Jana Perkins’ Preliminary Exam
PhD candidate Jana Perkins will present her preliminary proposal, "Scholarship Writ Large: A Data-Rich Analysis of Professionalization in English Literary Scholarship From 1940 to the Present." Perkin's preliminary examination committee includes Associate Professor Ryan Cordell (chair), Associate Professor Maria Bonn, Assistant Professor Tess McNulty, Department of English, and Professor Ted Underwood.
Abstract
The standards that must be met by scholars who wish to conduct themselves asprofessionals within the discipline of English literary scholarship have long corresponded to theframeworks of institutional theory, which posits that it is possible to study all manner ofinstitutions—“any social or political organization of considerable size or influence” (OxfordUniversity Press, 2024)—in similar ways because they can be linked by common characteristics.As researchers such as Cai & Mehari (2015) have found, moreover, the application ofinstitutional theory within research on higher education is an increasingly “popular and powerfulexplanatory tool” because it is useful in analyzing the contributing factors of “variousorganisational issues” at both the macro and micro levels.
Question? Contact Jana Perkins.