Department of American Studies

Dissertation Titles 1993-present

2010-2011

Sharon Lake
“The Accidental Feminist: Iowa's Breastfeeding Firefighter and the National Struggle for Workplace Equity”

Mark Warburton
"For the Purposes of Example and Justice:" Native American Incarceration in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1803-1849

Karen Smith
"Framing Quilts/Framing Culture: Women's Work and the Politics of Display"

Betsy Loyd Harvey
"Same Place Next Summer: Permanent chautauquas and the Performance of Middle-Class Identity"

2009-2010

Barb Shubinski
“DOCUMERICA’s America: Environmentalism, Documentary Photography and Landscape in the Environmental Protection Agency, 1971-1977”

Sharon Romeo
“Freedwomen in Pursuit of Liberty: St. Louis and Missouri in the Age of Emancipation”

Brian Hallstoos
“Windy City, Holy Land: Willa Saunders Jones and Black Sacred Music and Drama”

2008-2009
Rixa Freeze " Born Free: Unassisted Childbirth in North America"

Sam Graber "Twice-Divided Nation: The Civil War and National Memory in the Transatlantic World"

Erica Hannickel "An Imperial Vineland: Grape Culture in 19th Century America"

Patrick Naick "Representations of the Black Metropolis: Place and African American Identity on Chicago's South Side"

2007-2008
Ulrich Adelt "Black, White and Blue: Racial Politics of Blues Music in the 1960s"

Eleanor McConnell "A Scarce Plenty: Economics, Citizenship, and Opportunity in Revolutionary New Jersey, 1760-1820"

Kirsten Bland Walters "Ultimate Spin: Contesting the rhetoric, countercultural ethos and commodification of the "Ultimate" frisbee sport, 1968-2008"

2006-2007
Kristin Solli, “North of Nashville: Country Music, National Identity, and Class in Norway”

2005-2006
William Bryant, “Whole System, Whole Earth: The Convergence of Technology and Ecology in Twentieth Century American Culture”

2004-2005
Jennifer Pustz, “The Servant Problem: Historic House museums and Social History”

Russell Peterson, “Strange Bedfellows: The Politics of Late-Night Television Comedy”

2003-2004
Mary Ann Beecher, “A Place for Everything: The Influence of Storage Innovations on Modern American Domesticity (1900-1955)

Chris Poff Pandhi, “The Western Ghost Town in American Culture, 1869-1950”

2002-2003
Megan Nelson, "Peculiar Ecology: Swamps and Culture in the Southeastern Borderlands, 1732-1937."

Kevin Quirk, “That’s What Books Can Do: The Multicultural Middlebrow.”

2001-2002
Laura Baker, "Capitalism Beautiful & Consumer Democracy: Civic Ideals, Mass Culture, and the Public in Chicago, 1900-1925."

Eliot Blake, "The Magical Armchair: Private Power and the Commodification of Expressive Freedom."

Taylor Lake, "American Delsartism and the Bodily Discourse of Respectable Womanliness."

Jane Simonsen, "Making Home Work: Race, Gender and the Uses of American Domestic Space, 1850-1920."

Michael Wiseman, "Rising on the Levee: Stories After the Flood and the Reconstruction of Place."

2000-2001
Michael Augspurger. “An Economy of Abundant Beauty: Fortune and the Culture of Corporate Liberalism.”

Sarah Fields. “Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sport in America.”

Allison McCracken. “Real Men Don’t Sing: Crooning and American Culture: 1928-1933.”

Lori Vermas. “The National Trees: Celebrating the Sequoias—Their Trunks, Roots, Stump, Bark—and Their Depiction as Big Trees in America, 1852-1944.”

1999-2000

James Dorsey “The Quest for Doc's Garden: A Community Study of African-American Athletic Success”

Markha Valenta “The Radical Folly of Love in (Post)Modern America: The Autobiographical Narratives of Dorothy Day”

Daniel Lewis: "Emanuel Leutze's Art of the Civil War Era: Romantic Histories of the Crisis of Union."

Michael Lewis: "Tracking the Biodiversity Ideal: The Transfer and Reception of Ecological Theories and Practices Between the U.S. and India, 1947-1997."

1998-99
Michael Burke "Difficult Belonging: An Ethnographic Look at How the Church Excludes."
Franklin Hess "Importing ‘America’: Television Programming and Audience Identity in Urban Greece."

Eileen Roraback "The Defense of Self: Autobiographical Responses of American Intellectuals to the McCarthy Era."

Jay Satterfield "The World’s Best Book: Taste Culture and the Modern Library."

Ningping Yu "Manufactured Images: Four Chinese Travelers and Their Writing about American Women."

1997-1998
Ilene Alexander "Learning in Other Ways: Toward a History of Feminist Pedagogy in the U.S."

John Baskerville "The Impact of Modern Black Nationalist Ideology and Cultural Revitalization on American Jazz Music of the 1960s and 1970s."

Brett Beemyn "A Queer Capitol: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Life in Washington, D.C., 1890-1955."

Derryn Moten "‘A Gruesome Warning to Black Girls’: The August 16, 1912, Execution of Virginia Christian."

Matthew Pustz "Fanboys and True Believers: Comic Book Reading Communities and the Creation of Culture."

Leslie A. Taylor "Veritable Hotbeds: Lesbian Scandals in the United States, 1926-1936."

Rob Urstein "Aging, Activism, and Spirituality in an American Community."

1996-1997
Natalie Robertson “A Cultural History of AfricaTown, USA, 1859-Present”

Jennifer Strayer “No Place like Home: Domestic Models in Chicago's Public Places, 1919-1938”

Greg Conerly “Policing the Boundaries: Defining African-American Lesbian/Gay Identity and Community Relationships”

Catherine Lewis "From Temple to Forum: The Changing Face of the Chicago Historical Society."

Daniel Nathan “Saying it's so: A cultural history of the Black Sox scandal of 1919”

1995-1996
John Groch “Corporate Reading, Corporate Writing: MGM & CBS in the Land of Oz”

Paul Gutjahr “Battling for the Book: The Americanization of the Bible in the Antebellum Publishing Marketplace, 1777-1860”

Hongjun Su “Strangers within our gates: a study of four first-generation Chinese immigrant men's autobiographies, 1930s-1940s”

1994-1995
Allison Kibler “Female Varieties: Gender & Cultural Hierachy on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit, 1890-1925”

Noliwe Rooks “Hair-Raising: African American Women, Beauty Culture, and Madame C. J. Walker”

Nan Wolverton “Century farm: the shaping of an Iowa landscape, 1851-1951”

Alan Spring “Public Intellectuals in the Culture of Personality: Democratic Discourse, Moral authority, and Intellectual vocation”

Sharon Wood “Wandering Girls & Leading Women: Sexuality & Urban Public Life in Davenport, IA, 1880-1910”

1993-1994
Kay Aldrich “Gender, Sexuality, & Kinship: Portraits of Lesbian. Families in the 1990s”

Nancy Romalov “Modern, Mobile, and Marginal: American Girls' Series Fiction, 1905-1925”