Graduate Student Advising

 

Mentoring Philosophy

 

Graduate school is a chance to pursue your own, specialized intellectual interests. While I seek to be an active and engaged mentor, my grad students find that they have a lot of freedom to engage in literatures and research projects of their own choosing; I dot not have a grand project towards which my supervisees direct their energies. Rather, I am keen to help students answer questions which they pose themselves and, thus, find important.

 

I am happy to mentor student research on a wide variety of topics; indeed, I’m always keen to learn about new places and situations through my grad students’ investigations. While I am very open to a diversity of topics, however, I do have particular methodological and theoretical orientations that dictate whether I am a suitable advisor for potential students. I work with historical materialist and post-structuralist methods and theories. Therefore, students with interests that combine historical, political, and cultural analyses are the best potential fit to work with me. Ideally, incoming students have already identified a mentor and have a good idea of the research topic that they wish to pursue.

 

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you want further information.

 

 

Finished Theses

 

Jessica Moyer: “The ANWR Landscape: A Geographical Analysis of Rhetoric and Representation.” Graduated fall 2008; committee chair.

 

Brett Matulis: “Costa Rican Ecotourism and the (Re)construction of Social-natures on the Osa Peninsula.” Graduated spring 2008; committee chair.

 

Gerald Bolthouse: “Reconstructing Satoyama: Metaphor and the Reproduction of the Vanishing Japanese Rural Landscape.” Graduated fall 2007; second reader.

 

Kelli Pettijohn: “Salal Harvest and Ecosystem Management on the Olympic Peninsula, WA.” Graduated fall 2006; third reader.

 

 

Theses In Progress

 

Martina Michalak: Topic — Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility. Entered program September 2007; committee chair.   

 

Deidre Peroff: Topic — Eco-palm Markets in Western Washington.  Entered program September 2007; second reader.

 

Jonah White: Topic — Gentrification in Seattle Neighborhoods. Entered program September 2006; second reader.

 

 

 

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