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Welcome to OSU, New Graduate Students!
This year, the English Department is excited to welcome 56 new students from across the country and around the world (as well as some of our own graduates!) into the MA, MFA, and PhD programs. Triumphing over power outages and first-day-of-school jitters, a number of new members of the department have volunteered to introduce themselves to the community here, on the department website
Christina Belcher, incoming MA student, Marshall University
Christina comes to OSU from Marshall University in West Virginia where she double majored in English literature and Sociology, and minored in Women's Studies. Her research interests are queer theory, LGBT literature, and reception studies, and she plans to pursue the interdisciplinary specialization in Sexuality Studies in order to examine how we receive and react to LGBT texts in a time that these texts are being taught in classrooms.
Steven Ripley, incoming PhD student, University of Florida
Steven comes to OSU after getting his Bachelors in English at the University of Florida. His areas of interest are Medieval Literature and sixteenth and seventeenth-century lyrical poetry, and he was drawn to OSU by the strength of our Medieval program, which offers graduate students extensive research resources and the chance to work with such a large and distinguished Early Modern faculty. After living in Florida his entire life, Steven is looking forward to seeing snow this winter in Columbus.
Aaron Mercier, incoming MA student, University of British Columbia
Aaron chose OSU because of the number of dedicated medievalists in the department, and the many parallels he found between their work and his interests. He was also motivated by the interdisciplinary approach taken to the study of Medieval and Renaissance literature here. Aaron took his BA at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He misses the mountains, but is pleased with OSU's library system, and with Buckeye Donuts.
MaryKatherine Ramsey, incoming MFA student, University of Cincinnati
Ramsey comes to OSU to attend the MFA program for fiction after getting her MA in literature at the University of Cincinnati. She chose OSU because the Creative Writing faculty was highly recommended and because of the wide range of choices the Department offers in the study of literature. Her interests-in addition to writing fiction-include African-American female writers of the twentieth century and depictions of motherhood and violence in post-9/11 literature. She has two young daughters and a dog, who is both lovable and annoying.
Penelope Quade, incoming PhD student, University of Akron
Penelope earned her MA in English from the University of Akron, where she also worked for a year as a part-time faculty member in the Composition Program before coming to OSU to work toward her Ph.D. With interests centered in marginalized and at-risk students, multimodality, as well as several facets surrounding incorporating technologies into the writing curriculum, she was drawn to the nationally acclaimed program because of the numerous opportunities it provides to work with the top minds in the field of Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy.
Katherine Parker, incoming PhD student, Tulane University
Kate comes to OSU after two years of teaching at Delgado Community College in New Orleans, and before that getting her MA and BA at Tulane University. She was drawn to OSU's innovation in Narrative Studies, particularly Project Narrative, and the interdisciplinary possibilities created by the Center for Folklore Studies. She is interested specifically in the possibilities and the limits of representing trauma through narration.
