Congratulations to Catherine Messier, 2024 Falvey Scholar Award Winner

Congratulations to VU English senior Catherine Messier, who is a 2024 Falvey Scholar Award Winner.

According to Falvey Library's website:

"The Falvey Scholars award is an annual program established by Falvey Library and the Center for Research and Fellowships (CRF) to recognize exceptional undergraduate research by senior-level students at Villanova.

"To be considered for the Falvey Scholars award, the process is two-fold. First, faculty mentors are invited to nominate individual or group projects of senior students who have completed exemplary (and publicly presentable) scholarship or research. Then, students who are nominated by faculty mentors will be required formally apply to be considered for the award.

"In applying for the award, students are asked to share information about their overall research process, provide a detailed abstract of their project, as well as a comprehensive bibliography. The awards traditionally have an emphasis on work that has required substantial use of library resources. Students who are applying are asked to include information about library resources and services utilized including librarian assistance, databases, journals, books, Interlibrary Loan, etc. Students may also discuss how the library building aided in their research—from late night study sessions to a welcoming place to meet with professors, co-researchers and scholars.

"A committee consisting of representatives from Falvey Library and CRF typically meets in mid-April to review nominations and applications and to select award winners. 5-7 students are annually granted Falvey Scholars awards."

Furthermore, according to Falvey Library:

"The Villanova community is cordially invited to join us on Friday, April 26, at 10 a.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner for the 2024 Falvey Scholars Research Presentation and Awards Ceremony.

"This program will provide the opportunity to recognize outstanding undergraduate research by the senior students who were selected as the 2024 Falvey Scholars from across Villanova’s campus. The event also serves as a recognition of the dedication of faculty in supporting undergraduate student-faculty collaborative research and scholarship. During the event, award recipients will provide a brief 10-minute presentation to highlight their overall research process and showcase a summary of their winning project.

Program Schedule

10:00-10:10 a.m. Continental Breakfast

10:10 a.m. Program Opening/Welcome: Millicent Gaskell, University Librarian

10:15 a.m. Presentation #1: Anne Eby

10:30 a.m. Presentation #2: Sydney Walsh

10:45 a.m. Presentation #3: PJ Scarperi

11:00 a.m. Presentation #4: Kathleen Jordan

11:15 a.m. Presentation #5: Matthew McMullen

11:30 a.m. Presentation #6: Catherine Messier

11:45 p.m. Closing Remarks: Millicent Gaskell"

We hope you will be able to come on Wednesday to support Catherine!

Congrats to our Spring Funding Recipients

This spring marks the beginning of a new chapter for the English department here at Villanova, as we are now able to provide competitive book scholarships and other funds to support both academic and professional experiences that emphasize exploration and growth. 

We are pleased to be able to offer the following scholarship possibilities to our majors: a merit scholarship for purchasing books, funding to support graduate school testing and application costs, funding to support an internship, funding to support study abroad, and funding to support an academic need or experience (such as supplies, or conference travel).

While English majors may apply for funds and scholarships more than once, preference will be given to students who have not received department funding in the past. Students may receive a maximum of $2,500 in funding over the course of their studies in the English Department.

We have received these funds from a generous donor who wishes to remain anonymous. We are deeply thankful to them.

We are pleased to be able to share the names of some of our first recipients of these funds: Isabel Choi '25, Catherine Messier '24, and Kai Williams '25. Isabel Choi received funds to support a writing internship, Catherine Messier received funds to support studying abroad in Oxford, and Kai Williams received funds for studying abroad and an internship in London. Congratulations to these students!

While applications for funding are currently closed for spring and summer 2024, they will re-open this coming fall. We encourage our majors to apply! You can learn more on our departmental website.

Isabel Choi

Catherine Messier

Kai Williams

Bookstore Expedition: Saturday, April 20 at 1:30

 Back by popular demand! Students from the Reading and Community course will be making an expedition to Main Point Books to browse and buy books on Saturday, April 20, at 1:30 pm. If you are interested in joining in the fun, RSVP here. Build your stack of summer reads!

Attend the Spanish Tragedy for Free

Calling all theater lovers...

Current Villanova students AND alumni/ae can attend The Spanish Tragedy symposium for free!

In academic year 2023-24, Villanova University faculty Dr. Chelsea Phillips (Theater) and Dr. Alice Dailey (English) launched a year-long interdisciplinary exploration of Thomas Kyd’s seminal Renaissance revenge play, The Spanish Tragedy (1582). This extended pedagogical, scholarly, and creative endeavor began with a combined undergraduate-graduate course taught in fall 2023 titled “Legacies of Revenge.” It culminates in a production of The Spanish Tragedy co-directed by Dailey and Phillips and staged in Villanova’s new John and Joan Mullen Center for the Performing Arts in April 2024, along with a coinciding scholarly symposium on April 19-20, 2024. Through both academic study and performance, The Spanish Tragedy Project seeks to foster engagement with the play as at once an historical and contemporary artifact and to deepen our understanding of the play’s place in revenge discourses, which continue to proliferate in popular culture.

The symposium includes a performance of the play!

For more information and to register, visit the project's website.

You can read more about the project elsewhere on the Villanova English blog.

VERT: Catherine Staples's Upcoming Reading and Book Launch

Villanova English Professor Catherine Staples will be launching her newest collection of poetry, Vert, at a special event taking place at Main Point Books on Tuesday, May 7th, at 7 p.m. She will be joined by fellow VU English professor and poet Tsering Wangmo Dhompa.

Per Main Point Books's website: "This event is free; registrations are requested via Eventbrite. Walk-ins are welcome as space permits. The event will be in the store's lower-level event space."

Here is some further information about the book and Professor Staples, borrowed from Main Point Book's event page:

About the Book

Catherine Staples grew up in Massachusetts and it’s there—in New England woods, meadows, and Cape Cod coasts—that the loss of her brother plays out as a quest across space and time: from a weathervane in Madison Square Park to a rusty pump in the Catskills, from words etched on nineteenth-century glass to the track of skates on the Charles River. Place is at the heart of the transformation of loss. So, too, are myth and the lives of New England’s early naturalists and Transcendentalists. Henry David Thoreau’s narrative echoes and enlarges hers. He, too, lost a brother and found his way by tuning ear, eye, and stride to “the living earth,” a new way of seeing things.

Vert is an old word in danger of being lost or misunderstood “In English forest law,” it’s “everything that grows and forms a green leaf, serving as cover for deer.” It’s suggestive of habitat, our imperiled earth, the small spinney of a brother’s memory.

About the Author

Catherine Staples is the author of The Rattling Window and Never a Note Forfeit. Her poems and reviews have appeared in The Academy of American Poets, Kenyon Review, POETRY, The Massachusetts Review, The Southern Review, The Yale Review and others. Awards include the Guy Owen, a McGovern Poetry Prize, and a Walter Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference. She teaches in the Honors and English programs at Villanova University.

You can register ahead of time, for free, for this reading at eventbrite.

Wednesday, April 10: Writing for Social Change: Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail

This event will feature a short discussion of Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail (2017)—an award-winning Palestinian novel that narrates two historical moments to show the haunting and all-too-ordinary nature of colonial violence—followed by a speculative creative writing exercise, inspired by Shibli, where we practice writing for social change. There will be pizza! 

Wednesday, April 10 from 7:30 to 8:30 pm in Falvey 205. ACS approved.

Reading Books like Browsing Costco Aisles

Reading Books like Browsing Costco Aisles    

By Trinity Rogers, VU Class of 2024 and Research Fellow for the Taught by Literature Project

Three weeks ago, I had the opportunity to fly to Pasadena, California for the C19: The Society of Nineteenth Century Americanists Conference with the Taught by Literature Project, which is supported by the Idol Family Fellows Program of the McNulty Institute. Dr. Lutes and I flew to California together and met up with TBL's Co-Founders Dr. Brigitte Fielder and Denise Burgher. Since I joined the project in my sophomore year, I've only ever gotten to be with our whole team in-person once before, in 2022, so it’s always a pleasure to be able to see everyone. We attended different conference sessions on everything from "What's Next in Florida" to Dr. Fielder's very own "Methods for Unending History from William San Pascual Still’s Underground Rail Road (1872)" in which we were lucky enough to hear her sing! The conference, interestingly titled "The End", matched my own solemn emotions as I walked through different sessions. I've been a student fellow with TBL for over two years, and my first conference presentation ever was with them, and so was my last. Dr. Lutes, Denise, and I presented on a panel titled "Gen Z & C19: A Roundtable on Affirming Student Scholars" along with faculty from Haverford College, Queens College, The University of Delaware, University of Southern Indiana, and the University of Connecticut.   

I was surprised to see that I was the only student scholar on our panel, and a bit nervous that I would be the only representative of Gen Z. As it turns out, I was the only representative of Gen Z on the panel, but not in the room. I was pleasantly surprised to see Gen Z scholars in the room who gave head nods and quiet snaps of encouragement as I shared my points and answered questions. While I wouldn't ever want to be the only voice of a generation (entirely too much pressure), I did enjoy being able to share my own thoughts and ideas on how faculty can better support their Gen Z students in research and in and out of classrooms. I was just as excited to mix and mingle with other generations as well, both within the conference and on our expedition to San Diego to film the legendary Dr. Frances Smith Foster.   

After about a three-hour long drive from Pasadena to San Diego at around six a.m., Denise, Dr. Lutes, and I arrived at the home of Dr. Frances Smith Foster. We were greeted first by a banner on her front door that read "RICKY'S HOUSE" and featured a portrait of her small, older, white dog, Ricky. When Dr. Foster opened the door, we were greeted both by her and the infamous Ricky. We were able to set up to film in under thirty minutes, and filmed Dr. Smith Foster reading an excerpt written by the (legendary) nineteenth-century writer and activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, with Ricky at her feet. Afterwards, Dr. Smith Foster answered some questions we had prepared, and she offered probably the best comparison I had heard in a while: "Approach anthologies, and all books really, as if you were at Costco. Try the samples, test it out first, but if it's not for you, then keep it pushing." This, I knew, was just one of the reasons she was incredibly legendary, and I felt honored to have met and spent time with her. I think everyone should approach books and experiences like Costco – take advantage of the opportunity to test it out before you buy it in bulk and commit to something you may not even enjoy.

Image Description: (from left to right) Dr. Amari Johnson, Myself, Dr. Frances Smith Foster, Caleb Lucky, and Darius Pickett. The filming team and myself with Dr. Frances Smith Foster. 

Image Description: (from left to right) Denise Burgher, Myself, Dr. Jean Lutes out to lunch after filming in San Diego. 

Image Description: Ricky sitting in on filming 

Image Description: (from left to right): Denise Burger, myself, Dr. Brigitte Fielder, and Dr. Jean Lutes on the last day of the C19 conference.