graduates throwing caps beside words Duke commencement 22, Program in Literature


A Message from the Program 

Dear graduates of the Major & Minor in Global Cultural Studies and the Ph.D. in Literature:

On behalf of all the faculty, staff, and students of the Program in Literature, we write this message to express our enthusiastic congratulations on the successful completion of your studies during the 2021-22 academic year. It has been truly rewarding and inspiring to see how each of you has grown in critical sophistication and thoughtful imagination over the years. We remain confident that what you have achieved here is only the beginning of a lifelong process of learning, one that we hope will lead you to exciting, if as-yet unknown, experiences in the world. Wherever you are, remember that you have each contributed to the distinction of the Program in Literature at Duke, and that you will always be an important part of our community. 

Wishing you all a wonderful graduation and an inspiring new beginning, 

Mark Hansen (Program Director)
Antonio Viego (Director of Undergraduate Studies)
Markos Hadjioannou (Director of Graduate Studies)

Melanie Mitchell (Director of Undergraduate Studies Assistant)
Nancy Morgans (Director of Graduate Studies Assistant)

The Program in Literature Ph.D.

Jaime Acosta Gonzalez

Dissertation: "Art in the Interregnum: The Aesthetics of Transition, 1973-Present"
Graduated September 2021

Anastasia Karklina

Dissertation: "Abolitionist Futures: Black Cultural Imagination at the End of the World"
Graduated September 2021

Mitchell Damian Murtagh

Dissertation: "A Meta-Physics of Sexual Difference: The Quantum Gravity Matrix and Embryogenesis of Our Universe"
Graduated September 2021

Lucas Power

Dissertation: "Society Must Be Defragmented: Data Shadows and Computational Life"

Shahrazad Aliyah Shareef

Dissertation: "From Crisis to Restoration: Technical Analysis and the Politics of Italy's Post-War Development"
Graduated 2021

Casey Williams

Dissertation: “Climate Impasse, Fossil Hegemony, and the Modern Crisis of Imagination”

The Global Cultural Studies Major of the Program in Literature

Daniel John Egitto
  • First Major
  • Graduated: December 2021
Benjamin Richard Esses
  • First Major
Lauryn Sydney Hill
  • First Major
David Min
  • Second Major
Ava Billingham Navarro
  • First Major
  • Film and Media Concentration
Akhyath Ganesh Pentapalli
  • Second Major
Tenley Shai Seidel
  • Second Major
Jiahui Shen
  • First Major
Austin Hayward Smith
  • First Major
  • Graduation with Distinction High Honors – Thesis: “The Function of Reason in Political Community: Reading Ferrante Through Adorno and Deleuze and Guattari”  (Thesis Advisor: Assistant Professor Nima Bassiri)

The Global Cultural Studies Minor of the Program in Literature

Karan Snehal Desai
  • Graduated: December 2021
Vikram Ruppa-Kasani