Degrees

2009, MA Comparative Literature, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

2005, BA Spanish, Goucher College

Bio

Rebecca Garonzik is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature. Her areas of specialization are twentieth and twenty-first century Latin American and Latinx literatures. She is currently completing her dissertation, “Eros Galvanized: Critical Intersections of Eroticism and Politics in Contemporary Latin American and Latina/o/x Literatures (1965-2011),” under the direction of Juan Carlos González Espitia. In addition to her research on socially committed literature, Rebecca has also published work on poetics and Foucauldian discourse analysis. She is the founding co-president of the Literatures of the Americas working group.

Publications:

• “Beyond Marcuse: Guevara’s Influence on the Revolutionary Erotic in Julio Cortázar’s Libro de Manuel.” A Contracorriente 13.2 (Winter 2016): 1-24. Web. 8 March 2016.
• “Deconstructing Psychiatric Discourse and Idealized Madness in Cristina Rivera Garza’s Nadie me verá llorar.” Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana 43.1 (May 2014): 3-14.
• “‘To name that thing without a name’: Linking Poetry and the Child’s Voice in Sandra   Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street.” Letras Femeninas 37.2 (Winter 2011): 139-55.
• “Queering Feminism: Cristina Rivera Garza’s La cresta de Ilión and the Feminine Sublime.” Cuaderno Internacional de Estudios Humanísticos y Literatura 14 (Fall 2010): 45-56.
• “Permanencias de Juan Rulfo en la crítica contemporánea.” Rev. of Ecos y murmullos en la obra de Rulfo, Ed. Julio Moguel and Enrique Sáinz. Confluencia 24.2 (Spring 2009): 151-53.

Awards

• Frankel Dissertation Fellowship
• Phi Beta Kappa
• Helen Carroll Shelley Prize in Romance Languages

Curriculum Vitae / Resume

Degrees

2013, BA Critical Studies (in English Cultures, Literatures, and Film) & Latin American Studies, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire.

Bio

Emilio Taiveaho was born in Quito, Ecuador, to a Finnish Father and Ecuadorian Mother, and spent his childhood prehending—and being prehended by—the beatific and magnanimous Andes. A first-generation immigrant, Emilio moved to the United States to further his education, finishing his High School career in Winona, Minnesota, and graduating from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire in 2017. He is currently pursuing a PhD. in literature from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, where he specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century poetry and poetics across the Américas, and is interested in the intersection of aesthetics, biopolitics, performance, and visual art.

Awards

• 2017 – Present: Mellon Fellow

Curriculum Vitae / Resume

Degrees

2011, MA Comparative Literature, University of Iceland

2008, BA Comparative Literature, University of Iceland

Bio

Kristjan studies Renaissance comic literature and its role in thinking through problems of grace and cultural continuity in the Renaissance.

Degrees

2017, BA Literature, BA Spanish, University of North Carolina Asheville

Bio

Marcy Pedzwater studies twentieth-century North and Latin American literature. Her current research interests include the intersections of race, gender, and colonialism/imperialism in the Americas. She is also interested in the function of memory, archive, and trauma in twentieth-century texts. She currently teaches Spanish 105.

Degrees

2010, BA English, Washington University in St. Louis

Bio

At UNC-Chapel Hill, I study the development of Early Modern thought (roughly 1500 AD – 1700 AD) in England, France, and Italy with Reid Barbour and Jessica Wolfe. I combine traditional and computational research methods to try to understand how revolutionary changes in science and theology in this period were received and interpreted in the different national literary traditions.

Publications:

• Ning, B., Ghoshal, S., Thomas, J.B. (2018). Bayesian Method for Causal Inference in High-Dimensional Time Series with Applications to Sales Data. Bayesian Analysis.
• Chen, X., Irie, K., Banks, D., Haslinger, R., Thomas, J.B., West, M. (2017). Bayesian Dynamic Modeling and Analysis of Streaming Network Data. JASA.
• Thomas, J.B., Brier, M.R., Ortega, M., Benzinger, T.L., Ances, B.M. (2015). Weighted brain networks in disease: centrality and entropy in human immunodeficiency virus and aging. Neurobiology of Aging.
• Thomas, J.B.*, Brier, M.R.*, Bateman, R.J., Snyder, A.Z., etc. (2014). Functional connectivity in autosomal dominant and late-onset Alzheimer disease. JAMA Neurology. *Co-first authors
• Thomas, J.B., Brier, M.R., Vaida, F.F., Snyder, AZ., Ances, BM. (2013). Pathways to Neurodegeneration: Effects of HIV and Aging on Resting State Functional Connectivity.
• Duchek, J.*, Balota, D.*, Thomas, J.B.*, Morris, J., Ances, B.M. (2013). Loss of Intra-Network Resting State Functional Connections in the Default Mode Network Predicts Working Memory Performance Deficits. Neuropsychologia. *Co-first authors
• Brier, M.R., Thomas, J.B., Ances, B.M. (2013). Functional connectivity and graph theory in preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease. Neurobiology of Aging.
• Ances, B.M., Benzinger, T.L., Christensen J.J., Thomas, J.B., et al. (2012). C¹¹ Imaging of Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder. Archives of Neurology.
• Wright, P.W., Heaps, J.M., Shimony, J.S., Thomas, J.B., Ances, B.M. (2012). The effects of HIV and combination antiretroviral therapy on white matter integrity. AIDS.
• Wang, L., Roe, C., Snyder, A.Z., Brier, M.R., Thomas, J.B., Benzinger, T., Morris, J.C., Ances, B.M. (2012). Family History of Alzheimer’s Disease Impacts Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Cognitively Normal Individuals. Annals of Neurology, In Press.
• Brier, M.R., Thomas, J.B., Snyder, A.Z., Benzinger, A.M., Zhang, D., Raichle, M., Holtzman, D.M., Morris, J.C., Ances, B.M. (2012). Loss of Intra- and Inter-Network Resting State Functional Connections with Alzheimer’s Disease Progression. Journal of Neuros
• Wang, L., Brier, M.R., Snyder, A.Z., Thomas, J.B., Fagan, A.M., Xiong, C., Benzinger, T.L., Holtzman, D., Morris, J.C., Ances, B.M. (2013). Amyloid-β and Tau independently affect resting state functional connectivity in the default mode network of cognitively normal individuals. JAMA Neurology.
• Arbelaez, A.M., Su, Y., Thomas, J.B., Ances, B.M., Hershey, T. (2013) Arterial Spin-Labeling Quantification of Cerebral Blood Flow in Euglycemia and Hypoglycemia.
• Wang, L., Day, J., Roe, C.M., Brier, M.R., Thomas, J.B., Benzinger, T.L., Morris, J.C., Ances, B.M. (2013). The APOE ε4 Allele Modulates the Effect of Donepezil on Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Patients with AD. Alzheimer’s Disease and Associated Disorders.
• Thomas, J.B., (2008). “Keble Rowing: A History,” in Keble: Past and Present. Third Millenium Publishing.

Awards

2017, PhD Merit Fellowship, UNC-Chapel Hill

Degrees

2011, BA English, Colby College

Bio

Michael J. Clark is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill who specializes in Renaissance drama. In his dissertation, Michael examines how trust and distrust between patients and physicians are depicted in Italian, English, and French Renaissance comedy.

As a comparatist, Michael has studied Italian, Spanish, ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, and Irish, but his primary literatures are English and Italian. His research interests include Renaissance literature, the history of medicine, classical reception, performance studies, translation studies, and pedagogy.

At UNC, Michael’s teaching experience has been cross-disciplinary and has included Italian language courses, first-year composition courses, and introductory literature courses. In addition to these teaching responsibilities, Michael has served as a coach at the UNC Writing Center.

When not teaching, writing, or conducting research, Michael likes to travel and to sing.

Teaching Awards

• Literature Teaching Award, 2016
• Foreign Language Teaching Award, 2016
• Engaged Instructor Award, 2015

Awards

• Future Faculty Fellowship Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017

Degrees

2015, BA English and German, Lebanon Valley College

Bio

I am a PhD student in the English and Comparative Literature department at UNC – Chapel Hill. I graduated from Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania in 2015 with a BA in English and German, and creative writing minor. I began in the graduate program at UNC in Fall 2015. My research interests are centered around the destabilization of nationalism and time in 19^th century American literature.

Curriculum Vitae / Resume

Degrees

2014, MA Linguistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

2012, BA German & Latin, Hillsdale College

Bio

I am a comparative modernist scholar specializing in Anglo-American and European poetry and poetics. My dissertation focuses on the poetic epiphany in modernist and secular aesthetic frameworks in Anglo-American and German traditions, with particular attention given to William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, and Rainer Maria Rilke. My analytical framework draws on literary, religious, and philosophical traditions as I examine the phenomenon of the secular epiphany in the twentieth century. In addition to my research, I recently received an award for excellence in teaching English rhetoric and composition at UNC. For this class, I employ a genre-awareness approach that emphasizes interdisciplinary skills such as research, developing a writing process through peer review and revision, and digital literacy; I have particularly enjoyed developing units on film analysis and career readiness.

Teaching Awards

• Erika Lindeman Teaching Award for Composition and Literature, 2017

Curriculum Vitae / Resume