Student Honors, Awards and Milestones

Mellon Dissertation-Year Fellowship

Brian O’Camb, a doctoral candidate in English, received a prestigious Mellon dissertation-year fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in 2008. This award frees him from other duties so that he can concentrate on completing his thesis, which is on the wisdom poetry of the Old English Exeter Book. Brian's director is Jack Niles.

Fannie Lemoine-Midelfort Fellowships

The Fannie Lemoine-Midelfort Graduate Dissertation Fellowship for 2008 was divided between two doctoral candidates, Carrie Roy (Scandinavian Studies) and Scott O. Savran (History). Carrie, whose dissertation examines a Viking Age motif known as the "gripping beast," used her fellowship funds for travel to see relevant artifacts in Oslo, Bergen, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Gotland. Scott is researching how early Muslim accounts of the pre-Islamic Middle East were shaped by the Shu'ubiyya, an early controversy over the status of the Arabs versus the 'ajam (non-Arabic peoples, particularly the Persians). He used his share of the fellowship to buy books he needs for this project.

Recently Completed Ph.D. Dissertations

Andrea Gronstal Benton, 2008. "Telling description: Convention, coherence, and the making of the self in Middle English romance," directed by Sherry Reames, English.

Catherine R. Blunk, 2008. "La vois des hiraus: The poetics of the tournament in late medieval chronicle and romance," directed by Keith Busby, French and Italian.

James Ludvig Frankki, 2007. "Transvestism in the Middle Ages: The Venusfahrt of Ulrich von Liechtenstein," directed by Sal Calomino, German.

Jay Paul Gates, 2007. "The rhetorical construction of kingship in late Anglo-Saxon legal documents and the rise of Cnut's Anglo-Scandinavian empire," directed by A. N. Doane, English.

Denise Hackett Kawasaki, 2008. "The Castilian fathers at the Council of Basel," directed by William Courtenay, History.

Patrick J. Murphy, 2007. "Dark tracks: The poetics of the Exeter Riddles," directed by John Niles, English.

Katerina Somers Wicka, 2007. "On cliticization in Otfrid's Evangelienbuch," directed by Robert Howell, German.

Brian J. Ulrich, 2008. "Constructing al-Azd: Tribal identity and society in the early Islamic centuries," directed by Michael Chamberlain, History.

Recently completed M.A. Thesis

Richard Busby, 2007. "In the eyes of the Bardi: How the patrons would have interpreted the Holy Confessors Chapel in Santa Croce, Florence," directed by Thomas Dale, Art History.