Ph.D. Job Placements

Since 1961, the Ph.D. program of the Department of English at the University of Kentucky has trained generations of distinguished scholars, teachers and professional graduates. Our graduates regularly go on to excellent academic jobs in research and teaching in a range of fields and institutions, both regionally and nationally. They also work in diverse para-academic and professional jobs in the public and private spheres.

Our Ph.D. completion rate is significantly higher than national averages. For our Ph.D. candidates who have completed their degrees in the last 10 years (2016-2026), the average time-to-degree has been six years. Many complete the Ph.D. in five years or fewer.

Below is a comprehensive sample of the range of employment and professional progress that our PhD graduates have had since 2006. For a sample of our Ph.D. candidates’ current work, please visit our graduate community profile pages here.

This table includes the job placement of doctoral alumni who graduated the program since fall 2006.
This table was constructed using data pulled from alumni of the program. If you would like to be included in this table, please email jessica.case@uky.edu

Year Name Ph.D. Dissertation Title Advisor Academic & Professional Employment
2026 Roslyn Fleming We Need to Care About Care: (Un)Caring Relations in Victorian Fiction Jill Rappoport Visiting Instructor, Jacksonville State University
2026 Alex Gergely The Ache of Modernism: Death, Affect, and Intersubjectivity in Twentieth-Century American Literature Pearl James Visiting Lecturer, Lewis Honors College, University of Kentucky
2026 Carter Johnson Cultus: Eco-Phenomenology in the Work of John Steinbeck, Robinson Jeffers, and Jack London Erik Reece Upper School English Instructor, Northcross Preparatory School, Roanoke, VA
2026 Kevin O'Connor Other Eyes: The Dilemma of Authorship and Autobiography in Sylvia Plath, John Ashberry, and Cristina Garcia Jonathan Allison English Instructor, Madisonville Community College, Madisonville, KY
2026 Andrew Thibaudeau Queer Comforts: Comfort and Queer Space in Nineteenth-Century American Literature Michelle Sizemore Assistant Professor, Coastal College of Georgia
2025 Anika Jensen Feeling and Experience in American Women's Writing from the First World War Pearl James Visiting Assistant Professor, Davidson College, NC
2025 Hannah Schultz Preserving Nature: Mapping Patriarchal and Imperial Control in Victorian Fiction Jill Rappoport Visiting Assistant Professor, Haverford College, PA
2024 Daria Goncharova Spaces of Citizenship: Negotiating Belonging through Cold War Literature and Culture Alan Nadel Assistant Professor, Davis & Elkins College, WV
2024 Jannell McConnell Parsons Writing White Women: White (Supremacist) Feminism in American Literature and Culture, Post Suffrage to Post Hillary (1920–2020s) Shauna Morgan Brittain Fellow, School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA
2024 Jessica Van Gilder Trust and Knowing in Nineteenth-Century American Literature: Fictional Genres and Metacognitive Disruptions Michelle Sizemore Brittain Fellow, School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA
2023 Deborah Daley Representations of Military Women in Contemporary War Stories Pearl James Assistant Professor, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY
2023 Richard Halkyard Myth, Mockery, & Misery: An Evolution of Disillusion in Modern-War Expression Pearl James English I-IV teacher, School of Logic & Rhetoric, Trinity Christian Academy, Lexington 
2023 Kathryn Kohls From Jane Austen to Meghan Markle: The Persistence of British Imperialism in White Popular Feminism Jill Rappoport Lecturer, Dept. of Writing, Rhetoric, & Digital Studies, University of Kentucky
2023 Emily Naser-Hall Conceive and Control: Cultural-Legal Narratives of American Privacy and Reproductive Politics Alan Nadel Assistant Professor, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee NC
2023 Justin Roberts The Reflexive Fritz Lang: Meta-Cinematic and Genre Critiques in His American Films Alan Nadel Instructor, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studes, University of Kentucky
2023 Brandon West Echoed Malice: Identity and the Doubled Voice in Gothic Horror Michelle Sizemore Assistant Professor Mass Communication (Film Studies), Sam Houston State University, Huntsville TX
2022 Shannon Branfield “Wearing A Mask to Each Other”: Masculinity & the Public Eye in Victorian Sensation Fiction. Jill Rappoport Visiting Instructor, Colorado Mesa University, Grand Junction CO
2022 Zachary Griffith The Reflective Age: Nostalgia at the End of History Alan Nadel Postdoctoral Scholar, Dept. of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, University of Kentucky
2022 Margaret (Frymire) Kelly (Dis)Possessed Black Youth: How America’s Architecture Challenges Coming of Age in 20th and 21st c. Af. Am. Women’s Literature Carol Mason Acquisitions Editor, the University Press of Kentucky
2022 Kathryn McClain Twenty-First Century Adaptations of Early Twentieth Century American Protest Literature. Jeff Clymer Assistant Professor, Colorado Mesa University, Grand Junction CO
2021 Robert Gorum Wisdom From the Collard Field: Exploring Agrarian Community in Twenty and Twenty-first Century American Literature Randall Roorda Director of Strategic Communications, Indian Springs School, AL
2021 Claire Lenviel Race Youth in Twentieth-Century American Literature and Culture Michael Trask Assistant Professor, Columbia College, Columbia SC
2021 Leslie Malland Death, Discipline, and the Dead: Biopolitical Rhetoric in Early Modern English Texts Joyce MacDonald Assistant Professor, Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge LA
2021 Benjamin Wilson Southern Alterity in the Global Modernist Novel, 1899-1966 Peter Kalliney Lecturer, University of Louisville, KY
2020 Noor Al-Attar “Innocent Bystanders”: White Guilt and the Destruction of Native Americans in US Literature, 1824-1830 Andy Doolen Lecturer, University of Mosul, Nineveh Governate, Iraq
2020 Richard Parmer Curious Natures: Constructing Queer Ecologies in Early America Marion Rust deceased December 24, 2022
2020 Megan Pillow (Davis) Freakish Taxonomies: How The American Freak Show And Its Literature Redefine The Archive Marion Rust Project Manager, co-editor for Dr. Roxane Gay
2020 Delmar Reffett Waking Sleep: The Uncanny in Modernist Literary Aesthetics   Jonathan Allison Visiting Asssitant Professor, Kentucky State University, Frankfort KY
2019 Anna Bedsole Uncertain Inheritance: The Motherless Heiress in Big House Novels   Jonathan Allison Technical Enablement Partner, LiveRamp (remote)
2019 Andrew Beutel The Revolt Against Mourning: Woolf, Joyce, Faulkner, and Beyond Jonathan Allison Instructor, United States Naval Academy Preparatory School, Newport RI
2019 Matthew Bryant Cheney Modern Charity: Morality, Politics, and Mid-Twentieth Century US Writing Michael Trask Asst. Dir. for Faculty Development, Community Engagement, and Research, Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center, U. Tennessee, Knoxville, TN
2019 Rachel Carr But What Has Helga Crane to Do with the West Indies? Plantation Afterlives in the Black Atlantic Peter Kalliney Associate Professor, Women & Gender Studies Program Coordinator, Lindsey Wilson University, Columbia KY
2019 Craig Crowder Identity, Spectacle, and Embodiment in Social Protest James Ridolfo Lecturer, Dept. of Writing, Rhetoric, & Digital Studies, University of Kentucky
2019 Kyle Eveleth Outsiders to Whom? Reimagining the Creation of Young Adult Literature in the United States Pearl James Writing Services and Tutoring Coordinator, Otterbein University, Westerville OH
2019 Catherine Gooch “I’ve Known Rivers:” Representations of the Mississippi River in African American Literature and Culture Pearl James Assistant Professor, Auburn University at Montgomery AL
2019 Alison Hitch Fathers and Sons in Modern British, Irish, and Postcolonial Fiction   Jonathan Allison Lecturer, Rhetoric & Composition, University of Mississippi, Oxford MS
2019 Deirdre Mikolajcik Values in the Air: Community and Capital Conversion in the Nineteenth-Century Novel Ellen Rosenman Account Director, Brightly Creative Craft Marketing
2019 Valerie Stevens Nineteenth-Century Pets and the Politics of Touch Jill Rappoport Lecturer, Shepherd University, Shepherdstown WV
2019 Gokce Tekeli Where We Belong: Spatial Imagining in American Women’s Life Narratives, 1859-1912 Marion Rust Lecturer, Dept. of Writing, Rhetoric, & Digital Studies, University of Kentucky
2019 Jonathan Tinnin Madness Narratives: Victorian Textual Responses to the Insanity Diagnosis Ellen Rosenman Commercial Relationship Manager, UVA Credit Union, Charlottesville VA
2018 Owen Horton Rebooting Masculinity after 9/11: Male Heroism on Film from Bush to Trump   Susan Bordo Online Instructional Designer, Indiana University, Bloomington IN
2018 Alexander Menrisky Wild Abandon: Postwar Literature Between Ecology and Authenticity   Michael Trask Associate Professor, University of Connecticut, Storrs CT
2018 Hannah Ruehl Understanding the Gray: Aging Women in Victorian Culture and Fiction Jonathan Allison Instructional Designer, University of Tennessee-Knoxville TN (remote)
2018 Guy Spriggs “He’ll Just Be Paul Newman Anyway”: Cinematic Continuity and the Star Image Pearl James Senior Lecturer, Department of English, Ohio State University, Columbus OH
2018 Katherine Waddell American Mnemonic: Racial Identity in Women’s Life Writing of the Civil War Marion Rust Senior Program Manager, Center for Tech & Civic Life, Chicago IL
2018 Rebecca Wiltberger Meeting at the Threshold: Slavery’s Influence on Hospitality and Black Personhood in Late-Antebellum American Literature Armando Prats Office Management Specialist, U.S. Department of State
2017 Chelsea Brislin Strangers with Cameras: The Consequences of Appalachian Representation in Pop Culture Randall Roorda Associate Director, Gaines Center for the Humanities, University of Kentucky, Lexington KY
2017 Andrew Casto Redressing the Adjunct Staffing Model in American Higher Education Pearl James English Teacher, West Jessamine County High School, KY
2017 Jessica Evans The Male Mentor Figure in Women's Fiction, 1778-1801 Lisa Zunshine Associate Professor, Columbia State Community College, Columbia TN
2017 Patrick Herald Boundaries of Knowledge: Expertise and Professionalism in British and Postcolonial Literature   Peter Kalliney Learning Designer, Legal Division, The Access Group, United Kingdom (remote)
2017 Andrea Holliger American Culture of Servitude: The Problem of Domestic Service in Antebellum Literature and Culture   Marion Rust Professor and Chair, Lone Star College CyFair, Woodlands, TX
2017 Travis Martin A Theory of Veteran Identity Virginia Blum Director of the Kentucky Center for Veterans Studies, First-year courses administrator, EKU, Richmond KY
2017 Bianca Spriggs Women of the Apocalypse: Afrospeculative Feminist Novelists   Michael Trask Assistant Professor, Ohio University, Athens OH (formerly)
2016 Eric Casero Mind Against Matter: Isolating Consciousness in American Fiction, 1980–2010 Michael Trask Associate Teaching Professor, University of Massachussetts, Dartmouth, MA
2016 Felicia Cosey Father of All Destruction: The Role of the White Father in Contemporary Postapocalyptic Cinema Virginia Blum Assistant Professor, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA
2016 Eir-Anne Edgar Desire, Literature, and the Law of the Sexual Revolution Rusty Barrett Associate Profesor, Dept. of Teacher Education, Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway
2016 Jenna Goldsmith Life Matter: Women Subjects and Women’s Objects in Innovative American Poetry Randall Roorda Instructor of Writing, Oregon State U. ecampus: Lecturer, Rockford University, Rockford IL
2016 Ashleigh Hardin Addiction, Culture, and Narrative During the War on Drugs   Alan Nadel Associate Director of First-Year Writing, Ohio State University
2016 Amanda Konkle Marilyn Monroe’s Star Canon: Postwar American Culture and the Semiotics of Stardom Alan Nadel Professor, English, and Film Studies, Georgia Southern University, Richmond Hill GA
2016 Julie Naviaux Distinctly American: Performing Humanity in African American Literature from Proto to Post-New Negro Renaissance Vershawn Young Associate Professor, Slippery Rock University, PA
2016 Allison Palumbo Strong, Independent, and in Love: Fighting Female Fantasies in Popular Culture   Susan Bordo Faculty, Arapahoe Community College, Littleton CO
2016 Morgan Richardson The Contest of Marriage: Domestic Authority in the Victorian Novel Ellen Rosenman Assistant Managing Editor, ACMG: American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics
2016 Lisa Schroot A Culture of Rape: In Twentieth Century American Literature and Beyond Rusty Barrett Director, Robert E Hemenway Writing Center, University of Kentucky
2016 Craig Slaven Southern Transfiguration: Competing Cultural Narratives of (Ec)centric Religion in the Works of Faulkner, O’Connor, and Hurston Alan Nadel Professor, San Jacinto Community College, Houston TX
2016 Leah Hutchison Toth Resonant Texts: Sound, Noise, and Technology in Modern Literature   Jonathan Allison Assistant Professor, Valdosta State University, GA
2015 Rebecca Beach Turning Their Talk: Gendered Conversation in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel Ellen Rosenman English faculty, Thaden School (private school), Bentonville AR
2015 Heather Chacon A Public Duty: Medicine and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture Jeff Clymer Assistant Professor, Centre College, Danville KY
2015 Aaron Cloyd Narrating Rewilding: Shifting Images of Wilderness in American Literature Randall Roorda Associate Professor, University of Jamestown, ND
2015 James Fairfield The American Dime Museum: Bodily Spectacles and Social Midways in Turn-of-the-Century America Alan Nadel Violence Prevention Educator, Columbus OH
2015 Mary Clai Jones Fashioning Mobility: Navigating Space in Victorian Fiction Ellen Rosenman Associate Professor, Chadron State College, Chadron NE
2015 Sarah Schuetze Fear of Illness in American Literature, 1775–1876 Marion Rust deceased January 10, 2021
2015 Nathan Shank Partial Minds: The Strategic Underrepresentation of Consciousness in Postwar American Novels   Lisa Zunshine Associate Professor, Oklahoma Christian University, Edmond OK
2015 Keri Stevenson Joys of Earth: Kinship and Evolutionary Theory in Victorian Atheist and Agnostic Writers Ellen Rosenman Associate Professor, University of New Mexico-Gallup, NM
2014 Amy Anderson Image/Text and Text/Image: Reimagining Multimodal Relationships through Dissociation Roxanne Mountford Professor, West Chester University, PA
2015 Jesslyn Collins-Frohlich Creating Domestic Dependents: Indian Removal, Cherokee Sovereignty and Women’s Rights Marion Rust Senior Instructor and Director of the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, College of Charleston, SC
2014 Emily Dotson Strong Angels of Comfort: Middle Class Managing Daughters of the Victorian Period Ellen Rosenman Associate Professor, UVA Wise, VA
2014 Virginia Engholm The Power of Multiplying: Reproductive Control in American Culture, 1850-1930 Jeff Clymer Digital Media Consultant, "For Good Content" Marketing & Communications
2014 Joshua Seth Lee Whithersoever Thou Goest: The Discourses of Exile in Early Modern Literature   Matthew Giancarlo Assistant Professor, Slippery Rock University, PA
2014 Holly Osborn Apparitional Economies: Spectral Imagery in the Antebellum Imagination Jeff Clymer Lecturer, Dept. of Writing, Rhetoric, & Digital Studies, University of Kentucky
2013 Christopher Boss Therapeutic Masculinities in Postwar American Literature and Culture Michael Trask English, Creative Writing, Theater Teacher, Woodford County High School
2013 Cassandra Fetters Searching for Solidarity: Disputes, Disruptions, and Transformative Possibilities in Female Friendships and American Feminist Thought and Literature Virginia Blum Associate Professor University of Cincinnati, Coordinator of the English and Liberal Arts Programs at UC Clermont
2013 Joshua Reid Englishing the Italian Romance Epic in the Elizabethan Fin-de-Siècle Joyce MacDonald Associate Professor, Department Chair, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN
2013 Devjani Roy Uncertainty, Randomness, and Economic Behavior: The Life of Money in Eighteenth-Century Fiction Lisa Zunshine Managing Director, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Writing Center, Lubbock TX
2013 Amber Stamper Witnessing the Web: The Rhetoric of American E-Vangelism and Persuasion Online Roxanne Mountford Assistant Professor, Elizabeth City State University, NC
2012 Colleen Glenn Jimmy Stewart's Post-War Transformation: Representations of War Trauma Alan Nadel Associate Professor and Director of Film Studies, College of Charleston, SC
2012 Jeffrey Gross Recounting Personhood: The Boundaries of Democracy in the Antebellum United States Andy Doolen Associate Professor, Christian Brothers University, Memphis TN
2012 Cynthia Salmons 'Strength to Do What We Can:' Sacrifice and Empowerment in Appalachian Women's Literature Virginia Blum Assistant Professor, co-Chair, English Dept. Alice Lloyd College, Pippa Passes KY
2011 Laura Barrio-Vilar Neocolonialism, Migration, and Black Women's Bodies: Transnational Experiences in African American and Afro-Caribbean Women's Fiction Jeff Clymer & Peter Kalliney Associate Professor, University of Arkansas-Little Rock
2011 Andrew Battista Knowing, Seeing, and Transcending Nature: Judaic Holiness and the Control of Nature in Early Modern English Literature and Culture Randall Roorda Assistant Curator, Librarian for Geospatial Information Systems, New York University NY
2011 Leah Bayens Cultivating Ecological Agrarianism: Sustainable Agriculture in American Literature Randall Roorda Assistant Professor of English St. Catharine College, KY (2012-2016); Director, The Berry Center Farm & Forest Institute, New Castle KY
2011 George Phillips Seeing Subjects: Recognition, Identity, and Visual Cultures in Literary Modernism Jonathan Allison Associate Professor, Department Chair, Franklin College, IN
2011 Aparajita Sengupta Nation, Fantasy, and Mimicry: Elements of Political Resistance in Postcolonial Indian Cinema Michael Trask Fulbright Scholar, Development and Sustainable Food Systems, UK College of Agriculture (2022); IIE Rodman C. Rockefeller Centennial Fellow (2023-2024); Organic Farmer, West Bengal, India
2010 Beth Connors Manke Shouting Through the Bars: Witness in American Imprisonment Literature Michael Trask Associate Professor, Dept. of Writing Rhetoric & Digital Studies, University of Kentucky
2010 Katherine Osborne His, Hers, and Theirs: Gendered Ownership in Victorian Marriage and Friendship Ellen Rosenman Associate Professor of English; Chair, Division of Humanities, Davis & Elkins College, Elkins WV
2009 Gabriel Briggs The New Negro in the 'Old' South Alan Nadel Principal Senior Lecturer, Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN
2009 Hannah Freeman Phantasmatic Pastoral: Landscape and Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century British Women's Writing Ellen Rosenman Professor and Chair of English & Humanities, Midway University, KY
2008 Stacey Floyd Fight and Flight: Chartist and Canonical Representations of Working Class Rebellion and Social Mobility Ellen Rosenman Dean of the School of the Arts, Education and Humanities, and Professor of English, Tiffin University, Tiffin, OH
2008 Cheryl Hopson In the Name of the Mother: Reading Generational Female Family Relations in the Writings of Alice and Rebecca Walker Susan Bordo John P Fishwick Endowed Associate Professor of English, Roanoke College, Salem VA
2007 Anna Froula Soldier Girl: Popular Representations of America's Women In Uniform From World War II To the 'War On Terror' Susan Bordo Professor, Eastern Carolina University, Greenville, NC
2007 Melissa Purdue The New Woman and Colonial Fiction: Rosa Campbell Praed and Victoria Cross Ellen Rosenman Professor, Minnesota State University, Mankato MN
2007 Matthew Towles “Marching on to Zion”: Prophets of Empire, the 1890s Yolanda Pierce Professor, Liberty University, Lynchburg VA
2007 Clarence Tweedy III Trauma and Self Narration: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Identity In African American Literature, 1840-1940 Virginia Blum Associate Professor, University of Mary Washington
2006 Douglas Reside The Electronic Edition and Textual Criticism of American Musical Theatre Walt Foreman & Geraldine Maschio Curator, Billy Rose Theatre Division, NY Public Library for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, NY
2006 Katherine Rogers-Carpenter 'The Extra Woman': A Story of Canonical Disappearance in the 1930s Andy Doolen Associate Professor, Dept. of Writing Rhetoric & Digital Studies, University of Kentucky
2006 Terrence Tucker Furiously Funny: Comic Rage in Late Twentieth Century African-American Literature Yolanda Pierce Associate Professor and Chair, Dept. of English, University of Memphis TN
2006 Julie Voss The Eagle and the Crescent: Early U.S. Literary Encounters with Islam Andy Doolen & Dana Nelson Professor, English & American Studies, Lenoir-Rhyne University, Hickory NC