Graduate Profiles
Ivan Boekelheide - American Visual Culture
After graduation, Ivan went to Thailand and Myanmar where he spent nearly two years as a teacher. On returning to the U.S., he completed a Master’s degree in Law and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Currently, Ivan works as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of State.
Film 108:Silent Films
Film 108: Animation
History of Art 185A: American Art from 1800
American Studies H110:American National Character (Honors Seminar)
Political Science 109F:Special Topics in American Politics

Thesis "'Deadwood': A Western Reborn or the Rebirth of the Western?"
Catherine O'Neal - American Popular Culture
Since graduation in 2007 Catherine has kept herself busy in an array of activities from working in museums to Latin America travels. After years of managing the Lululemon store in Berkeley, she currently resides in Austin, Texas, where she works as a bartender and yoga instructor.
American Studies 101: The Atomic Age & Nuclear Criticism
American Studies 110: Folklore and American Culture
American Studies C118: Consumerism and Popular Culture
American Studies H110: Honors Seminar on American National Character
Sociology 160: The Sociology of Culture

Thesis Taking a Trip: The Road, Drugs, and Americans"
Ramzi Fawaz - American Popular Culture
The Departmental Citation Winner for 2006, Ramzi Fawaz is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He received his PhD in American Studies from George Washington University. His book, The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics, published by NYU Pressas part of their series Post-Millennial Pop in January 2016, explores how the American superhero came to embody the political aspirations of racial, gender, and sexual minorities in the post-WWII period. Ramzi is a former fellow of the Social Science Research Council and the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, which awarded his manuscript the 2012-2013 CLAGS Fellowship Award for best first book project in LGBT Studies. His essays have been published in American Literature, Callaloo, and Anthropological Quarterly. His next book project develops a new theory of affect through the study of the cultural politics and literary production of Gay Liberation since the 1970s.
C143V: Visual Autobiography
English 176: Literature and Popular Culture
Sociology C112: Sociology of Religion
English 173: Language/Literature of Films
American Studies 101: 1939

Thesis "Big Trouble in Smallville: The Rise of the Teenage Superhero in the 20th Century"

This thesis reconstructs the historical trajectory of the figure across time while also attending to shifting thematic concerns that run across the period of its greatest popularity. By charting the lineage of the thematic concerns of these texts, the cultural diversity of their characters, as well as the villains, dilemmas, and inter-group conflicts that motivated their narratives, Fawaz unpacks an important historical thread of youth culture that continues to affect our popular imagination to this day.