Class of 2016
Oya Aktas (Savannah, GA)
Senior Thesis: 
Beauty Pageants and Soap Operas: How Cultural Actors Have Mobilized Images of Women to Align Turkish Identity Alternatively with Secular and Ottoman Values
Summer 2016 - Summer 2017: "I'll be spending next year in DC at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I will be working as the Research Assistant for the Turkish Research Program."
Senior Thesis Mentor: Maggie Taft, IPH & Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow
Sophomore Tutorial: The central goal of my research is to gain a better understanding of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the role he played in the establishment of the Modern Turkish Republic. In order to accomplish this, I intend to use Gamal Abdul Nasser as a foil to Atatürk. Both men played very important roles in the foundation of two modern Middle Eastern states—Turkey and Egypt. They both emerged from military careers to become the political leaders of their countries. The two espoused secular ideals and relied on nationalist rhetoric to solidify their legitimacy. In light of these similarities, I hope to find differences between the two men and their use of power in order to gain better insight into Atatürk. My paper will focus on a particular area of comparison between the two; possible options include their use of and relationship with the military after becoming president, the steps they took to “modernize” their countries (although the use of such a term requires nuance), their usage of nationalist rhetoric, and their approach towards religion in their countries.
Sophomore Tutorial Mentor: Nancy Reynolds, History
Language Study: French
Leora Baum (Madison, WI)
Senior Thesis: The Politics of Restaging under Authoritarianism: Spanish Golden Age Drama in Chile During the Pinochet Regime, 1973-1990
Senior Theis Mentor: Billy Acree, Spanish
Sophomore Tutorial: I am planning to research the use of vertical space onstage in Golden Age Spanish theatres, specifically in public theatre (corrales) and court theatre (e.g. the Buen Retiro). This will involve aspects of theatre architecture, scenic design, and staging, and will serve as an entry point into the nature of the symbiosis between the two entities and their relation to the culture of the Baroque.
Sophomore Tutorial Mentor: Pannill Camp, Performing Arts
Study Abroad: Santiago, Chile
Language Study: Spanish
Riva Desai (Clearwater, FL)
Senior Thesis: Diarrhea, Death, and Discrimination: 19th-Century Cholera and the Exacerbation of Racial, Political, Economic, and Social Tensions in the British Empire
Senior Thesis Mentor: Carolyn Sargent, Anthropology
Sophomore Tutorial: What makes depression socially, culturally, and politically significant? How does the societal construction of depression affect its “value” in terms of advocacy, research funding, media attention, etc? How is the definition of depression a product of neurophysiological components and societal negotiation? And how does this interpretation of the disorder influence the process of diagnosis, affected groups, and its public perception?
Sophomore Tutorial Mentor: Peter Benson, Anthropology
Study Abroad: Spain
Language Study: Spanish
Kathleen Engsberg (Eureka, MO)
Senior Thesis: Religious Conflict and the Politics of National Education in Nineteenth-Century Britain (1833-1902)
Senior Thesis Mentor: John Bowen, Anthropology
Sophomore Tutorial: The term “Islamophobia” is widely used, affiliated with a broad array of meanings and connotations. I want to explore its use in England and in France, focusing on two aspects of the word: “Islamophobia” as an entity (for what is it used?) and “Islamophobia” as a term (What does it tend to mean?). These investigations should evolve into a larger question: Do people hold a common understanding of “Islamophobia,” and, if so, can we understand it as a consistent concept or a buzz-word too broadly employed to carry any practical weight?
Sophomore Tutorial Mentor: John Bowen, Anthropology
Project Topic: Islam and Contemporary French Politics: The Banning of Headscarves on France
Language Study: French and Arabic
Rory Heller (Roslyn Heights, NY)
Senior Thesis: Hollywood’s World War II: Confronting the Americanization of the Holocaust through Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds
Senior Thesis Mentor: Erin McGlothin
Sophomore Tutorial: I will focus on the realm of comedic representation in the films of the Holocaust and World War II, as well as on a discussion of ethics and purpose behind those representations.
Sophomore Tutorial Mentor: Anca Parvulescu, Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities and English
Study Abroad: France
Language Study: French
Cassandra Klosterman (Gilbert, AZ)
Summer 2016:Cassie Klosterman is currently serving as the Voter Engagement Fellow for all of WashU’s campuses. She is excited to work with the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement to not only register students to vote, but also to help create a campus culture of civic dialogue and political engagement.
Senior Thesis: The Jester and the King: Understanding the Role of the Nabokovian Textual Commentator
Senior Thesis mentor: Philip Purchase
Sophomore Tutorial: I will study how representations of self-flagellation as an avenue to religious purity have changed over time in Russian literature in order to better understand the narrowing definition of what it is to be Russian Orthodox.
Sophomore Tutorial Mentor: Nicole Svobodny, International and Area Studies
Study Abroad: St. Petersberg, Russia
Language Study: Russian
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Spring 2015 Graduate
Samantha Rogers (Cincinnati, OH)
IPH Field of Study: Early Modern British History and Literature: The Reformation
Mentor: Derek Hirst and Christine Johnson
Project Title:
Study Abroad: Oxford University, Oxford, England
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Spring 2014 Graduates
Benjamin Chu (Queens Village, NY)
Fall 2016: Ben is entering his third year at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. Currently he's doing a rotation in OBGyn, and just finished Pediatrics.
"The IPH major helped me understand socio-cultural aspects of medicne that are useful in interacting wtih patients, as well as helping me understand the ethics, history, and the human qualities of medicine and science as a profession. My time at WU, and especially taking the Text & Tradition Early Political Thought and Modern Political Thought, helped me understand political theory which empowers me as medical student advocate for patients. And, provided a context with which to view our current medical system. In IPH, I was exposed to wrold views that are copmpletely different from mine, and the major helped me see that everyone comes from a different background and has allowed me to be more empathetic towards the wide variety of colleages, teachers, patients, and ideas.
IPH Field of Study: Taoist Philosophy and Traditional Chinese Medicine
Minor: Chinese Language and Culture
Mentor: Priscilla Song
Project Title: The Use of Indigenous Lenses: Using Traditional Chinese Medicine to Determine the Health of the One-Child Policy in China
Study Abroad: Fudan University, Beijing, China
Post-Graduate Plans: Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
My thesis looks to examine how Taoist philosophy has penetrated traditional Chinese medicine and how these influences interact with the CCP's one-child policy that supports abortion as a means of population control. If there is an inherent conflict in philosophy, how do TCM doctors navigate this conflict when performing medicine? To what extent should there be a dialogue between both schools of thought, rather than just adhering to the policy; can the policy be bettered by interacting with Taoist philosophy?
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William Allsopp-Dobbs (Princeton, NJ)
IPH Field of Study: The Speeches of Richard Nixon
Mentor: Darren Dochuk
Project Title: A Presidency in Perspective: Richard M. Nixon’s Oratory
Study Abroad: Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
I'm studying the oratory of President Richard Nixon. I intend to use a generic lens to examine the speeches of President Nixon. Hopefully, by approaching his speeches from the standpoint of genre, I will not only shed new light on a president notoriously obsessed with his image, but also examine his orations in a manner that mitigates the ideology that colors much Nixon scholarship.
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Taylor Docking (Adrian, MI)
IPH Field of Study: Economics, Society, German
2nd Major: History
Minor: German
Mentor: Anca Parvulescu
Project Title: Personal Responsibility and Agency: Franz Kafka’s Answer to Marxist Alienation
Study Abroad: Summer Oxford Program, Oxford, England
Post-Graduate Plans: Teach for America, Chicago
I am investigating alienation in Kafka's texts. Particularly, I am studying the economic life of Kafka's protagonists and the ways in which this economic life estranges protagonists from both society as well as their families. I am particularly interested in uncovering Kafka's
solution to this problem (a problem Marx elucidated about 50 years prior). Kafka once said that every revolution evaporates and leaves only the slime of another bureaucracy. Clearly Kafka disagreed with Marx that a political revolution would solve the problem of man's estrangement. My question is essentially in what ways does Kafka recognize a nuanced form of estrangement and what are his solutions to this problem faced by modern man.
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Sarah Haik (Chanhassen, MN)
IPH Field of Study: French and Chinese languages and literatures
2nd Major: French
Mentor: Zhao Ma
Project Title: Manipulative Education: The Role of the Jesuits in the Sino-French Cultural-Political Encounter
Study Abroad: Fudan University, Beijing, China
I am studying the Jesuit education program as it was enacted in Shanghai as a force of French Cultural Imperialism at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. I draw on the complex history of the relationship between France and the Jesuits, especially during the laicization movement of the Third Republic, and analyze the secular and religious curricula and textbooks to draw conclusions about their citizen-forming and (French) patriotism inspiring results.
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Sean Janda (Lafayette Hill, PA)
IPH Field of Study: Economic Mobility
2nd Major: Economics
Minor: Political Science
Mentor: Frank Lovett
Project Title: Waking Up from the American Dream: An Exploration of a Government’s Obligation to Ensure Equality of Opportunity and the Empirical Effect of Socioeconomic Segregation on Economic Mobility in Contemporary Urban America
Post-Graduate Plans: Stanford Law School! Class of 2017.
I am exploring fair equality of opportunity and economic mobility, both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. First, I am drawing on political theory to develop an argument for why governments are obligated to try to ensure fair equality of opportunity. After that, I am turning to the empirical side and looking at both the effect of racial
and socioeconomic segregation on economic mobility in contemporary urban America as well as potential policy responses to this segregation.
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Spring 2013 Graduates
Anna Applebaum completed graduate school at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, AR. It is a two-year Master's program in public service - a combination of the study of public policy, administration and field service work. Anna has recently moved to Washington DC.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: Doubly Conscious: Understanding Gender in Virginia Woolf and Nella Larsen
Julie Kellman
Language Study at WU: Italian
Thesis Topic: "Breaking" News: How New Media Dismantled Broadcast Television News
Eugene Kwon is working as an interpreting officer at the Republic of Korea Fleet Command for the ROK Navy. He was commissioned in 2015.
2013 update: "This summer, I will be teaching English, attending a 1-week translation workshop at Seoul National University, doing a brief summer internship, and taking exams for both ROKA and ROKAF. In the meantime, I will also be eating ridiculously delicious Korean food everyday, getting ready for a Seoul marathon in July, catching up with friends, and hanging out at the Seoul Cinematheque."
Language Study at WU: Japanese
Thesis Topic: Active, Disorienting, and Transitional: The Aesthetic of Boredom in the Multimedia Works of Nam June Paik (1932-2006),
Dan Michon is in the process of applying to law schools. He's currently working as a court reporter in Washington, D.C. in such diverse environments as D.C. city government proceedings, federal hearings, depositions, etc. He is interested in pursuing a law degree in the near future, and wishes to continue his research into international space law.
Language Study at WU: German
Thesis Topic: Confining the Cosmos: State Sovereignty in Near Space
Sophia Nunez is in her second year of a PhD program in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures at Princeton University. Sophia is still interested in the issues of book history and relationships between old Christians and new Christians.
Language Study at WU: Spanish
Thesis Topic: Reading the Real Biblioteca del Escorial: Dangerous Books, Readers, and Populations
Donald Steinburk moved to to New York City in 2014 to launch a career in marketing. He had two exciting opportunities: one is in the creative department doing marketing for a start up media organization and the other is for a large Madison Avenue advertising firm, also in creative. Some of Don's other interests are music, radio, and amateur motor sports. He mentioned to us that he connected with both of the potential employers though the WU Career Center.
Language Study at WU: Italian
Thesis Topic: Futurism and the Feminine: Understanding Futurist Gender Dynamics between Rhetoric and Theory
Spring 2012 Graduates
Natalie Amleshi is uin her second year at the University of Pennsylvania PhD program in English Literature.
2013 update: Natalie is the PostBac Fellow in the Humanities Digital Workshop at Washington University.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: W.B. Yeats at the Fin de Siècle: The Construction of a National Symbolic and the Historical Imagination of Decay
Philip Gibbs is studying at the Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. The Rabbinical School offers an intensive program of study that leads to rabbinic ordination and a career of service to the Jewish community.
Language Study at WU: Hebrew
Thesis Topic: Acting Out the Rabbinic Script: The Legal Position of the Androgynos in Rabbinic Literature
Gabrielle Surick 
is studying at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York City.
Language Study at WU: Latin
Thesis Topic: Causality As Explanation and Experience in Illness Memoirs
Spring 2011 Graduates
Stuart Fraser 
completed the Masters of Humanities Program at the University of Chicago in 2013. He is currently an Editorial Assistant for Opera Quarterly Journal.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: Wagner in England: Literary Modernism and British Musical Culture
Laura Jensen 
is studying French Literature in the Yale University Graduate Program in Arts and Sciences.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: Flaubert and DuCamp in Egypt: the Signs of Exoticism
Zac Levine
is in his second year of the PhD program in History at Columbia University in New York. He is interested in psychology, psychoanalysis and modern intellectual history.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: Agency in Psychoanalysis
Dan Merriam “I am currently working in NYC. I am an associate for Atlas Holdings, an industrial holding company/private equity firm. We specialize in special situation/distressed investment with an emphasis on addressing operational issues with businesses. My work is currently mostly centered around providing extensive research and due diligence for new acquisitions. Previously, I worked for one of Atlas' companies, assisting the senior management team with all matters of the business.”
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: The Emergence of Entrepreneurship: Economic Heroism in Weber, Schumpeter, and their Contemporary Heirs
Stephen Pulvirent is an assistant editor at Bloomberg Media. He's still reporting on watches but is getting more and more involved with Tech.
2013 update: "I live in Brooklyn, NY after spending a year in Chicago going to grad school at the University of Chicago's Masters of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH)."
"My full time gig is as Associate Editor at HODINKEE, the world's leading publication on wristwatches. On the side, I'm also as a regular contributor to Cool Hunting, and since leaving IPH I have contributed to Departures, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, GQ, The Rake, and a handful of other publications online and in print. At University of Chicago my focus was split between arts and culture journalism and late nineteenth/early twentieth century material culture studies."
"As a journalist, I find the skills, discipline, and perspective I gained in IPH to be a daily boon. I feel like I use my education every single day and it gives me a distinct advantage when working in my field."
Language Study at WU: Latin
Thesis Topic: On the Town: Sartorial Class Struggles of the Marlborough House Set
Eric Rosenbaum began his PhD in English at Indiana University Bloomington. In 2012 he completed the Masters of Humanities program at the University of Chicago.
Language Study at WU: Hebrew
Thesis Topic: The Ethics of Inability: Akrasia in America
Nathan Stobaugh 
is beginning his PhD in Art History at Princeton University.
Fall 2013 update: Nathan is attending Williams College to study in the Graduate Program in the History of Art.
2012 update: "Since graduation, I've been working as the research assistant for the curators of modern and contemporary art at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Our department has been busy conceiving groupings, installing art, and writing didactic materials for several galleries, including sixteen in the Museum's new expansion wing, opening in June of 2013. I've been heavily involved in an exhibition of the Museum's German holdings after 1945: *Postwar German Art in the Collection*, and I've been working on a publication on the Museum's Max Beckmann paintings. I've also been working with Dr. Elizabeth Childs (my former thesis adviser) on her forthcoming publication. The education I received in IPH prepared me for working in an environment where writing clearly while thinking up, down, and sideways is essential. I feel ready to go back to grad school, and I hope to keep in touch with the IPH clan in the future!"
Language Study at WU: German
Thesis Topic: Meat Art: Carnality and Coagulation in the Paintings of Soutine, Marc, Nitsch, and Bacon
Spring 2010 Graduates
Tom Butcher is working on his PhD at the University of Virginia, in the Corcoran Department of History, focusing on Modern Europe, Intellectual History, Germany, Nationalism.
Language Study at WU: German
Thesis Topic: Alchemizing the Past: The Historikerstreit and the Future of German Identity
Shelby Carpenter is enrolled in the UC Berkeley School of Journalism.
2013 update: “I ended up getting in to my two top choices for graduate programs in journalism (Berkeley and Columbia). After visiting both I decided on Berkeley, and I couldn't be more excited to start the program this August. Already in the first semester I will take a class with Jennifer Kahn, who writes for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. http://journalism.berkeley.edu/profiles/shelby_carpenter/”
“In other news, I was just contracted to write a book for Arcadia Publishing. I'll be doing a pictorial history of Denali for their "Images of America" series. Time to put my nose to the grindstone!”
Language Study at WU: Japanese
Thesis Topic: The Case of Moll and Portia: Cross-Dressing and Desire in Early Modern City Comedy
Erika Deal
is starting a new job as the front end engineer at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in November 2015.
She completed the Master of Library and Information Science at the University of Washington, in Seattle in 2014.
Language Study at WU: German
Thesis Topic: German Nationalism Through Berhold Auerbach's Deutscher Volks-Kalender
Deva Estin has moved to Queens, NY and is teaching 3rd grade. 
2013 update: Starting this fall, Deva will be teaching "high-need,” Spanish-speaking 2nd graders in Denver, CO. Yes, she's moving to Denver and is pretty excited about it. "Although after setting up in Chicago, I’m of course nervous about building a whole community all over again."
2011: Deva is a bilingual 5th grade teacher at Peck Elementary on the south side of Chicago. "IPH helped in terms of developing my critical and creative thinking, as well as requiring me to give and to receive constructive criticism--useful skills for navigating the chaotic and bureaucratic waters of Chicago Public Schools. Additionally, while I doubt we'll be discussing Nietzsche or Freud in Room 120 any time soon, an infectious love of books, stories, and learning are unquestionably useful in the classroom. Finally the language requirement means that I have a job. Overall, I'd say I feel pretty well prepared!"
2017: I live in Queens, NY and teach English Language-Learning 3rd graders at a neighborhood public school in Sunnyside!
Language Study at WU: Spanish
Thesis Topic: Guess Who's Coming to Shabbas Dinner?: Changes in the American Jewish Family and the Implications of Jewish Sustainability
Andrew Hiltzick 
received his Masters degree from UCLA in 2012 and is currently working towards his PhD. His research interests are primarily in the poetry of the Medieval and Renaissance period, particularly Petrarch and petrarchismo, as well as the works of Machiavelli.
Language Study at WU: Italian
Thesis Topic: From Principe to Duce
Evan Kuhn 
is a stockbroker and analyst at Stifel Nicolas in St. Louis, MO
Language Study at WU: German
Thesis Topic: The Second Essay in the Genealogy of Morals
Whitney Howland graduated for the WU Brown School of Social Work in the spring of 2015.
Fall 2013 update: Whitney is enrolled in that Washington University Brown School of Social Work.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: Obesity in the United States
Emily Silber 
is studying landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: Maman: Three Contexts
Dennis Sweeney rece
ived a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship in Malta. He'll be teaching English until June 2016.
Fall 2016 Update: "I was admitted to University of Denver's PhD program in Creative Writing! I feel really lucky to go from a funded MFA program, to a Fulbright, to a funded, well-regarded PhD program. I know it's still a long road ahead, but I'm jazzed to get to study and read and write for the next 3-5 years."
Spring 2013 update: "In September I'm heading to graduate school at Oregon State University in Corvallis to study fiction writing and work toward my MFA. Since I graduated, I've had work published in DIAGRAM, Juked, Mid-American Review, Pear Noir!, and a number of other places. You can see what I'm reading and publishing at djsweeney.wordpress.com.
2012 update: Dennis lived and worked in Taiwan during 2010-11. He blogged about his time overseas in (sunrise) Taiwan (sunset).
"The solid foundation I gained from IPH in that which has been written during the last few thousand years helps me to better understand the world around me, both the elements of it that are made to be experienced as art and the random everyday pieces of which so many others may have difficulty making sense. Though I always got a bad feeling from Top 40 pop music, I now know how to describe why it is objectively low quality stuff. I can take random moments of my life which might otherwise be boring—sitting in the airport waiting for a plane, say—and understand them both as artistic moments and as incredibly interesting convergences of a complex set of cultural phenomena. Thought, at least the kind I learned to have while in IPH, frees the mind to see more than simple shapes that appear before the eyes. It allows a playfulness, a freedom of conception, that makes going through life, even its everyday contingencies, a joyful thing".
Language Study at WU: Spanish
Thesis Topic: Which Real?
Spring 2009 Graduates
Nell Cloutier
is a PhD Candidate at University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation focuses on the reception of repetitive Italian opera in Paris and London in the 1830s and 1840s, which she connects to celebrity memorabilia, sensational literature, and social geography. She has also accepted a position as a Berkeley Connect Fellow for the 2014-2015 academic year. As a fellow, she will mentor undergraduate music majors at UC Berkeley, where she hopes to pass on the sense of camaraderie and intellectual joy that she found through IPH.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: Subversive Song: Operatic and Literary Portrayals of Music and Marriage
Emma Cohen
is enrolled in the PhD program in Sociology at the University of Indiana.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: Libidinal Learning: Understanding Power, Desire and Transference in Student-Faculty Consensual Relationships
Ben Sales
graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism and is now a staff writer for the JTA. The JTA is the definitive, trusted global source of breaking news, investigative reporting, in-depth analysis, opinion and features on current events and issues of interest to the Jewish people. An unaffiliated not-for-profit organization, we pride ourselves on our independence and integrity. Ben was the editor in chief for Student Life during his senior year at WU. He and his wife live in Tel Aviv.
Language Study at WU: Hebrew
Thesis Topic: The Politics of Patronage: Context, Contradictions and Motive in Machiavelli
Spring 2008 Graduates
Emma Eschenfeldt
is the Membership and Community Development Specialist at Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois. Previously, she had participated in the 10 month AmeriCorps service program in Maryland. She travelled throughout the country on her service projects.
Language Study at WU: German
Thesis Topic: "Obligations to the Their New Homeland": 48ers, Tejanos, and the American Slavery Debate
James Duesterberg
is enrolled at the University of Chicago for a PhD in English and is studying 19th century American literature and its relationship to philosophy.
Language Study at WU: German
Thesis Topic: Affect, Subjectivity, Critique: A Reading of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive
Ami Mehta 
graduated from The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, IRL. She hopes to pursue an MD in Pediatrics. Attending school in Dubin brought her closer to her other passions of playing the Irish Tenor Banjo and Irish Dance.
Language Study at WU: Spanish
Thesis Topic: History of Rhetoric: Merlin in the Historiographic Tradition of the Twelfth Century
Spring 2007 Graduates
Andy Shupanitz
is at Stanford University Law School for the combination JD-PhD program. He was awarded the Chateaubriand Fellowship. In 2006, Andy was awarded a Beinecke Scholarship which provides funding for graduate school.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: Individualism, Economics & Revolution: Socioeconomic Ideology in Revolutionary France and America
Christina Skelley
let us know that in 2012 she entered a religious order, the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
2010: Chrissie has been the executive assistant to the VP of Operations at the Chicago Symphony for several years. She still plays the viola in a community orchestra, and loving Chicago.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: Expanding the Membership of the Revolutionary Nation: Germaine de Stael's Considerations on the French Revolution and Helen Maria Williams's Letters from France
Emily Schultheis
is managing editor of National Affairs. She has worked as Deputy Online Editor at the Weekly Standard and Associate Managing Editor at the Washington Free Beacon. Her writings have appeared in the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal.
2013 update: "I was Asst. Dean of Engineering Admissions right after I graduated from Wash U. I got my MA in Social Science (History) from U Chicago in 2009, and then I moved to DC, where I've worked as Deputy Online Editor at the Weekly Standard and Asst. Managing Editor of the Washington Free Beacon. I'm now Asst. Editor at National Affairs. I do freelance editing and writing, as well (mostly book reviews); you can find my writing in the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal."
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: She's Always a Woman to Me: Determining Woman's Existential Situation Through Memoir
Jessica Pryde
is the Technology Librarian at the Pima County Public Library in Tucson, AZ. She also publishes a weekly blog for BookRiot.
In 2011 Jess finished her MA in Library and Information Science at San Jose State University and is now working on a second MA in Literature at American University in Washington, DC. "I'm back in DC, working for the Department of Veterans Affairs Library Network and looking for official librarian jobs in the area. That brief stint at AU did help me determine that I want more education at some point, but not right now. Though the classes were fun, my brain was melting. How has IPH affected my academic life? Well, when I do go back to school, it will either be in literature or history. As far as regular life? I went to the library and checked out a bunch of Noel Coward plays to read on my own."
Language Study at WU: Italian
Thesis Topic: Understanding Varthema: Islam and Travel Narrative in Early Modern Italy
Lindsay Stanley
graduated from Loyola Chicago law school. She is currently an attorney in a Chicago Law Firm.
Language Study at WU: Spanish
Thesis Topic: "Sweet Songs Among the Flowers": Gender and Religion in Aztec Literature, 1500-1585
Spring 2006 Graduates
Deena Atkinson lived and taught English in France for two years. During her time in Paris, Deena taught a class on American politics and culture at the French Ministry of Finance. She also assisted in starting up a film company that released progressive documentaries onto the European market. Topics included oil wars, voter fraud, and big pharma. Deena returned to the U.S. and now lives in New York City.
Language Study at WU: French
Thesis Topic: The Crosscurrents Between Vandalism and Art: The Social and Aesthetic Functions of Graffiti
Sherief Gaber "After WashU I spent a year in Egypt studying Middle East Studies, then moved to Texas to get a degree in Law and a Masters’ in Community and Regional Planning, focusing on affordable housing issues and housing rights. During my last semester, spring 2011, things kicked off in Egypt and I went during the initial 18 day uprising. I traveled back to the US after a few weeks to graduate and then rejoined events in Egypt."
"In my past few years in Egypt I’ve been a co-founder of Mosireen, the premiere independent media collective in the country, with some of the most important video footage of the revolution. I’ve also worked with several different NGOs on community development, gender and social justice issues, taught a few undergrad and grad classes at the American University in Cairo, written a few articles, and got hitched to an amazing lady."
Language Study at WU: Arabic
Robbie Gross is continuing the long haul through a PhD program in U.S. History at UW-Madison. Robbie received his master's degree and, should all go as planned, will become a dissertator before the year is out. From there, he will be researching and writing. His interests have not faded much from when he was at Wash U. He is still writing at the intersections of social history, education, and ideas. His master’s thesis assessed the secularization of public education in the early 20th century, and, while it’s still in its infant planning stages, the dissertation will look at how parents thought about choosing schools (public and private, religious or secular, segregated or integrated, neighborhood or distant, etc.) for their children in the same period.
"While my interests and methodologies have inevitably grown more focused and technical, I continue to be extraordinarily grateful for everything that IPH provided me at Wash U. I’ll never forget one instance in which Professor Loewenstein remarked that he had chosen to go into an academic career in order to “continue the conversations…” Both inside and outside the academy, I find myself quite lucky to have been prepared so thoroughly for these conversations. They are a central part of who I am, and I owe a great deal of that to you all."
Language Study at WU: Spanish
Thesis Topic: Consequences of Philosophy: John Dewey and the Progressive School Superintendent
Austin Thompson graduated from Columbia Law School and is working with Paul Weiss, a NY law firm. "I still love history, literature, politics, etc., and keep in very close touch with Robbie, Sherief, James, et al. I'm interested in government work later on, but who knows what will happen to me in the next few years".
Language Study at WU: German
Thesis Topic: Risk Regulation: A Mixed-Government Proposal