Graduates

Jessica Lynch is graduating with a master’s degree from the Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies program. She was honored with the College of Arts and Humanities 2019-2020 Award for Excellence as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. As a graduate teaching associate, Jessica has taught ENC 1102 for the 2020-2021 school year. Her areas of scholarly interest include feminist theory, culinary ephemera, and cultural studies.

Alaa Taha has graduated with an M.A. in English: Literary, Cultural and Textual Studies. Her research interests include Arabic modernism and the postcolonial, which she discusses in her thesis “Toward an Arabic Modernism: Politics, Poetics, and the Postcolonial.” After graduation, she intends to pursue a career in fiction writing and hopes to teach at the collegiate level.

Amanda Cannon Jones is graduating with an MA in English from the Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies track. Her research interests include Native literacies and rhetoric. Amanda currently teaches high school English at Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando.

Chloe Johnson is graduating with an MA in English: Literary, Cultural and Textual Studies. Her research interests include women writers, women writers of color, Historical Fiction, and Film and Literature studies. In UCF’s 2020 English Symposium, “Casting Light and Creating Shadows,” she presented her paper on Ana Castillo’s So Far From God. After graduation, she plans to obtain her Teaching Certificate so she can teach high school English. She eventually wants to receive her Ph.D. and teach literature at the university level.

Kenneth Kimberly is graduating with an MA in the English: Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies program. Throughout his undergraduate and graduate career, Kenneth engaged with a wide variety of topics but focuses his research primarily on posthuman and transhuman literary theories. After graduation, Kenneth intends to pursue a career in the gaming industry as a writer, as well as publication for his posthuman theory research paper “More Human Than Human: Posthumanism in Blade Runner 2049 and the Definition of Humanity” to expand his literary career.

Sara Thames is graduating with an M.A. in English from the Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies program. Throughout her studies, she has worked as a high school English Teacher for Colonial High School, as GTA for World Literature I, and as an instructor of Composition II at UCF. Her conference paper “Ophelia’s Swan Song: A Minor Discourse of Femininity in Hamlet” was featured in the 2020 Virtual English Symposium, and “Jude the Obscure: Hardy’s Treatise on Education” will be presented in the 2021 Symposium which she helped to organize. Sara hopes to continue working towards publication with the lines of inquiry explored in her thesis “Mutilated Masculinity: Intersections of Disability, Gender, and Mental Health in Modernist Fiction.” She desires to either continue her studies in an English Ph.D. program, or to continue teaching at the collegiate level.

Jeanice Vacarizas is an international student from the Philippines and Bahrain graduating with an MA in English from the Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies program. Her conference papers, “Quaker Conversions: Sophia Hume and the Exhortation Narrative” and “Unapologetically Asian: Cultural Appropriation and Asian-American Identity Crises in Hip Hop” were featured in the 2018 and 2021 English Graduate Symposiums at UCF. Her research interests include Asian American literature, diaspora studies, feminist theory, and postcolonial theory. She currently works with international writing students at universities across the U.S. and hopes to pursue teaching and literary research in the future.

Kendall Hall completed her MA degree in English: Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies at UCF while teaching various levels of high school English at local public and private schools. One of her primary literary interests is the Victorian era. Her conference paper, “Gender, Sexuality, and Freud: The Governess’s Liminality in The Turn of the Screw by Henry James” was featured in the 2019 Virtual English Graduate Symposium at UCF, and she continued her research in the program’s Capstone course this past semester. She now seeks to publish her work studying Henry James’s novellas, The Turn of the Screw and In the Cage and aspires to teach at the college level.

Lauren Littler is graduating with her degree in Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies while continuing her Masters of Fine Arts in Themed Experience from the UCF College of Theatre and Design. She aspires to become a show writer in the theme park industry and create shared experiences for Guests via immersive rides and unique restaurant experiences. Lauren’s specialties include creative writing, feminist theory, Renaissance poetics, and research. She has been writing for ten years, researching for six years, and hopes to expand her knowledge further during the years to come. She presented her paper, Red, White, and Blue: An Expression of Toxic Masculinity during the annual English Symposium, “Breaking Boundaries and Making Spaces”, at the University of Central Florida on March 2nd, 2018, as well as presented her paper on Disney Princesses and traditional versus rebellious ideology and organized in the Spring 2020 English Symposium. Her latest project was researching ancient Polynesian mythology and design for a presentation in her MFA program.

Sean Porterfield is graduating with an MA in English from the Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies track. His research interests include poetry, modernism, and literary pedagogy. Sean currently teaches English at Freedom High School in Orlando, Florida.