Contact one of our Current Students
Below is information on some of our current students who are willing to speak with prospective students about the program. Feel free to contact them with your questions about life in MAPH, Chicago, or the University. This also offers a cross section of the variety of people who come to the University of Chicago as MAPH students.
Marina Bell
Marina Bell received her BA in Philosophy from Mills College in Oakland, California. Her commitment to romantic ideals led her to spend the following year in Paris, working for a portrait painter. This same commitment then led her back to the States to pursue graduate studies in philosophy, while maintaining an informal dedication to creative writing and poetry. She is interested in the project of the reconstruction of mytho-poetic sensibilities in a post-modern landscape. She hopes to go onto do a PhD in philosophy, and eventually to teach.
Will McIntire
Will grew up in the Washington DC area, went to undergrad in Pennsylvania at Franklin & Marshall College, and did his BA in Philosophy. He has since spent four years working in Ohio before coming to MAPH to study Political and Legal Philosophy, which he hopes to continue to do at the doctorate level.
Will likes to cook and loves the Washington Capitals. His CD player and iTunes never stop playing.
Adam Osborn
Adam, a native of South Louisiana, received his BA in English from Tulane University in 2008. He spent the following year in New Orleans trying to be both helpful and productive before making his way north to the MAPH program. During his MAPH year, he is attempting to hone his long-standing love of Medieval literature in general into a proper academic specialty in the hopes of one day earning a Ph.D. Aside from scholarly pursuits, Adam spends a lot of time looking out for concerts he can afford, hanging out and playing games with friends and fellow MAPHers, and spoiling Absinthe, his dog.
Amelia Pace-Borah
In 2007, Amelia graduated with her B.A. in Humanities from the University of Texas in Austin, where she pursued interests in theatre, gender studies, and literature. She wrote her senior thesis on Christian symbolism and the female body in Anne Sexton’s play, Mercy Street. Subsequently, she worked at a non-profit organization called GENaustin, leading groups of middle school and high school girls in discussions on body image, media, self-esteem, and other girlhood issues. She is excited about the opportunity to hone her interests and academic writing through the MAPH program. When Amelia is not reading and drinking way too much coffee, she enjoys exploring Hyde Park with her lovely black lab, Sally.
Andrew Rostan
Andrew, a native of northeast Ohio, earned a B.A. in visual and media arts, films, from Emerson College, Boston, MA, in 2007. He spent a year in Los Angeles, working in the film industry and attempting to launch a career as a screenwriter. Despite several brushes with celebrity and signing a contract with Archaia to publish a graphic novel, his love for the literary, storytelling aspect of his career won out over the cinema itself, and he decided to return to graduate school to study English Literature. Andrew is delighted to be in the MAPH program as the first step towards a life of scholarship. When not reading for school, pleasure, or both, he enjoys old movies, British rock and pop music, baseball, and plenty of cooking.
Abigail Sebaly
Abi graduated from the University of Michigan in 2003 with a BFA in Dance and a BA in English. During this time she also performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. She moved to New York and worked briefly for Dia Art Foundation before joining the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's staff, where she was Director of Special Projects until 2008. She spent 2008–09 in Melbourne, Australia on a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship. While in Australia, she participated in a professional mentorship at the Melbourne International Arts Festival with Artistic Director Kristy Edmunds, and also developed her own choreography at the Victorian College of the Arts. She has presented work and performed in New York, Australia, and, most recently, at Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts, in a collaboration with sculptor Yang Guangnan. She has strong interests in performing arts curation, supporting artists, and broadening the acceptance of art as a vital part of contemporary life. Randomly, she also loves India and has been making yearly winter trips since 2006.
Kirk Susong
Kirk is a native of Georgia with an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Washington & Lee and a law degree from the University of Virginia. He practiced law for ten years as a civil and criminal litigator in New York City, North Carolina, and Atlanta, before taking a break to come to Chicago. His academic interest is the impact of Wittgenstein's thought on religious discourse. He likes skiing, college football and lots of other stuff. He is married to Kate, has a young son Jack, and is expecting a new daughter in just a few weeks!
Yangyang Zong
I graduated from Peking University in 2009, with a BA in English and a minor in French. A long-time literature enthusiast, I came to MAPH to pursue graduate studies in English literature, yet I was amazed by the diverse disciplinary choices offered by MAPH and plunged into cinema studies (and maybe some other fantastic disciplines later). I’m hoping to work towards applying for a PhD in the near future, but right now content to indulge my intellectual curiosity. When I’m not reading or watching movies or discussing Lacan, I’d be cooking vegetarian cuisine and exploring the rich cultural life in Hyde Park and the City of Chicago.
