The following contains the student's name and dissertation title of graduate dissertations from 1993 to the present. Additionally, some of our graduates' dissertations have gone on to be published as books.

2022 - 2023

Diann Rozsa

History, Heritage, and Haunting: Educational Entanglements within Former Carceral Spaces

2021 - 2022

George Gregory Rozsa

The Nevada Movement: Trans-Indigenous Antinuclear Solidarity at the End of the Cold War.

2020 - 2021

Taylor Henry

“Same Time Tomorrow, Knuckleheads”: The Racial, Gendered, and Industrial Politics of Televised Sports Punditry

2019 - 2020

Stephanie Grossnickle-Batterton
"Ye Shall Know Them By Their Clothes": Rhetoric of Women's Religious Dress in the United States, 1865-1920


Chris Henderson
Pleasurable Labors: Activist Fandom, Sport Communities and the Performance of Place


James Oudenhoven
Making Cinema Anew: Film Criticism and the Making of the New American Cinema, 1959-75


Michael West
The Birth of the Pin-up Girl: The Creation of an American Wartime Social Phenomenon, 1940-1946


Diane Williams
Inside the AIAW: The Philosophy, People, and Power of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW)

2018 - 2019

Stacey Moultry
Mixed Race, Mixed Politics: Articulations of Mixed Race Identities and Politics in Cultural Production, 1960-1989


Dain TePoel
Endurance Activism: Transcontinental Walks and the Politics of Movement Culture


Katherine Walden
Remapping and visualizing baseball labor: a digital humanities project

2016 - 2017

Thomas Collins
The Creation of Cultural White Supremacy in Arizona, 1925-1940


Michael Winslow
Cultivating Leisure: Agriculture, Tourism, and Industrial Modernity in the North Carolina Sandhills, 1870-1930

2015 - 2016

Kara Fagan
Framing Sport as Art: The Spectacle of Female Athleticism in Classic Hollywood, 1935-1955


Matthew Hodler
The Greatest Olympian of All-Time?: The Ideological Implications of Celebrating Michael Phelps


Sang Uk Joo
Consuming Sporting Orientals: Reading Asian American Sport Celebrities


Marta Mack-Washington
From Both Sides of the Plate: Effa Manley and American Constructions of Race and Ethnicity 1900-1948


Eileen Narcotta-Welp
"The Future of Football is Feminine": A Critical Cultural History of the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team


Yu-kuei "Daniel" Sun
Sporting Taiwan: Transnational Athletes in the Age of Neoliberal Imperialisms


Ivana Takacova
Latent TB Positive in the U.S. War on Tuberculosis: Manufacturing the International Student as a Public Health Threat


Allison Wanger
"These Honored Dead": The National Cemetery System and the Politics of Cultural Memory since 1861


Larissa Werhnyak
O, Perjured Lover, Atone! Atone! : A Legal and Cultural History of Breach of Promise to Marry, 1880-1940

2014 - 2015

Jennifer Ambrose
Geographies of Responsibility: The Cultural Logic of 21st Century Weather Emergencies


Jae Chul Seo
"Yellow Pacific on White Ice": A Transnational and Post/Colonial Reading of Asian American & Asian Female Figure Skates in the US Media Representation


Daniel Taradash
Exodus of Champions: The Great Migration and the Shaping of the Civil Rights Activities of Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier and George Foreman


Matthew Thomas
Life Hacking: A Critical History, 2004–2014

2013 - 2014

Robert Albanese
Paying (for) Attention: Narrative, Control, and the Cultural Economics of Attention, 1997-Present


Wayne Anderson
Honest to Goodness Farmers: Rural Iowa in American Culture during the Great Depression


Kirsten Archer 
Carla Emery and the Recreation of Homesteading


Craig Eley
Making Silence Audible: Sound, Nature, Technology, 1890-1970


Elisabeth Erickson (Health and Sport Studies)
Outrunning Cancer: Marathons, Money & Morality


David Barrett Gough

The Value of the Commonwealth: An Ecocritical History of Robinson Forest


Jonathan Hansen
Take a Chill Pill: A Cultural History of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder


Mark Mattes
Material Letters: Media Histories of Epistolary Communication, 1766-1867


Patrick Oray
"Another Layer of Blackness": Race, Class and Ethnicity in the U.S. Black Public Sphere


Sara Shreve

Futures So Bright: Solar Homes in Mid-Twentieth Century America


Nathan Titman
The Drift of Desire: Masculinity and a Gay American Work Ethic


Eloisa Valenzuela-Mendoza
"Tending to the Past": The Historical Poetics of Joy Harjo and Natasha Trethew


Nicholas Yanes
Commodifying Counterculture: William Gaines, EC Comics, MAD Magazine, and the Rise of the Corporate Anti-Establishment

2012 - 2013

Derrais Carter 
Beyond the Veil of the Secret City: New Negro Representation in the Nation's Capital, 1919-1935


Amanda Curtis (Health and Sport Studies)
"Minimum Essential Adjustments": Gender, Physicality, and Equality at the United States Military Academy, 1976-1980


Sarah Eikleberry (Health and Sport Studies)
More than Milk and Cookies: A Cultural Analysis of the College Playday


Cinda Nofziger
Vacation Views: Tourist Photography in the American West, 1945-1980


Gyorgy "George" Toth 
Red Nations: The Transatlantic Relations of the Radical American Indian Sovereignty Movement of the Late Cold War


Steven Williams
Smudging the Book: The Role of Cultural Authority in Tribal Historical Narratives and Revitalization at Rocky Boy


Amy Wilson (Health and Sport Studies)
A "Saga of Power, Money, and Sex" in Women's Athletics: A Presidents' History of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW)

2011 - 2012

Nikolas Dickerson (Health and Sport Studies)
Don't Fear the Reefer: Producing the Unproductive Body in Sport, Film and Advertisement


Eric Johnson
Crossover Narratives: Race, Genre, and Authenticity in 20th Century American Popular Music


Danielle Rich

Global Fandom: The Circulation of Japanese Popular Culture in the U.S.


Charlie Williams
Eros in America: Freud and the Counter-Culture

2010 - 2011

Betsy Loyd Harvey
Same Place Next Summer: Permanent chautauquas and the Performance of Middle-Class Identity


Sharon Lake
The Accidental Feminist: Iowa's Breastfeeding Firefighter and the National Struggle for Workplace Equity


Karen Smith
Framing Quilts/Framing Culture: Women's Work and the Politics of Display


Mark Warburton
"For the Purposes of Example and Justice:" Native American Incarceration in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1803-1849

2009 - 2010

Brian Hallstoos
Windy City, Holy Land: Willa Saunders Jones and Black Sacred Music and Drama


Sharon Romeo
Freedwomen in Pursuit of Liberty: St. Louis and Missouri in the Age of Emancipation


Barb Shubinski
DOCUMERICA’s America: Environmentalism, Documentary Photography and Landscape in the Environmental Protection Agency, 1971-1977


Nicole Kotrba (Health and Sport Studies)
Constructing Privacy: The Negotiation of Disclosure Management on a Women's Basketball Team

2008 - 2009

Rixa Freeze
Born Free: Unassisted Childbirth in North America


Sam Graber
Twice-Divided Nation: The Civil War and National Memory in the Transatlantic World


Erica Hannickel
An Imperial Vineland: Grape Culture in 19th Century America


Bobbi Knapp (Health and Sport Studies)
Smash Mouth Football: An Interpretive Study of Identities Constructed and Performed on a Women's Football Team


Patrick Naick
Representations of the Black Metropolis: Place and African American Identity on Chicago's South Side

2007 - 2008

Ulrich Adelt
Black, White and Blue: Racial Politics of Blues Music in the 1960s


Eleanor McConnell
A Scarce Plenty: Economics, Citizenship, and Opportunity in Revolutionary New Jersey, 1760-1820


Kirsten Bland Walters
Ultimate Spin: Contesting the rhetoric, countercultural ethos and commodification of the "Ultimate" frisbee sport, 1968-2008

2006 - 2007

Kristin Solli
North of Nashville: Country Music, National Identity, and Class in Norway

2005 - 2006

William Bryant
Whole System, Whole Earth: The Convergence of Technology and Ecology in Twentieth Century American Culture

2004 - 2005

Jennifer Pustz
The Servant Problem: Historic House museums and Social History


Russell Peterson
Strange Bedfellows: The Politics of Late-Night Television Comedy


Jamie Schultz (Health and Sport Studies)
Moment of Impact: Race, Injury and Football in Iowa's Collective Memory

2003 - 2004

Mary Ann Beecher
A Place for Everything: The Influence of Storage Innovations on Modern American Domesticity (1900-1955)


Chris Poff Pandhi
The Western Ghost Town in American Culture, 1869-1950

2002 - 2003

Megan Nelson
Peculiar Ecology: Swamps and Culture in the Southeastern Borderlands, 1732-1937


Kevin Quirk
That’s What Books Can Do: The Multicultural Middlebrow

2001 - 2002

Laura Baker
Capitalism Beautiful & Consumer Democracy: Civic Ideals, Mass Culture, and the Public in Chicago, 1900-1925


Eliot Blake
The Magical Armchair: Private Power and the Commodification of Expressive Freedom


Taylor Lake
American Delsartism and the Bodily Discourse of Respectable Womanliness


Jane Simonsen
Making Home Work: Race, Gender and the Uses of American Domestic Space, 1850-1920


Michael Wiseman
Rising on the Levee: Stories After the Flood and the Reconstruction of Place

2000 - 2001

Michael Augspurger
An Economy of Abundant Beauty: Fortune and the Culture of Corporate Liberalism


Sarah Fields
Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sport in America


Allison McCracken
Real Men Don’t Sing: Crooning and American Culture: 1928-1933


Lori Vermas
The National Trees: Celebrating the Sequoias—Their Trunks, Roots, Stump, Bark—and Their Depiction as Big Trees in America, 1852-1944

1999 - 2000

James Dorsey
The Quest for Doc's Garden: A Community Study of African-American Athletic Success


Markha Valenta
The Radical Folly of Love in (Post)Modern America: The Autobiographical Narratives of Dorothy Day


Daniel Lewis
Emanuel Leutze's Art of the Civil War Era: Romantic Histories of the Crisis of Union


Michael Lewis
Tracking the Biodiversity Ideal: The Transfer and Reception of Ecological Theories and Practices Between the U.S. and India, 1947-1997

1998 - 1999

Michael Burke
Difficult Belonging: An Ethnographic Look at How the Church Excludes


Franklin Hess
Importing ‘America’: Television Programming and Audience Identity in Urban Greece.


Eileen Roraback
The Defense of Self: Autobiographical Responses of American Intellectuals to the McCarthy Era


Jay Satterfield
The World’s Best Book: Taste Culture and the Modern Library


Ningping Yu
Manufactured Images: Four Chinese Travelers and Their Writing about American Women

1997 - 1998

Ilene Alexander
Learning in Other Ways: Toward a History of Feminist Pedagogy in the U.S.


John Baskerville
The Impact of Modern Black Nationalist Ideology and Cultural Revitalization on American Jazz Music of the 1960s and 1970s


Brett Beemyn
A Queer Capitol: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Life in Washington, D.C., 1890-1955


Derryn Moten
"A Gruesome Warning to Black Girls": The August 16, 1912, Execution of Virginia Christian


Matthew Pustz
Fanboys and True Believers: Comic Book Reading Communities and the Creation of Culture


Leslie A. Taylor
Veritable Hotbeds: Lesbian Scandals in the United States, 1926-1936


Rob Urstein
Aging, Activism, and Spirituality in an American Community

1996 - 1997

Natalie Robertson
A Cultural History of AfricaTown, USA, 1859-Present


Jennifer Strayer
No Place like Home: Domestic Models in Chicago's Public Places, 1919-1938


Greg Conerly
Policing the Boundaries: Defining African-American Lesbian/Gay Identity and Community Relationships


Catherine Lewis
From Temple to Forum: The Changing Face of the Chicago Historical Society


Daniel Nathan
Saying it's so: A cultural history of the Black Sox scandal of 1919

1995 - 1996

John Groch
Corporate Reading, Corporate Writing: MGM & CBS in the Land of Oz


Paul Gutjahr
Battling for the Book: The Americanization of the Bible in the Antebellum Publishing Marketplace, 1777-1860


Hongjun Su
Strangers within our gates: a study of four first-generation Chinese immigrant men's autobiographies, 1930s-1940s

1994 - 1995

Allison Kibler
Female Varieties: Gender & Cultural Hierarchy on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit, 1890-1925


Noliwe Rooks
Hair-Raising: African American Women, Beauty Culture, and Madame C. J. Walker


Nan Wolverton
Century farm: the shaping of an Iowa landscape, 1851-1951


Alan Spring
Public Intellectuals in the Culture of Personality: Democratic Discourse, Moral authority, and Intellectual vocation


Sharon Wood
Wandering Girls & Leading Women: Sexuality & Urban Public Life in Davenport, IA, 1880-1910

1993 - 1994

Kay Aldrich
Gender, Sexuality, & Kinship: Portraits of Lesbian. Families in the 1990s


Nancy Romalov
Modern, Mobile, and Marginal: American Girls' Series Fiction, 1905-1925

Dissertations published as books

The following are books since the 1990s that were first American Studies dissertations at Iowa. Dissertation titles and abstracts may also be accessed at the American Studies Association website.

Blues Music in the Sixties: A Story in Black and White

Adelt, Ulrich
Blues Music in the Sixties: A Story in Black and White.
Rutgers University Press, May 2010.

An Economy of Abundant Beauty: Fortune Magazine and Depression America

Augspurger, Mike
An Economy of Abundant Beauty: Fortune Magazine and Depression America
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.

Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sport in America

Fields, Sarah
Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sport in America
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.

An American Bible: a History of the Good Book in the United States

Gutjahr, Paul
An American Bible: a History of the Good Book in the United States
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.

Mercy, Mercy Me: African American Culture and the American Sixties

Hall, James
Mercy, Mercy Me: African American Culture and the American Sixties
New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Empire of Vines: Wine Culture in America

Hannickel Terry, Erica
Empire of Vines: Wine Culture in America
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013

Rank Ladies: Gender and Cultural Hierarchy in American Vaudeville

Kibler, Alison
Rank Ladies: Gender and Cultural Hierarchy in American Vaudeville
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

The Changing Face of Public History: the Chicago Historical Society and the Transformation of an American Museum

Inventing Global Ecology: Tracking the Biodiversity Ideal in India, 1945-1997

Lewis, Michael
Inventing Global Ecology: Tracking the Biodiversity Ideal in India, 1945-1997
Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004.

Saying It’s So: a Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal

Nathan, Daniel
Saying It’s So: a Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

The Black Image in the New Deal: the Politics of FSA Photography

Natanson, Nicholas
The Black Image in the New Deal: the Politics of FSA Photography
Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992.

Trembling Earth: a Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp

Nelson, Megan Kate
Trembling Earth: a Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005.

Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy into a Joke

Peterson, Rusell
Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy into a Joke
New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008.

Voices from the Back Stairs: Interpreting the Lives of Domestic Servants at Historic House Museums

Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers

Pustz, Matthew
Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers
Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1999.

Redefining Black Film

Reid, Mark
Redefining Black Film
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American Women

Rooks, Noliwe
Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture, and African American Women
New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996.

The World’s Best Books: Taste, Culture, and the Modern Library

Satterfield, Jay
The World’s Best Books: Taste, Culture, and the Modern Library
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002.

Nature Writing: the Pastoral Impulse in America

Scheese, Don
Nature Writing: the Pastoral Impulse in America
New York: Twayne, 1996.

The Habit of Surviving: Black Women’s Strategies for Life

Scott, Kesho
The Habit of Surviving: Black Women’s Strategies for Life
New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991.

Making Home Work: Domesticity and Native American Assimilation in the American West

Simonsen, Jane
Making Home Work: Domesticity and Native American Assimilation in the American West
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

Brabbling Women: Disorderly Speech and the Law in Early Virginia

Snyder, Terri
Brabbling Women: Disorderly Speech and the Law in Early Virginia
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003.

Sequoia: the Heralded Tree in American Art and Culture

Vermaas, Lori
Sequoia: the Heralded Tree in American Art and Culture
Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003.

The Freedom of the Streets: Work, Citizenship, and Sexuality in a Gilded Age City

Wood, Sharon
The Freedom of the Streets: Work, Citizenship, and Sexuality in a Gilded Age City
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.