of working with students is energizing and fun.

---