Richard Conway received his doctorate in Latin American history in 2009. He wrote his dissertation, “Nahuas and Spaniards in the Socioeconomic History of Xochimilco, New Spain, 1550-1725” under the direction of Professor Susan Schroeder. His research interests include relations between Spaniards and Nahuatl-speaking people, or Nahuas, in the contexts of economic competition, social conflict, crime, and notions of community.
Lisa Singleton received a Murphy Institute Center for Ethics and Public Affairs Graduate Fellowship for her Ph.D. dissertation in Latin American history at Tulane University, “Welfare Finance in Mexico, 1820-1890,” in 2008. She is a specialist in social policy and resides in New York City.
Shawn Welnak earned his B.A. in Philosophy (1997), his M.A. in Foreign Languages and Linguistics with an emphasis in Greek (2004), and his M.A. in Philosophy (2004) all at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. He is currently working on his dissertation under Professor Ronna Burger in Tulane’s Department of Philosophy. He is examining Aristotle’s Poetics and its relationship to both philosophy and politics, particularly as “religiously” understood by the great medieval Islamic thinkers such as Alfarabi and Averroës.
Nancy Stockton is a doctoral candidate in American History, writing her dissertation, “All Along the Watchtower: The Feminine Contours of White Supremacy in New Orleans, 1877-1914” under the direction of Professor Randy J. Sparks. Her research interests include the cultural and social history of women in the South, with a special focus on the relationship between class and race. In addition, she studies the influence of religion on southern women and her dissertation addresses the ethical implications of institutionalized racism in the South.
Miles Doleac is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History writing a dissertation entitled “The Condescension of Charity: Poor Relief in the Christian West in the Time of Gregory the Great” under the direction of Thomas Luongo (History) and Dennis Kehoe (Classics). His primary chronological focus is Late Antiquity, wherein his research interests include Christianity, poverty and charitable relief within the early Church, food distribution and consumption, marginal populations and institutional responses to them, monasticism and the evolution of the papacy.
Brian Walters is a doctoral student in the Department of Philosoophy, writing his dissertation, “Necessity in Kant’s Critical System: The Theoretical, Empirical, and Practical Employment” under the direction of Professor Oliver Sensen. He received a B.A., summa cum laude, in Philosophy, Anthropology, and Psychology from Towson University in 2002. In 2007-2008 Mr. Walters was the recipient of an Exchange Fellowship at Freie Universität in Berlin. His academic interests include Kant, the history of modern philosophy, and ancient Greek philosophy.
Travis Mulroy received a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College (Annapolis) in 2003 and an M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago in 2004.
Holding bachelor’s degrees in both English and Philosophy (University of New Orleans, 2003), Michael Falgoust has an interest in creative media, and its place in our lives and society. After completing an M.A. in Philosophy at the University of British Columbia (2006), he returned to New Orleans to begin Ph.D. studies at Tulane.
Melissa Beske is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology. She is currently writing her dissertation entitled “‘If Ih Noh Beat Mi, Ih Noh Lov Mi’ [If He Doesn’t Beat Me, He Doesn’t Love Me]: An Ethnographic Investigation of Intimate Partner Violence in Western Belize” under the direction of Dr. Shanshan Du. She received a B.A., magna cum laude, in Anthropology with minors in Sociology and Women’s Studies from Vanderbilt University in 2004, and a M.A. in Anthropology from Tulane in 2007.
Shane Gassaway received a B.A. in the Liberal Arts from St. John’s College (Santa Fe) in 2006 and an M.A. in Philosophy from Tulane University in 2010. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy. Shane’s main research interests lie in Ancient Political Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, Ancient and Modern. He is writing his dissertation, “Socratic Citizenship and the Political Art” under the supervision of Professor Ronna Burger.
