Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences is at the heart of Brandeis as a research university, and scholarship produced in our labs, libraries and practice rooms is changing the world.

• View our theses and dissertations in the ProQuest database. 
• View recent publications from the Division of Science. 
• View recent GSAS student conferences, publications, and performances.
• View recent GSAS student grant recipients.

Most Retrieved Dissertations and Theses, 2018-2023

Take a look through the most viewed dissertations and theses in GSAS history! Below we share the top five dissertations and theses per decade, ranked by the number of times they have been accessed in the ProQuest database between 2018 and 2023.

1950s

• Salem Witchcraft in American Literature, Maurita Willett, PhD English and American Literature, 1958
• The Maharil and the Ashkenazic Minhag (A Study of Rabbi Jacob Mollin as a Prototype of the Rabbinate in the Fifteenth Century in Germany), Sidney Steinman, PhD Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, 1959
• Perceptual and Cognitive Changes in Sensory Deprivation, Sanford J. Freedman, PhD Psychology, 1959
• Some Effects of Esthetic Conditions, Norbett Lawrence Mintz, PhD Psychology, 1957
• The Effects of Indulgent and Disciplinary Rearing in Four Breeds of Dogs, Daniel Freedman, PhD Psychology, 1957

1960s

• The Laws of the Hittites, Harry Angier Hoffner, Jr., PhD Mediterranean Studies, 1963
• The Concept of Amon-Re as Reflected in the Hymns and Prayers of the Ramesside Period, John Newell Oswalt, PhD Mediterranean Studies, 1968
• The Style of Hittite Epic and Mythology, Bert De Vries, PhD Mediterranean Studies, 1967
• The Concept of Ritual Purity Among the Hittites, James Carroll Moyer, PhD Mediterranean Studies, 1969
• The Calculus of Variations and Global Analysis, Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck, PhD Mathematics, 1968

1970s

• Family Structure and Feminine Personality: The Reproduction of Mothering, Nancy Julia Chodorow, PhD Sociology, 1975
• The Analytic Cauchy Problem with Singular Data, Leslie B. Lamport, PhD Mathematics, 1972
• The Keyboard Music of Domenico Scarlatti: A Re-Evaluation of the Present State of Knowledge in the Light of the Sources, Joel Leonard Sheveloff, PhD Music, 1970
• Fabrics of History: Essays on the Black Sermon, Hortense Jeanette Spillers, PhD English and American Literature, 1974
• The Role and Iconography of Anubis in Meroitic Religion, Janice Wynne Yellin, PhD Classical and Oriental Studies, 1978

1980s

• Political, Economic, Social Framework for the Analysis of Food Systems: A Sugar Case Study, Harris Ralph Gleckman, PhD Sociology, 1982
• John Coltrane’s Music of 1960 Through 1967: Jazz Improvisation as Composition, Lewis R. Porter, PhD Music, 1983
• Lully’s “Armide” at the Paris Opera: A Performance History: 1686-1766, Lois Ann Rosow, PhD Music, 1981
• The Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England, Richard Godbeer, PhD History, 1989
• Success and Failure in the Seventeenth Century Ghetto of Venice: The Life and Thought of Leon Modena, 1571-1648 (Italy), Howard Ernest Adelman, PhD Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, 1985

1990s

• Scoring, Structure, and Signification in J.S. Bach’s “Brandenburg Concertos,” Michael Anthony Marissen, PhD Music, 1991
• The Origins of Government Social Protection Policy in Hong Kong: 1842-1941, Hong Zhou, PhD Comparative History, 1992
• Chopin’s Ballades: A Study of Romantic Form and Time, Adriana Ponce, PhD Musicology, 1998
• Chastity, Heroism, and Allure: Women in Opera of Seventeenth-Century Venice, Wendy Beth Heller, PhD Music, 1995
• Gender, Genre and Professionalism: The Songs of Clara Rogers, Helen Hopekirk, Amy Beach, Margaret Long and Mabel Daniels, 1880-1925, Laurie Katherine Blunsom, PhD Music, 1999

2000s:

• Like a Man: The Production of Masculinity in Modern American Fiction, Daniel Wesley Worden, PhD English and American Literature, 2006
• The Effect of Media’s Objectification of Beauty on Children’s Body Esteem, Margaret A. Oliveira, PhD Psychology, 2000
• The World of Mahler’s Early Symphonies: From Idea to Form, Katarina Markovic Stokes, PhD Musicology, 2004
• Perceptions of Justice in the Criminal Justice System: The Experience of Non-Offending Caregivers of Child Sexual Abuse Victims, Danielle M. Maurice, PhD Psychology, 2008
• Ourlands: Culture, Gender, and Intention in Women’s Land Communities in the United States, Keridwen N. Luis, PhD Anthropology, 2009

2010s

• Jewish Medical Culture: Case Studies in End-of-Life Decision Making, Joshua N. Cypress, PhD Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, 2015
• The Rise of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Coaching: The Social Meanings and Policy Implications of a New Approach for Managing ADHD, Meredith R. Bergey, PhD Sociology and Social Policy, 2015
• National Bodies: Raising South Sudanese in America, Anna Jaysane-Darr, PhD Anthropology, 2013
• The Hampton Way: Collaborative Governance and Youth Civic Engagement in an American City, Diana Schor, PhD Sociology and Social Policy, 2016
• Mindfulness in Relation to Stress, Intrusive Thinking, Sleep Quality and Memory, Nicholas M. Brisbon, PhD Psychology, 2017 

2020s

• Assembling Green Bonds: Data, Narrative, Time, Work, and People in Climate Finance, Aneil Tripathy, PhD Anthropology, 2021
• Unreasonable Blackness: Black Women Writing Madness (1970 – Present), Megan Finch, PhD English, 2020
• Fantasy for Sale: The Appeal for Pompeii’s Lupanar, Claire Yasmin Khokhar, MA Ancient Greek and Roman Studies, 2021
• White or Wight? Race, Neural Synchrony, and Interpersonal Dehumanization, Jeremy C. Simon, PhD Psychology, 2020
• Houses of Genre Fiction: The Shared Estrangement of Postwar American Culture, Jacob Burg, PhD English, 2020