Both undergraduate and graduate students in Saint Louis University's Department of American Studies will complete a culminating project at the end of their programs.
Senior Capstone Projects
Each American Studies major completes a capstone project during the final spring semester of study. Students develop these projects in the Senior Seminar class, working closely with the seminar's faculty leader and participating peers. Generally, the capstone project takes the form of a 30–40 page research essay, though students are also free to propose projects in mediums such as creative writing, video and film, audio production, museum exhibitions, performance, photography, painting, sculpture, or web design.
Doctoral Dissertations
Dissertation Proposal and Dissertation Proposal Defense
Students in the Ph.D. program must submit a dissertation proposal by the end of the second semester following the successful completion of their comprehensive exams, using the template provided by the department. After the three-person committee has accepted the final version of the proposal, the student schedules a one-hour oral defense of the proposal before the student's committee and additional faculty. Proposal defenses are typically scheduled for one to two days per semester, and are open to the public. Upon successful completion of the proposal defense, the dissertation proposal is put on file with the department.
Dissertation and Dissertation Defense
Students write their dissertations working closely with their committee. When the student and committee agree that the dissertation is satisfactory, the student schedules a one-hour public defense of the dissertation. Students must submit the final version of the dissertation to their committee at least two weeks before their defense date. In order to obtain a degree in the Spring semester, dissertations should be submitted by February. For Fall semester, dissertations should be submitted by October.
Registration during the Dissertation
A student researching and writing her or his dissertation registers for ASTD 6990: Dissertation Research, using the section number of his or her committee chair. The course is graded as IP (In Progress) or U (Unsatisfactory) until the semester within which the student graduates, when the grade will be S (Satisfactory). Course requirements include meeting with the dissertation advisor at least once during the semester; arranging to do so is the student's responsibility. The Office of Graduate Education requires that students take at least 12 credits of Dissertation Research during their course of study. Since tuition must be paid for these credits, it is recommended that funded students enroll in their 12 credits of Dissertation Research during the years when they have funding. After these 12 credits are accrued, students may continue to enroll for ASTD 6990 for 0 credits, unless they have received an extension of time to degree.
Dissertation Titles, 1965-present
Kate Boudreau
"You're Too Smart for That! Federal Education Legislation and the Changing Image of
the Public High School Teacher in American Culture and Society, 1944–2001"
Adviser: Benjamin Looker
Emily Colmo
“More than Degrees: Activism at Women’s Colleges in the 1960s and 1970s”
Advisor: Emily Lutenski
Kimberly Cowan
“Teaching Mary, Training Martha: Catholic Education for Girls in St. Louis, Missouri,
from Suffrage to Rosie the Riveter”
Advisor: Emily Lutenski
Victoria Cannon
“Border Visits: American Tourism on the Twentieth Century U.S.-Mexico Border”
Advisor: Flannery Burke
Manuela Engstler
“Translating a Revolution: Black and White Panthers and the German Student Movement”
Advisor: Kate Moran
Mary Maxfield
“Networkin’ It: Mediated LGBTQIA+ Connections in St. Louis”
Advisor: Kate Moran
Tandra N. Taylor
“A Credit to My Race: Black Women, Education, and the Subversive Use of Domestic Science,
1900–1965”
Advisor: Heidi Ardizzone
Elizabeth Eikmann
“In Her Image: Photography, Whiteness, and Womanhood in St. Louis, 1877–1920”
Advisor: Benjamin Looker
Cindy Reed
“By Any Means Necessary: Representations of Black Girlhood and Artistic Agency”
Advisor: Emily Lutenski
Mark A. Koschmann
“Finding Their Footing in the Changing City: Protestant and Catholic Congregations
Adapt to the
New Urban Environment in Post–World War II Chicago””
Advisor: Heidi Ardizzone
Nicholas Porter
“Professional Wrestling in the United States, 1877–1920”
Advisor: Matthew J. Mancini
Karen Smyth
“The Errand of Angels: Gender, Sexuality, and Feminism in the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, 1972–2014”
Advisor: Kate Moran
Cathryn Stout
“A Mighty Hard Row: Racism and Resistance in the Postwar British Caribbean and the
US South from World War II to the Late Twentieth Century”
Advisor: Matthew J. Mancini
Susan Lee
“‘Gonna Teach Them What's What with a Rope’: Reinventing the Western and the Gauchesque,
1900–1939”
Advisor: Emily Lutenski
Kate Piatchek
“‘You’re Too Smart for That!’ The Representation of the American High School Teacher
in Postwar Public Policy and Popular Culture”
Advisor: Benjamin Looker
Anna E. Schmidt
“The Blest Words in Their Best Order: Transcultural Spiritual Practices in American
Poetry since 1960”
Advisor: Emily Lutenski
Sabrina Davis
"Adapting Identity: Jewish American Narratives from the Page to the Screen"
Adviser: Heidi Ardizzone
Trevin J. Jones
"African American Prison Writers: Masculinity, Identity, and Spirituality"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Melissa Ford
"A Bible in One Hand, a Brick in the Other: African American Working Women and Midwestern
Black Radicalism during the Great Depression, 1929–1935"
Adviser: Heidi Ardizzone
Lou W. Robinson
"White Women, Race, and Rape: Narratives of Mob Violence in the Midwest, 1880–1930"
Adviser: Heidi Ardizzone
Maurice Tracy
"Seeing Unseeable Things: Blackness, Queerness, and Homonormativity in U.S. Popular
Culture, 1989–2016"
Adviser: Emily Lutenski
Brandy C. Boyd
"'Keep Your Chin Up and Your Skirt Down': Female Country Artists' Struggles for Respectability
within the Nashville Music Industry, 1952–Present"
Adviser: Benjamin Looker
Nicole Haggard
"Race, Sex, and Hollywood: The Illicit Representation of the Black Man–White Woman
Pair in American Cinema"
Adviser: Heidi Ardizzone
Laura A. Shields
"Fighting for Animal Rights: A U.S. History, 1900–1996"
Adviser: Cindy Ott
Corinne Mary Wohlford
"Putting Government in Its Place: Cultural Racism, Sentiment, and Neoliberalism in
Contemporary U.S. Responses to Natural Disasters Abroad"
Adviser: Heidi Ardizzone
Brian W. Greening
"Representing New Orleans: Race, Space, and the Spectacle of Progress in the Crescent
City since 1965"
Adviser: Benjamin Looker
Rebecca Preiss Odom
"Negotiating Hyphenated Identities: Transnational Identity Formation of the German-American
Residents of St. Charles, Missouri, during World War I"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Alexander Bayard Clark, III
"Forgotten Eyewitnesses: English Women Travel Writers and the Economic Development
of America's Antebellum West"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Jaclyn H. Kirouac-Fram
"'Yellow Rolling Cell Blocks': The Urban Bus and Race in the United States"
Adviser: Benjamin Looker
Robert L. Hawkins, IV
"Natural Born Ease Man?: Work, Masculinity, and the Itinerant Black Musician"
Adviser: Jonathan C. Smith
Winner of the 2011 ASA Ralph Henry Gabriel Dissertation Prize
Joshua M. Roiland
"Engaging the Public: Toward a Political Theory of Literary Journalism"
Adviser: Jonathan C. Smith
Jody L. Sowell
"Divided Discourse: The Kerner Report & Stories of Separate and Unequal"
Adviser: Jonathan C. Smith
Jamie Schmidt Wagman
"Our Pill, Ourselves: American Anxieties Surrounding Oral Contraception, 1956–2000"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Robert Pittman
"The St. Louis Movement in Education: Public Education Reform in the Gilded Age"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
David J. Suwalsky
"'North of Yankee Country': Antebellus Kansas and the Missourians of the Platte Purchase
County"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Gregory F. Taylor
"Picturing the Enemy: The Use of Visual Metaphors in Photography of the Japanese American
Immigrant"
Adviser: Wynne W. Moskop
Richard D. Marshall
"'The Grapes of Wrath': John Steinbeck's Cognitive Landscapes as Commentary on 1930s
Industrialization"
Adviser: Cindy Ott
Henry T. Brownlee
"Keeping Their Memory Green: The Pleasant Green Baptist Church in St. Louis, 1866–1950"
Adviser: Jonathan C. Smith
Angela K. Dietz
"Spectacles of Labor: Visualizing a Nation at Work, 1850–1920"
Adviser: Jonathan C. Smith
Robin A. Hanson
"The National Cemetery: Race and Sectional Reconciliation in a Contested Landscape"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Patricia Checkett Rooney
"Re-presenting WWII, Reviving Neo-classicism, Reaffirming Super Power in a Post–9/11
Era: The Anomalous 2004 American National World War II Memorial"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Elizabeth Schroeder
"The Chicago Black Renaissance: Exercises in Aesthetic Ideology and Cultural Geography
in Bronzeville, 1932–1945"
Adviser: Jonathan C. Smith
Alicja K. Syska
"Eastern Europe in the Making of American National Identity"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Kimberly M. Curtis
"Black Consciousness is the Cornerstone of Liberation: The Black Arts Movement in
African American Literature and Visual Culture, 1966–1976"
Adviser: Shawn Michelle Smith
Sharon E. Grimes
"Women in the Studios of Men: Gender, Architectural Practice, and the Careers of Sophia
Hayden Bennett and Marion Mahony Griffin, 1870–1960"
Adviser: Joseph Heathcott
John Hensley
"Dreadful People: Historical Representations of Ozark Folks"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Diana F. Pascoe-Chavez
"Pragmatism and the Frontier Narrative in 'It Is': A Magazine for Abstract Art"
Adviser: Joseph Heathcott
Charles (Rob) Wilson
"The Disease of Fear and the Fear of Disease: Cholera and Yellow Fever in the Mississippi
Valley"
Adviser: Candy Brown
Ying Ye
"Black Initiative in Black Education prior to and during the Civil War"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
John I. Kille
"Re-mediating Racial History: Representations and Interpretations of the Amistad Incident
(1839–1842) in the 20th Century Texts"
Adviser: Jonathan C. Smith
David R. McFarland
"Virtuous Yeoman or Ignorant Farmer? Rhetorical Ambivalence in the Illinois Agrarian
Reform Movement 1840–1860"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Jennifer A. Price
"Middling Desires: P.T. Barnum and the Visual Culture of the American Middle Class,
1840–1865"
Adviser: Shawn Michelle Smith
Rhonda J. Armstrong
"Rural Women and Cultural Conflict in Contemporary American Literature"
Adviser: Shawn Michelle Smith
Valerie Padilla Carroll
"Re-presenting and Representing on Girl Power TV: Examining Portrayals of Resistance
and Domination from Dark Angel, Charmed, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
Adviser: Kathryn Kuhn
Teresa B. Holden
"'Earnest Women Can Do Anything': The Public Career of Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin,
1842–1904"
Adviser: Wynne W. Moskop
Kristine R. Smith
"Following Buster Brown's Footsteps: Leading Families into the Middle-Class Consumer
Society"
Adviser: Joseph Heathcott
Burton St. John III
"The Trail of Tension Between Public Relations and Journalism: The Unfinished Business
About Using Propaganda to Move Crowds"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Stephen A. Gibson
"How Green is Hollywood? Nature and Environmentalism in American Cinema, 1970–2002"
Adviser: Shirley M. Loui
Bryan M. Jack
"Bridging the Red Sea: The Saint Louis African-American Community and the Exodusters
of 1879"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
Eileen R. Solomon
"Kosher in the United States: An Examination of American-Jewish Adaptation"
Adviser: Elizabeth Kolmer
John Glen
"'How Shall We Remember Them?': Pearl Harbor in Private, Public, and Historic Memory"
Adviser: Shirley M. Loui
Victoria York
"Defining Moments: Narratives of the 1834 Burning of Mount Benedict"
Adviser: Shirley M. Loui
Kent B. Bunting
"The Koan of Seiwa En: History and Meaning in the Japanese Garden at the Missouri
Botanical Garden"
Adviser: Matthew J. Mancini
George R. Carson
"Teen Challenge and the Development of Social Concern Ministries in the Assemblies
of God"
Adviser: Elizabeth Kolmer
Miriam E. Joseph
"Perceived Cultural Influences on Generativity Identified by Childless Women"
Adviser: James H. Korn
Robert M. Lee
"Henry Adams and the Construction of Intellectual Unity"
Adviser: Lawrence F. Barmann
James P. Dohle
"JROTC: A Study of Two St. Louis Schools"
Adviser: Wynne W. Moskop
Jane F. Ferry
"Flavors of Culture: A Semiotic Reading of Food in Film"
Adviser: Kathryn Kuhn
Christine F. Harper
"The Water Wizard: John F. Wixford and the Purification of the St. Louis Water Supply
in 1904"
Adviser: Shirley M. Loui
Carole L. Knight
"Survival of the Forest: The Evolution of Forest Park as a Reflection of the Social
and Cultural Dynamics of St. Louis"
Adviser: Shirley M. Loui
Mark H. Kruger
"The Influence of the 1960's Countercultural Values of Individualism, Anti-materialism,
and Community on a Contemporary Intentional Community"
Adviser: Elizabeth Kolmer
Rodney G. Stephens
"Richard Harding Davis and American Culture"
Adviser: Elizabeth Kolmer
Mary D. Blixen
"David Rowland Francis: Missourian and Progressive Public Servant"
Adviser: Lawrence F. Barmann
Regina M. Faden
"The German St. Vincent Orphan Home: The Institution and its Role in the Immigrant
German Catholic Community of St. Louis 1850–1900"
Adviser: Elizabeth Kolmer
Patricia L. Gregory
"Women's Experience of Reading in St. Louis Book Clubs"
Adviser: John J. Pauly
Loftin Woodiel
"William C. Quantrill: Deviant or Hero?"
Adviser: John J. Pauly
Kamau Kemayó
"An Afrocentric Critical Theory and Its Application to Three African American Novels"
Adviser: Elizabeth Kolmer
Maureen Murphy
"Daughters of Sam Spade: The American Private Eye"
Adviser: Kathryn Kuhn
Thomas C. Barnett
"A Utopian-Mythopoesis Reading of American Puritan Jeremiads: A Reclassification of
Selected Seventeenth Century New England Pulpit Literature"
Adviser: Shirley M. Loui
Brian R. Hohlt
"‘Laws of the Lord': The Political World of Peter Cartwright, 1824–1848"
Adviser: Mark E. Neely, Jr.
Jane Marie Holwerda
"Family and Social Class in Selected Novels of Edith Wharton and Theodore Dreiser"
Adviser: Elizabeth Kolmer
Alice C. Warren
"The Junior College District of St. Louis–St. Louis County, Missouri under the Leadership
of Joseph P. Cosand, 1962–1971: A Study of the Impact of the Post–World War II Milieu
on Policies That Shaped the Institution"
Adviser: Lawrence F. Barmann
Valerie J. Yancey
"Attending the Dying: William James, a Resource for Medical Ethics at End-of-Life"
Adviser: Belden C. Lane
Michael L. Banks
"George S. Kaufman: American Social Critic on Stage"
Adviser: Thomas R. Knipp
Dawn L. Elmore-McCrary
"Culture in the Basic Writing Classroom"
Adviser: Buford E. Farris, Jr.
F. Terry Norris
"The Illinois Country, Lost and Found: Assessment of the Archaeological Remains of
French Settlements in the Central Mississippi River Valley, 1673–1763"
Adviser: Elizabeth Kolmer
Paul D. Nygard
"Man of Maine: A Life of Robert P. Tristram Coffin"
Adviser: Lawrence F. Barmann
Timothy D. Uhl
"The Naming of St. Louis Catholic Parishes"
Adviser: James T. Fisher
Matthew S. Warshauer
"Andrew Jackson and the Politics of Martial Law"
Adviser: Mark E. Neely, Jr.
Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach (Ph.D. 2008), Along the Streets of Bronzeville: Black Chicago's Literary Landscape (Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013).
Burton St. John III (Ph.D. 2005), Press Professionalization and Propaganda: The Rise of Journalistic Double-mindedness, 1917–1941 (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2010).
Bryan M. Jack (Ph.D. 2004), The St. Louis African American Community and the Exodusters (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007).
Jane Ferry (Ph.D. 2001), Food in Film: A Culinary Performance of Communication (New York: Routledge, 2003).
Matthew Warshauer (Ph.D. 1997), Andrew Jackson and the Politics of Martial Law: Nationalism, Civil Liberties, and Partisanship (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006).
Kamau Kemayó (Ph.D. 1999), Emerging Afrikan Survivals: An Afrocentric Critical Theory (New York: Routledge, 2003).
Michael J. Steiner (Ph.D. 1994), A Study of the Intellectual and Material Culture of Death in Nineteenth-Century America (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003).
Jeannette Batz Cooperman (Ph.D. 1996), The Broom Closet: Secret Meanings of Domesticity in Postfeminist Novels by Louise Erdrich, Mary Gordon, Toni Morrison, Marge Piercy, Jane Smiley, and Amy Tan (New York: Peter Lang, 1999).
Kenneth C. Kaufman (Ph.D. 1996), Dred Scott's Advocate: A Biography of Roswell M. Field (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996). Winner of the 1997 Missouri History Book Award.
Mary E. Young (Ph.D. 1990), Mules and Dragons: Popular Culture Images in the Selected Writings of African-American and Chinese-American Women Writers (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993).
W. Arthur Mehrhoff (Ph.D. 1986), The Gateway Arch: Fact and Symbol (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press, 1992).
Milton S. Katz (Ph.D. 1973), Ban The Bomb: A History of SANE, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, 1957–1985 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986).
Luther E. Smith, Jr. (Ph.D. 1979), Howard Thurman: The Mystic as Prophet (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981; repr. 2007).
Roger Whitlow (Ph.D. 1975), The Darker Vision: A Socio-critical History of 19th Century Fiction Written by Black Americans (New York: Gordon Press, 1977).