Alumni dissertations and careers
Our doctoral students are encouraged to broadly pursue their interests and explore German Studies in innovative ways, as evidenced by the titles of our Ph.D. dissertations.
Our rigorous graduate program and the supportive environment we've cultivated ensures that our graduate students develop outstanding research, teaching, and writing skills. Our graduates are prepared to begin their careers as independent thinkers and successful professionals.
If you're interested in learning more about recent and past Germanic Languages & Literatures graduate students' dissertation and thesis research, please click the links below to view more information on OhioLink Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Center.
Placements, Dissertation and Thesis Titles
Our alumni
- Benjamin Beese (MA 2024), doctoral student at Cornell University.
- Bolin Ai (MA 2023), Redakteur/Editor for Telc in Bad Homburg, Germany ( https://www.telc.net/ )
- Haley Grubb (MA 2023), continuing in our doctoral program here in Germanic Languages and Literatures at Ohio State.
- Fabia Weisser (MA 2023), doctoral student at Princeton.
- Elisha Brooker (MA 2023), Outreach and Recruitment Coordinator for the Chinese and Arabic Language Flagships within the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University.
- Budimka Uskokovic (PhD 2022), Assistant Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate German Language Instruction, The Ohio State University.
- Kassi Burnett (PhD 2021), Full Stack Web Developer at EverCommerce
- William A. Baker (PhD 2021), Team Lead (via TEKsystems) at Meta.
- Caleb B. Davis (MA 2020), continuing as Ph.D. Candidate at Ohio State.
- Carolin Mueller (PhD 2020), Research Fellow, Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University Jerusalem.
- Sarah K. Traylor (PhD 2019), Lecturer, The Ohio State University.
- Dennis Schäfer (MA 2018), doctoral student at Princeton.
- Maddie Kindig (MA 2018), Assistant Director for Graduate Student Professional Success, The Ohio State University.
- Simon Lösch, (PhD 2017), Senior Service Delivery Lead onsite @ Google at Vaco.
- Bethany Richetti, (PhD 2017), Lecturer, The Ohio State University.
- Wonneken Wanske, (PhD 2015), Senior Specialist, Educational Development and Digital Learning, University of Ottawa.
- Jaclyn Kurash, (PhD 2015), Teaching Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies, and German Advisor, University of Pittsburgh.
- Alex Holznienkemper (PhD 2014), Lecturer, University of New Hampshire.
- Sylvia Fischer (PhD 2014), Assistant Professor, University of West Florida.
- Berit Jany (PhD 2013), Teaching Professor and Coordinator of the German language program, University of Colorado.
- Kevin Richards (PhD 2012), Assistant Teaching Professor and Outreach Coordinator, The Ohio State University.
- Jennifer Magro Algarotti (PhD 2012), Director of Strategic Communications, Delta Gamma Foundation.
- Thomas Stefaniuk (PhD 2012), Associate Professor, Florida Gulf Coast University.
- Kristen Hetrick (PhD 2012), Fellowship Advisor, NC State University.
- Jesse Wood (PhD 2012), Visiting Assistant Professor, BYU-Idaho.
- Charles Vannette (PhD 2011), Assistant Professor, University of New Hampshire.
- Sara Luly (PhD 2011), Associate Professor, Director of University Honors Program, Kansas State University.
- Weijia Li (PhD 2009), Clinical Professor, Director of Global Higher Education MS Program, University of Wisconsin – Madison.
- Sai Bhatawadekar (PhD 2007), Professor, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
- Kristy Boney (PhD 2006), Associate Professor, University of Central Missouri.
- Kathleen Hallihan (PhD 2005), Assistant Dean of Students and Instruction at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University.
- Erol Boran (PhD 2004), Associate Professor, University of Toronto.
- Nikhil Sathe (PhD 2003), Associate Professor, Ohio University.
- Jennifer Marston William (PhD 2002), PhD, Professor and Head of the School of Languages and Cultures at Purdue University.
- Stephanie Libbon (PhD 2000), Associate Professor, Kent State University.
- Ann-Sophie Roehm (PhD 2023), On the “right” path? – Analyzing recent breaking news coverage of right-extremist attacks in German media
- Budimka Uskokovich (PhD 2022), Intercultural Communicative Competence in German: A Conversation Analytic Approach
- Kassi Burnett (PhD 2021), Differently Abled Natures: Being Other than Human in Contemporary German Literature
- William Baker (PhD 2021), Melancholy and the Photo-Historical Approach in the Films of Wim Wenders
- Carolin Mueller (PhD 2020), From Musical Activism to Musical Citizenship: Dresden’s Banda Internationale
- Carly Martin (PhD 2020), Schöne Prose: Language Critique and Biography in the Early Herder
- Sarah K. Traylor (PhD 2019), Sacred Journeys in a Secular Age: Pilgrimage in Contemporary German Literature
- Simon Losch (PhD 2017), An Obsolete Hegemon? America’s Function in the Imagination of a (Re-)unified German Nation
- Bethany A. Richetti (PhD 2017), Learning to Re-present: Realism & Education in Literature and Visual Arts, 1800-1880
- Marcus Breyer (PhD 2017), Meerstimmigkeiten: Metapher und Modernekritik bei Eduard von Keyserling
- Jaclyn Kurash (PhD 2015), Mechanical Women and Sexy Machines: Typewriting in Mass-Media Culture of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933
- Sara Rossini (PhD 2015), “Wie kommts, daß es mit den Philanthropinen so gar nicht fort will?”: Die Kritik an den Erziehungsmethoden der Philanthropen in fiktionalen Texten der Aufklärung
- Wonneken Wanske (PhD 2015), Giving Birth and/to the New Science of Obstetrics: Fin-De-Siècle German Women Writers’ Perceptions of the Birthing Experience
- Amber Suggitt (PhD 2015), Between Becoming and Being: Representations of the Individual in Friederike Helene Unger’s Novels
- Sylvia Fischer (PhD 2014), Dass Hämmer und Herzen synchron erschallen. Erkundungen zu Heimat in Literatur und Film der DDR der 50er und 60er Jahre
- Alex Holznienkemper (PhD 2014), Philosophie und Literatur im post-säkularen Zeitalter – religiöse Gewalt im zeitgenössischen Roman
- Berit Jany (PhD 2013), Heresy or Ideal Society? A Study of Early Anabaptism as Minority Religion in German Fiction
- Jennifer Magro Algarotti (PhD 2012), The Austrian Imaginary of Wilderness: Landscape, History and Identity in Contemporary Austrian Literature
- Jesse Wood (PhD 2012), “Aber das Geistige, das sehen Sie, das ist nichts.” Collisions with Hegel in Bertolt Brecht’s Early Materialism
- Kevin Richards (PhD 2012), Soldiering On: Images of the German Soldier 1985-2008
- Thomas Stefaniuk (PhD 2012), Diaspora Destiny: Joseph Jessing and Competing Narratives of Nation, 1860-1899
- Kristen Hetrick (PhD 2012), Writing Illness: Tuberculosis and Cancer in German and North American Literature
- Charles Vannette (PhD 2011), ‘Wir pröbeln and schneidern mit Dingen, die in der Brust anderer Menschen gesund und geheimnissvoll und unangetastet ruhen…’: Narrative Observation and Hyperreflexivity in the Works of Robert Walser
- Sara Luly (PhD 2011), Magnetized Men: Constructing Masculinity through Somnambulism in the Works of German Romanticism
- Weijia Li (PhD 2009), Anna Seghers’ China – Begegnung in ihrem Leben und ihren Werken
- Sai Bhatawadekar (PhD 2007), Symptoms of Withdrawal: The Threefold Structure of Hegel's and Schopenhauer's Interpretation of Hindu Religion and Philosophy
- Andrea Payk-Heitmann (PhD 2007), Fortschreiben, Vermeiden, Erneuern: Der Amerikadiskurs Deutscher Schriftsteller nach dem 11. September 2001
- Kristy Boney (PhD 2006), Mapping Topographies in the Anglo and German Narratives of Joseph Conrad, Anna Seghers, James Joyce, and Uwe Johnson
- Patricia Sanda (PhD 2006), Christoph Ransmayrs Romane "Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis", "Die Letze Welt" und "Morbus Kitahara": Eine Narratologische, Historische und Rezeptionsästhetische Untersuchung
- David Connolly (PhD 2005), Problems of Textual Transmission in Early German Books on Mining: "Der Ursprung gemeynnes Berckrecht" and the Norwegian "Bergkordnung"
- Michaela Peroutkova (PhD 2005), Literarische und mündliche Erzählungen über die Vertreibung. Ein deutsch-tschechischer Vergleich
- Kathleen Hallihan (PhD 2005), Envisioning an Ideal State: The Literary Politics of Bettina von Arnim from 1830 to 1852
- Erol Boran (PhD 2004), Eine Geschichte des Türkisch-Deutschen Theaters und Kabaretts: Fremd- und Eigeninszenierung des "Türken" im Wandel der Zeiten
- Nikhil Sathe (PhD 2003), Authenticity and the critique of the tourism industry in postwar Austrian literature
- Jennifer William (PhD 2002), Zeiträume: Time, Space, and Metaphor in German-Language Novels of the Twentieth Century
- Yogini Joglekar (PhD 2002), Who Cares Whodunit? Anti-Detection in West German Cinema
- Alicia Carter (PhD 2002), Fremde Pflanzen: The Gendered Gardens of Adalbert Stifter and Theodor Fontane
- Christine Möller-Sahling (PhD 2001), Wie schön und unendlich schöner malt die Ferne Dich: Der Liebesdiskurs im Briefwechsel um 1800
- Cynthia Chalupa (PhD 2001), Through the Looking Glass: Overcoming Language in the Works of Georg Trakl, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Ilse Aichinger
- Stephanie Libbon (PhD 2000), Frank Wedekind’s Fantasy World: A Theater of Sexuality
Andrew Morgan (MA 2025), Motivation in German Language Learning: A Study on the Motivations of Undergraduate German Learners for Majoring/Not Majoring in German
Benjamin Beese (MA 2024), The Gretel Adorno Problem and the Limitations of Contemporary Women's Biography
Fabia Weisser (MA 2023), "Kollektenreisen – Selbstdarstellung in Eberhard Ludwig Grubers Kollektentagebuch"
Haley Grubb (MA 2023), "L1 Question Design in German Conversations-for-Learning: a conversation analytic approach"
Elisha Brooker (MA 2023), "Mixed Identities in the Far West: Questions of Coexistence in DEFA’s Indianerfilme"
Bolin Ai (MA 2023), "How Do Students Approach Language Learning Tasks: A Conversation Analytic Study of Beginning German Learners' Task-based Oral Interactions in the Classroom"
Caleb B. Davis (MA 2020), "Man stellt Denkmaler nicht auf den flachen Asphalt" - Nationalism and Narrative in Commemorative "Siegfried" Monuments in Weimar- and Nazi Germany
Dennis Schaefer (MA 2018), Modernity’s Pact with the Devil: Goethe’s Faust, Keller’s Romeo and Julia auf dem Dorfe, and Storm’s Der Schimmelreiter as Tales of Forgetting