By Barbara C. Ewell
Loyola University of New Orleans

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This listing of PhD dissertations about Kate Chopin and her work draws on Kate Chopin: An Annotated Bibliography of Critical Works by Suzanne Disheroon Green and David J. Caudle, Edith Wharton and Kate Chopin: A Reference Guide by Marlene Springer, “Kate Chopin: An Annotated Bibliography”in the Bulletin of Bibliography by Thomas Bonner, the databases of Dissertation Abstracts International, the Modern Language Association, and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, among other sources. You can read many of these dissertations, search many of them, and find more information about all of them at a research or other library that holds copies of the books or subscribes to the databases. And you can find other lists of resources on this site:

Books and books of essays about Kate Chopin and her work
Articles about Kate Chopin published since 2000
Articles about Kate Chopin published from 1985 through 1999
Articles about Kate Chopin published before 1985
Kate Chopin translations and scholarship into German
Kate Chopin translations and scholarship into Portuguese
Kate Chopin translations and scholarship in Spain

Although “Kate Chopin” may not appear in the title, each dissertation listed here discusses Chopin’s work at some length. The newest dissertations are listed first. [Updated 16 April 2024]

Leonard, Rida. ““I Don’t Want to Cook”: Reconfiguring the Domestic Space in Nineteenth-Century American Literature.” The Claremont Graduate University, 2023.

Slepov, Eugene. “A Study of Geo-Regional Place-Consciousness in American Literature.” City University of New York, 2023.

Aljumah, Saleh. “Unjust Laws, Moral Oppression, and Resistance in Selected Works of Harriet Jacobs, Kate Chopin, Richard Wright, and Tennessee Williams.” Morgan State University, 2022.

Gottlieb, Madeline Ilana. ““Born with the Shadows of Life Heavy upon them”: Reading Twentieth Century American Fiction and Culture through the Death of the Child.” University of New York at Binghamton, 2022.

Hall, Robert C. “Reading Around Narration: Tracing American Myths in Hemingway, Cather, and Chopin.” University of Central Arkansas, 2022.

Kollmer, Matthew. “The U.S. Local Color Corpus 1865-1920 (USLoCo): A Critical Description with Notes for Applications and Preservation.” Washington State University, 2022.

Patel, Shyam Vijay. “More Like Life: Politics and the Organic Metaphor in Late-Victorian Aesthetic Cultures.” University of California, Irvine, 2022.

Robertson, Elizabeth Padgett. “The Racism of Maternalism: Grace King’s Feminine White Supremacy and Edna Pontellier’s Hidden Self: The Queer Possibilities of the Awakening.”  The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2022.

Rovan, Aaron J. “Sacramental Ethnicity: Women’s Culture and Vernacular Religion in Twentieth-Century America.” West Virginia University, 2022.

Schwartz, Michael Andrew. “Vexing the Terrain: Narrative Form as Feminist Critique.” University of California, Riverside, 2022.

Valdez, Johanna. “Scribbling Women? Race, Gender, and Womanhood in Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Literature.” Dartmouth College, 2022.

Alawfi, Ebtesam. “Diversifying Woolf’s Room: Private Spaces and Creativity in the Works of Willa Cather, Kate Chopin, Gayl Jones, and Alice Walker.” University of Arkansas, 2021.

Basone, Bianca. “Mental Illness and Femininity in Late Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Century Anglo-American Literature.” St. John’s University (New York), 2021.

Hay, Genevieve P. “Women, Music, and Protest in American Literature.” Tufts University, 2021.

Marvel, Mariana N. “‘Gnawing–Gnawing–In My Stomach:’ Starvation, Eating, and Embodied Pleasure in Nineteenth-Century Women’s Fiction.” University of Wyoming, 2021.

Rosenbaum, Sharla. “Queering the Metanarrative of Domesticity: Chosen Families in Late Nineteenth- Century American Women’s Literature.” University of Arkansas, 2021

Smith, Carmen Sylvia. “Almost Speechless: Representations of Womanhood and Female Voices in Turn­-of-­the-Century American Novels.” The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 2021.

Takeda, Ikuko. “The Confederate Stories of America: The Short-Story Cycle and the Representation of the American South.” Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College, 2021.

Thompson, Katelyn Renea. “The Purity Problem: Analyzing American Women’s Literature and Sex Expression of the Nineteenth Century.” Texas Christian University, 2021.

Wardlaw, Alexa Beth. “I’ll Fly Away.” University of Louisiana at Monroe, 2021.

Coenen-Rowe, Lewis. “Portfolio of Compositions and Commentary.” University of London, King’s College (United Kingdom), 2020.

Crosswhite, Jamie Clay. “Troubling Place: Feminist Regional Narratives Navigate Intersections, Tensions, and Silences.” The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2020.

Harper, Andy. “Utopian Regionalism: The Speculative Radicalism of Local Color in the Long Gilded Age. “Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 2020.

Rawlins, Paula Michelle. “Conveying the Unspeakable: Uncovering the Tradition of Expressive Art Therapies in Southern Literature.” University of Georgia, 2020.

Scully, Jessica Mitzner. “Unbound: Analyzing White Supremacy in American Literature, 1892–1903.” Tufts University, 2020.

Bonanno, Morgan. “Anxious, Depressed, and Historically Oppressed: Depictions of Women’s Mental Health in American Literature and Journalism, 1887-1927.” The William Paterson University of New Jersey, 2019.

Galas, Lara. “American Souths: Reading Social Markers through the Landscape.” University of California, Santa Cruz, 2019.

Hefner, McKinze. “Agency, Gender, and Constraint: Examining Shame in The Awakening.” U of Oklahoma, 2019.

Kang, Meeyoung. “Aesthetics and Politics of Feminist Tragic Narratives at the Turn of the Nineteenth-Century into the Twentieth.” U of Kansas, 2019.

Kuczynski, Sarah Anne. “Contentment and Its Discontents.” The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2019.

Litvin, Sarah F. “In Her Own Hands: How Girls and Women Used the Piano to Chart their Futures, Expand Women’s Roles, and Shape Music in America, 1880–1920.” City U of New York, 2019.

Malcom, Susan A. “Motherhood and the Periodical Press: The Myth and the Medium.” U of Nebraska–Lincoln, 2019.

Moldow, Susan. “Animate Things and Their Empowered Women in Kate Chopin’s ‘A Pair of Silk Stockings,’ ‘A Very Fine Fiddle’ and ‘Azelie’.” Florida Atlantic University, 2019.

Urban, April M. “Descent’s Delicate Branches: Darwinian Visions of Race and Gender in American Women’s Literature, 1859-1928.” Purdue University, 2019.

Aikens, Natalie M. “The Plantation Pull: Modernities and Genre in the Anglo-Hispanic-Dutch Caribbean-Atlantic, 1831-1935.” U of Mississippi, 2018.

Alkindi, Ghadeir. “Making a Way out of No Way: An Examination of the New Woman in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction.” The Claremont Graduate University, 2018.

Desmond, Theresa. “Reimagining Modernity’s Spinsters: Extricating Themselves from the Roles of Embittered Caretakers, Diminutive Servants and Social Outcasts.” State U of New York at Stony Brook, 2018.

Dyer, Darby. “The Application of Aristotelian Rhetorical Appeals in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and ‘Athenaise’.”  Texas Woman’s U, 2017.

Fox, Heather A. “Arranging Stories: The Implications of Narrative Decision in Short Story Collections by Southern Women Writers, 1894-1944.” U of South Florida, 2017.

Harmon, Cortney Rena. “‘The ‘Turn of the Century’ Female Protagonist: The Conflict between Self-Realization and Societal Oppression in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth.”  Murray State U, 2015.

Hildebrand, Molly J. “Mind the Gap: The Visual Arts, the Reader-as-Viewer, and Identity Critique in Early Twentieth-Century American Women’s Writing.” Tufts U, 2015.

Jung, Anne S. “Threads of Truth: Aesthetics of a Sacrificed Self in the Nineteenth-Century American Romance of Susanna Rowson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James and Kate Chopin.” State U of New York, 2015.

O’Donoghue, Kate. “Loosening the Critical Corset: New Approaches to the Short Fiction of Kate Chopin and Ruth Stuart.” City U of New York, 2015.

Roberts, Rosalie, “Crafting Radical Fictions: Late-Nineteenth Century American Literary Regionalism and Arts and Crafts Ideals.” U of Oregon, 2015.

Fertel, Rien T. “Imagining the Creole City: White Creole Print Culture, Community, and Identity Formation in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans.” Tulane U, 2013.

Walker, Rafael. “Realism After Liberalism: Women, Desire, and the Modern American Novel.” U of Pennsylvania, 2013.

Zibrak, Arielle. “Aesthetic Counter-Traditions: Anti-Identity and Nineteenth-Century Anglo-American Literature.” Boston U, 2013.

Berkley, Angela Marie. “Show and Tell: Photography, Film and Literary Naturalism in Late Nineteenth Century America.” U of Michigan, 2012.

Isom, Patrice Moehle. The Female Hero’s Journey in Molly Gloss’s Wild Life, Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.” California State U, Fresno, 2012.

Khoshnood, Ali. “The Propriety of the Emergence of New Woman in Kate Chopin’s Selected Fiction.” Kuala Lumpur, U Putra Malaysia, 2012.

Von Schlichten, David Paul. “‘The Angel Said Unto Me ‘Write!’: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Ecofeminist Homiletics.” Indiana U of Pennsylvania, 2012.

Clasen, Kelly. “Reconsidering Regionalism: The Environmental Ethics of Sarah Orne Jewett, Kate Chopin, and Willa Cather.” U of North Texas, 2011.

Long, Xiang. “Female Entrapment in the Works of Elizabeth Stoddard, Kate Chopin, and Edith Wharton.” Chinese U of Hong Kong, 2011.

McCulla, Jessica. “The Body Bound and the Body Unbound: Rebirth, Sensuality, and Identity in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Andre Gide’s L’Immoraliste.” Arizona State U, 2011.

Miller, Tiffany R. “The Lady in the House: The Southern Belle, the Home, and Literary Modernism.” U of South Alabama, 2011.

Roop, Karen Kel. “‘You done Cheat Mose Out o’ De Job, Anyways; we all Knows Dat’: Faith Healing in the Fiction of Kate Chopin.” U of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2011.

Von Cannon, Jordan L. “Lost Ladies, New Women: Narrative Voice and Female Identity in Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.” U of Kansas, 2011.

Bayer, Ellen M. “‘Brooding Reflection’: Redefining the Literary Impression in Henry James and Kate Chopin.” Purdue U, 2010.

Gamble, Kelly. “What Character of Woman is Edna Pontellier?” California State U, Dominguez Hills, 2010.

Hinson, Pamela Denise. “Standing in Creon’s Shadow: Defining the Female Tragic Hero.” California State U, Dominguez Hills, 2010.

Lynch, Suzanne Marie. “From Exile to Transcendence: Racial Mixture and the Journey of Revision in the Works of Lydia Maria Child, Hannah Crafts, Kate Chopin, James Weldon Johnson, and Jean Toomer.” U of Illinois, Urbana, 2010.

Watts, Rachel S. “Creole Bodies and Intersecting Lives and Oppressions: An Intertextual Dialogue between Kate Chopin and Alice Dunbar-Nelson.” U of Alabama, 2010.

Giovanielli, Tina. “Creative Constriction: The use of the American Short Story at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” U of Rochester, 2009.

Salamin, Jessica. “Hanging in the Balance: The Lure of Nietzsche’s Apollonian and Dionysiac Impulses in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.” Florida Atlantic U, 2009.

McCarthy, Jessica E. Schubert. “Genre Bending: The Work of American Women’s Writing, 1860–1925.” Washington State U, 2009.

Elkins-Livingston, Miranda. “The Depiction of Male Characters in Selected Short Fiction of Kate Chopin.” Texas Woman’s U, 2009.

Zhang, Baoguo. “Incorporating English Morphological Knowledge into ESL Vocabulary Teaching. Accidental Death: A Different Explanation of Edna’s Destiny.” Idaho State U, 2009.

Harmon, Rachel. “Daughters of Eve: Childbirth in Faulkner, Hemingway, and the Real World.” U of New Mexico, 2009.

Carroll, Colleen. “The Narcissus Myth and Failed Female Transitions in The Portrait of a Lady, The Awakening, and The House of Mirth.” California State U, Dominguez Hills, 2008.

Wesson-Martin, Jana. “Never Too Late to be: Women’s Yearnings for Self-Realization.” Capella U, 2008.

Randall, Kelli V. “Depictions of Marriage: Fictions of Race and Gender in the Age of Realism.” Emory U, 2007.

Ladd, Michelle Renee. “Sometimes a Cigar: Literature and the American Experience of Modernity.” Claremont Graduate U, 2007.

Greenlee, Anneta. “Dying to Belong: Women’s Search for Perfect Love in the Works of Zinaida Gippius, Kate Chopin, Galina Shcherbakova and Lya Luft.” City U of New York, 2007.

Kirk-Clausen, Veronica. “Translation and Transnationalism in American Regional Literature.” U of California, Santa Cruz, 2007.

Parmiter, Tara K. “Home Away from Home: The Summer Place in Turn-of-the-Twentieth Century American Women’s Literature.” New York U, 2006.

Sasa, Ghada Suleiman. “The Femme Fatale in American Naturalism.” Indiana U of Pennsylvania, 2005.

Schneider, Cynthia A. “Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! as a Response to Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.” U of Nebraska – Lincoln, 2005.

Vaughn, Sally Rae. “Gender Politics and Isolation in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.” Texas Woman’s U, 2005.

Defrancis, Theresa. “Women-Writing-Women: Three American Responses to the Woman Question.” U of Rhode Island, 2005.

Wehner, David Zahm. “‘A Lot Up for Grabs’: The Conversion Narrative in Modernity in Kate Chopin, Flannery O’Connor, and Toni Morrison.” U of Minnesota, 2005.

Hebert-Leiter, Maria. “From Acadian to American: The Literary Americanization of Cajuns.” U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2005.

Massie, Virginia Zirkel. “Solitary Blessings: Solitude in the Fiction of Hawthorne, Melville, and Kate Chopin.” Louisiana State U, 2005.

Hobbs, Amy Laurel. “‘The World, our Home’: The Rhetorical Vision of Women’s Clubs in American Literature, 1870–1920.” U of Maryland, College Park, 2005.

Simas-Almeida, Leonor. “The Reader’s Emotional Response to the Characters in O Primo Bazilio, Madame Bovary and The Awakening.” Brown U, 2004.

Morgan, Thomas Lewis. “The Rise of the American Short Story: Politics and Form in the Age of the Novel, 1885–1900.” State U of New York at Buffalo, 2004.

Marotte, Mary Ruth. “The Captive Body: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Women Writers Redefine Pregnancy and Childbirth.” U of Tennessee, 2004.

Buss, Jessica. “Challenging Authority through Narration: A Study of the Works of Jane Austen and Kate Chopin.” Truman State U, 2004.

Schade, Jody June. “The Inevitability of Failure: Edna Pontellier’s Pursuit of Self in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.” Roosevelt U, 2004.

Zellmer, Jill Marie. “Valuing Female Friendship: The Ethics of Intimacy in American Women’s Novels from 1870–1990.” U of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, 2003.

Brandt, Maria Frances. “Reading Anxiety: The New Woman and Narrative Strategy in American Literature, 1899–1909.” Boston College, 2003.

Waryck, Jamie Jeanne. “‘We were Free—but there was a String’: The Struggle of Nineteenth Century Women Writers to Escape the Patriarchy on the Page.” Roosevelt U, 2003.

McHarris, Wendy Ann Fortson. “Symbolism in Kate Chopin’s Final Awakening.” Michigan State U, 2002.

Weiss, Saundra Tara. “Love’s Descent into Melancholy.” City U of New York, 2002.

Halydier, Susan Kay. “Kate Chopin’s Edna Pontellier: Profile of Bipolar Disorder.” Texas Woman’s U, 2002.

Schwartz-McKinzie, Esther. “‘Play with the Stories a Little while’: Mobility of Mind in Short Fictions by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, George Egerton and Sarah Grand.” Temple U, 2002.

Lamothe, Mary Victoria. “Racial Politics and the Literary Marketplace in the Local Color Fiction of Kate Chopin.” Fordham U, 2002.

Coffelt, Jamie Roberta. “She ‘Too Much of Water Hast’: Drownings and Near-Drownings in Twentieth-Century North American Literature by Women.” U of North Texas, 2001.

Elz, A. E. “Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady: The Evolution of the New Woman.” Baylor U, 2001.

Horn, Jessica. “Maternal Misogyny: Absent Mothers in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Fiction.” East Tennessee State U, 2001.

Williams, Julian Lance. “The ‘Other’ Awakening: American Character, Pragmatism, and the Assassinations of Kate Chopin and Charles Chesnutt.” Columbia U, 2001.

Barlament, Laura Maricque. “Wagner’s ‘Tristan’ and the Limits of Love: Tristanism in Thomas Mann, Kate Chopin, and Willa Cather.” Emory U, 2001.

Muhammad, Suzana Haji. “Voices of Disobedience in the Fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Nella Larsen, and Mary Austin.” Indiana U of Pennsylvania, 2001.

Hume, Barbara. “The Female Artist as a Feminist Expression.” California State U, Dominguez Hills, 2000.

McMullin, Vicki. “Kate Chopin: The Woman and the Myth.” California State U, Dominguez Hills, 2000.

Pogue, Laura Lyn Bearrie. “Devouring Words: Eating and Feeding in Selected Fiction of Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, and Willa Cather.” Baylor U, 2000.

Flanigan, Elaine. “Maternal Deprivation and the Disruption of the Cult of Domesticity: Three Case Studies in Hawthorne, Crane, and Chopin.” Saint Louis U, 2000.

Witherow, Jean Ann. “Kate Chopin’s Contribution to Realism and Naturalism: Reconsiderations of W. D. Howells, Maupassant, and Flaubert.” Louisiana State U, 2000.

Brown, Kathleen B. “Teaching Critical Perspectives through Film and Television Adaptations of Literary Texts.” Catholic U of America, 2000.

Staunton, John Anthony. “Character, Community, and the Form of Ethics in Four American Regionalists: Alice Cary, Kate Chopin, Walker Percy, Larry Brown.” Fordham U, 1999.

Ito, Fumihiko. “A Quest for Self and Love: Two Philosophical Dimensions of Edna’s Struggle Toward Self-Fulfillment and its Tragic Consequence in The Awakening.” U of Mississippi, 1999.

Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew. “Dead Letters: Ghostly Inscriptions and Theoretical Hauntings.” George Washington U, 1999.

Ray, Christi Rene. “Literary Criticism on Kate Chopin’s The Awakening: An Analysis of Recent Subject Trends.” Angelo State U, 1999.

Schinella, Kristin Anne. “Ways of being Woman: The Social Construction of Femininity in Nineteenth-Century American Literature.” California School of Professional Psychology – Berkeley/Alameda, 1999.

O’Neal, Mary Anne. “New Orleans Realists: Grace King, Kate Chopin, and Alice Dunbar-Nelson.” U of Georgia, 1999.

Lynch, Sonja Froiland. “Perceptions of Life: American Literary Impressionism in the Works of Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, Henry James, and Ernest Hemingway.” Indiana U, 1999.

White, Catherine Doxey. “Individuality, Art, and Motherhood in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Willa Cather’s My Antonia.” California State U, Dominguez Hills, 1999.

Lecourt, Nancy Hoyt. “Motherwork, Artwork: The Mother/Artist in Fiction by Parton, Phelps, Chopin, Woolf, Drabble, and Walker.” U of New Hampshire, 1999.

Blatter, Rochelle Lynn. “An Analysis of Kate Chopin and the Culture of Nineteenth Century America.” California State U, Dominguez Hills, 1999.

Barnett, Martha Floyd. “The Grotesque Southern Woman of Twentieth Century Fiction: The Women of Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy.” U of South Florida, 1998.

Shaker, Bonnie James. “Coloring Locals: Identity Politics in Kate Chopin’s Youth’s Companion Stories, 1891-1902.” Case Western Reserve U, 1998.

Mackey, Melodie Anne. “The Female Hero.” California State U, Dominguez Hills, 1998.

Weinbaum, Alys Eve. “Genealogies of ‘Race’ and Reproduction in Trans-Atlantic Modern Thought.” Columbia U, 1998.

Douglas, Connie Ann Woodruff. “Chopin’s Vision: Interrogating Gender Roles of the Creole Female.” Tulane U, 1998.

Arima, Hiroko. “The Theme of Isolation in Selected Short Fiction of Kate Chopin, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty.” U of North Texas, 1998.

Johnson, Rose Marie. “Cultural Constructs: Building a Visual Rhetoric for Understanding Literature.” U of Texas at Arlington, 1998.

Rich, Charlotte Jennifer. “Transgression and Convention: The New Woman and the Fiction of Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” U of Georgia, 1998.

Ruotolo, Cristina Lucia. “ReSounding Fictions: Music, Literature and Audience in Early Twentieth-Century America.” Yale U, 1997.

Sinclair, Gail Ann D. “Rising to the Surface: Suicide as Narrative Strategy in Twentieth Century Women’s Fiction.” U of South Florida, 1997.

Adamowicz, Catherine. “Indicated Silences in American Novels.” U of Rhode Island, 1997.

Green, Suzanne Disheroon. “Knowing is Seaing: Conceptual Metaphor in the Fiction of Kate Chopin.” U of North Texas, 1997.

Rippon, Maria Rose. “Whose Crime and Whose Punishment? Adultery in the Nineteenth-Century Novel.” U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1997.

Sempreora, Margot Sahrbeck. “Translating Women: The Short Fiction of Kate Chopin and Alice Dunbar-Nelson and the Films of Julie Dash.” Tufts U, 1997.

Martin, Linda. “Death of Desire, Desire of Death: An Exploration of Narcissism and Death in Madame Bovary and The Awakening.” U of Victoria, Canada, 1997.

Kramb, Marie Annette. “Maternal Responsibility in Turn-of-the-Century Novels by American Women: Power, Resistance, Revision.” U of Notre Dame, 1996.

Mathews, Carolyn Louise. “Fabricating Identities: Dress in American Realist Novels, 1880-1925.” U of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1996.

McGowan, Todd Robert. “The Empty Subject: The New Canon and the Politics of Existence.” Ohio State U, 1996.

Dahlberg, Mary Margaret. “‘Now She Understood’: Free Indirect Discourse and its Effects.” U of North Dakota, 1996.

Jasin, Soledad Herrero-Ducloux. “Sex and Suicide in Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, The Awakening and The House of Mirth.” U of Texas at Dallas, 1996.

Seay, Geraldine Hord. “The Literature of Jim Crow: Call and Response.” U of Florida, 1996.

Derrickson, Teresa Lynn. “Women and Wifehood: The Story of Self in Three Nineteeth-Century Novels.” U of Alaska Anchorage, 1996.

Bonifer, M. S. “Like a Motherless Child: The Orphan Figure in the Novels of Nineteenth Century American Women Writers, 1850-1899.” Indiana U of Pennsylvania, 1995.

Blaze, Margaret K. “Life Doesn’t Have to End at Thirty: Some Advice from Kate Chopin, Margaret Drabble, Margaret Atwood, Jane Campion, and Janet Frame.” U of Wyoming, 1995.

Boyd, Veleda Deschner. “The Rhetoric of Gender Politics in At Fault and Selected Short Stories of Kate Chopin.” Texas Woman’s U, 1995.

Sigmar, Lucia Anne Stretcher. “The Gothic Tradition in Southern Local Color Fiction.” U of Tennessee, 1995.

Novak, Terry D. “Writing from the Spirit, Writing from the Soul: Five Nineteenth Century American Women Writers as Purveyors of Spirituality and Feminism.” U of Nevada, Las Vegas, 1995.

Russell, Kate Esary. “The Hidden Darkness: Landscape as Psychological Symbol in Kate Chopin’s Fiction.” Emory U, 1995.

Weesner, Anna Theresa. “‘Ordinary Mysteries’, an Adaptation of Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour’ for Soprano and Ensemble; Tonality in Nontonal Music: A Study of Judith Weir’s The Consolations of Scholarship.” Cornell U, 1995.

Bucher, Christina Gloria. “Transgressive Triangles: Desire, Gender, and the Text in Five American Novels, 1852-1905.” U of Tennessee, 1994.

Waldron, Karen E. “Coming to Consciousness, Coming to Voice: The Reinvention of Eve in American Women’s Writings.” Brandeis U, 1994.

Kornasky, Linda Ann. “Women Writers of American Literary Naturalism, 1892–1932.” Tulane U, 1994.

Monda, Kimberly Ann. “Resisting Self-Sacrifice: Subjectivity and Sexuality in Six American Women’s Novels from Chopin to Hurston.” U of California, Los Angeles, 1994.

Bauer, Margaret Donovan. “The Fiction of Ellen Gilchrist: An Intertextual Reading with Works by Ernest Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, William Faulkner, and Kate Chopin.” U of Tennessee, 1993.

Dressler, Mylene Caroline. “Unmasking the Female Spectator: Sighting Feminist Strategies in Chopin, Glasgow, and Larsen.” Rice U, 1993.

Di Pierro, Marianne Elizabeth. “The Utopian Vision in the Works of Wollstonecraft, Gilman, and Chopin.” U of South Florida, 1993.

Noack-Raisch, Mary. “Edna Pontellier and Lily Bart: A Study of Character and Early Criticism in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth.” Northeast Missouri State U, 1993.

Harris, Judith L. “The Darkness of Encounter: The Figure of Psyche in Romantic Literature.” George Washington U, 1993.

Dickson, Rebecca Joanne. “Ladies Out of Touch: Kate Chopin’s Voiceless and Disembodied Women.” U of Colorado at Boulder, 1993.

Birnbaum, Michele Amy. “Dark Intimacies: The Racial Politics of Womanhood in the 1890s.” U of Washington, 1992.

Eden, Edward Farrell. “The Work of Women’s Desire in Turn-of-the-Century American Fiction.” U of Virginia, 1992.

McCullough, Mary Katherine. “Figuring Gender: British and American Women’s Narratives of the 1890s.” U of California, Berkeley, 1992.

Jones, Susan Agee. “Rethinking American Women’s Literary History: The Domestic Novel and the Rise of the Short Story.” Northwestern U, 1992.

Gentry, Deborah Suiter. “The Art of Dying: Suicide in the Works of Kate Chopin and Sylvia Plath.” Middle Tennessee State U, 1992.

Ma, Yuanxi. “The Myth of Awakening: American and Chinese Women Writers.” State U of New York at Buffalo, 1992.

Snitzer, Maria Fernandez. “Telling the Lives of Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, and Willa Cather: The Effects of Social Change and Ideology upon Literary Biography.” Saint Louis U, 1992.

Bendel-Simso, Mary. “The Politics of Reproduction: Demystifying Female Gender in Southern Literature.” State U of New York at Binghamton, 1992.

Sims, Allison Maria. “Music in Kate Chopin’s Fiction.” U of Alabama in Huntsville, 1991.

Podlasli, Heidi M. “Freedom and Existentialist Choice in the Fiction of Kate Chopin.” Ball State U, 1991.

Garfield, Deborah Michelle. “Power: Women, Privation and Language in American Narrative, 1861–1936.” U of Virginia, 1991.

Bracken, Laura D. L. “Kate Chopin: The use of Dialogics to Redefine the Feminine Identity.” U of Texas at Arlington, 1991.

Kelley, Annetta Mary Frances. “Kate Chopin’s Usage of French and Usage of Subtext in Her Stories and Novels: Two Studies.” U of Toledo, 1991.

Kunf, Marcia Ann. “Kate Chopin’s Female Characters: A Study in Conflict and Growth.” Florida Atlantic U, 1991.

Powell, Sally Ann Smyer. “The Anima/Animus Complex in Selected Short Stories of Kate Chopin.” Texas A&I U, 1991.

Stayton, Susan Dean. “From Rowson to Chopin: Radical Compromise.” U of Texas at Austin, 1991.

Cutter, Martha J. “Revisionary Voices: Language and Feminine Subjectivity in the Works of Freeman, Chopin, and Gilman.” Brown U, 1991.

McKay, Sylvie. “‘Athenaise’ De Kate Chopin, Suivi De Prismes De La Traduction Litteraire.” McGill U, Canada, 1990.

Sparks, Laurel Vivian. “Counterparts: The Fiction of Mary Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Kate Chopin.” U of Iowa, 1990.

Yonogi, Reiko. “The Struggle Towards Self-Fulfillment in Comparative Perspective: The Theme of Woman’s Awakening in Three Realist Novels–Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and Arishima Takeo’s Aru Onna.” U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1989.

Brown, Susan Margaret. “Giving Up the Unessential Maternity and Sexuality in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Edith Wharton’s The Mother’s Recompense.” Dalhousie U, Canada, 1989.

Lehman, Suzanne Marie. “Kate Chopin’s The Awakening: Narcissism in the Suicide and Sexuality of Edna Pontellier.” U of North Texas, 1988.

Thomas, Heather Kirk. “”A Vocation and a Voice”: A Documentary Life of Kate Chopin.” U of Missouri – Columbia, 1988.

Caldwell, Eleanor Mitchell. “Disturbers of the Peace: Representations of Women in the Stories of Kate Chopin.” Florida Atlantic U, 1988.

Fleming, Bonnye B. “‘Si Tu Savais’: Understanding and Misunderstanding in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.” U of Alabama in Huntsville, 1987.

Merideth, Eunice Mae. “Stylistic Gender Patterns in Fiction: A Curricular Concern (Henry James; Kate Chopin).” Iowa State U, 1987.

Young, Margaret Mary. “Exposing the Myth of Bliss: Marriage and the Female Adam in the Fiction of Kate Chopin.” Saint Louis U, 1986.

Dearbone, Moselle Arnetta Williams. “‘Discordant Sound’: The Search for ‘the Harmony of an Undivided Existence’ in Kate Chopin’s Fiction.” U of Houston, 1986.

Harris, Miriam Kalman. “Unsung Heroines: A Study of the Heroic in Women’s Literature.” U of Texas at Dallas, 1985.

Gupta, Linda Roberta. “Fathers and Daughters in Women’s Novels: Jane Austen, Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Woolf, Bowen, Atwood, Mary Gordon.” American U, 1983.

Papke, Mary Elizabeth. “‘Abysses of Solitude’: The Social Fiction of Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton.” McGill U, Canada, 1983.

Parker, Pamela Lorraine. “The Search for Autonomy in the Works of Kate Chopin, Ellen Glasgow, Carson Mccullers, and Shirley Ann Grau.” Rice U, 1982.

Leder, Priscilla Gay. “‘Snug Contrivances’: The Classic American Novel as Reformulated by Kate Chopin, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Edith Wharton.” U of California, Irvine, 1981.

Clatworthy, Joan Mayerson. “Kate Chopin: The Inward Life which Questions.” State U of New York at Buffalo, 1979.

Butler, Harry Scott. “Sexuality in the Fiction of Kate Chopin.” Duke U, 1979.

Jorgensen, Karen Lox. “Kate Chopin’s At Fault: A Search for the Influence of Guy De Maupassant, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.” U of Texas – Pan American, 1979.

Garitta, Anthony Paul. “The Critical Reputation of Kate Chopin.” U of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1978.

Lattin, Sarah Patricia Hopkins. “Method and Vision in Kate Chopin’s Fiction.” U of Kentucky, 1977.

Dyer, Joyce Ann. “Kate Chopin’s use of Natural Correlatives as Psychological Symbols in Her Fiction.” Kent State U, 1977.

Roumm, Phyllis G. “Portraits of Suffering Womanhood in Representative Nineteenth-Century American Novels: The Contribution of Kate Chopin.” Kent State U, 1977.

Chapin, Helen Geracimos. “Mythology and American Realism: Studies in Fiction by Henry Adams, Henry James, and Kate Chopin.” Ohio State U, 1975.

Van Sittert, Barbara Culver. “Social Institutions and Biological Determinism in the Fictional World of Kate Chopin.” Arizona State U, 1975.

Bonner, Thomas. “A Critical Study of the Fiction of Kate Chopin: The Formal Elements.” Tulane U, 1975.

Toth, Emily. “That Outward Existence which Conforms: Kate Chopin and Literary Convention.” Johns Hopkins U, 1975.

Lally, Joan Marie. “Kate Chopin: Four Studies.” U of Utah, 1973.

Skaggs, Peggy Dechert. “A Woman’s Place: The Search for Identity in Kate Chopin’s Female Characters.” Texas A&M U, 1972.

Petersen, Peter James. “The Fiction of Kate Chopin.” U of New Mexico, 1972.

Koloski, Bernard John. “Kate Chopin and the Search for a Code of Behavior.” U of Arizona, 1972.

Frisby,James R.,,Jr. “New Orleans Writers and the Negro: George Washington Cable, Grace King, Ruth Mcenery Stuart, Kate Chopin, and Lafcadio Hearn, 1870–1900.” Emory U, 1972.

Martin, Richard Arthur. “The Fictive World of Kate Chopin.” Northwestern U, 1972.

Arner, Robert David. “Music from a Farther Room: A Study of the Fiction of Kate Chopin.” Pennsylvania State U, 1972.

Black, Regina Helene. “A Comparison of the Creoles of George Washington Cable and Kate Chopin.” U of Wyoming, 1952.

Rankin, Daniel S. “Kate Chopin and Her Creole Stories.” U of Pennsylvania, 1932.

KateChopin.org draws on scholars’ discoveries and insights to offer accurate, up-to-date information about Kate Chopin and her work. We seek to incorporate scholarly contributions to the site in several ways:

Listings of scholarly books, book chapters, and articles about Chopin

We seek to be comprehensive, to list useful publications about Chopin. If you’ve published something we’ve missed, please tell us; we’ll be glad to add it. If a book or article we’ve listed is now available online, please send us the link and we’ll add that to the entry. You can find lists of scholarship at the bottom of those pages of the site devoted to a novel or short story.

References to scholars’ publications in questions and answers

When a visitor to the site poses a question, we try to direct readers to scholars’ publications in our answer. If we’ve missed your work in answering a question, tell us about that? If nobody has posed an important question that your publication deals with, write to us? You can find an example of scholars’ work being referred to in a question’s answer at many places on the site.

Direct appeals to scholars over answers to readers’ questions

At times we’ve asked scholars for their opinion on a subject posed by a visitor. When we received a question about the expression “yellow nurse” in “Désirée’s Baby,” we asked Emily Toth, Tom Bonner, and Barbara Ewell to discuss the matter. If you would like us to call on you when a question comes up, write to us and explain the areas of Chopin’s work you are most interested in.

Direct contributions to the site

If you’re a scholar or an advanced graduate student and have something fresh to add about Chopin’s work or her life, we invite you to submit a brief comment for posting on the site. We’re thinking 300 to 400 words might be a good length for a comment too short for a full-fledged essay, or it might be an appropriate length for an excerpt from a conference presentation you’d like to share with a larger audience. We’ll include your name and your academic or other affiliation, we’ll keep your posting up on the site, and we’ll link it to from relevant pages on the site. For example, if you post a discussion about “The Story of an Hour,” we’ll link to it on the site’s page devoted to that story.

But do keep our readers in mind. KateChopin.org often receives a thousand or more of visits a day from people in countries around the world–students, scholars, teachers, librarians, journalists, translators, film makers, playwrights, book-club members, bloggers–readers of all kinds who come to the site for information about Chopin and her work. Please write clearly and avoid unnecessary jargon.

We’ll copyedit your discussion and check with you before we post it.

We cannot know if your department or university will accept what we publish on KateChopin.org as a contribution to your scholarly growth, but the  site received nearly half a million visitors in 2014, so we are fairly confident that your work will be available to a large and interested readership. And information on the site is copyrighted.

The MLA International Bibliography indexes the pages on this website.

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