Villanova English Department Essay Awards

Though courses have moved online, Villanova English will still be giving out its writing awards at the end of the semester. If you have a piece of work that you're especially proud of, consider submitting it for consideration for one of these awards.

The Jerome J. Fischer Memorial Award, which come with a prize of $250, is given to the most distinguished scholarly or critical essays written by an undergraduate student at Villanova within the last 12 months.

Submissions for the Fischer Award must have been written either for a Villanova English course (all except ENG 1975) or for a Villanova Honors course (2000 level or higher) taught by a member of the Villanova English faculty. It is permissible to revise or expand papers beyond what was submitted for the course. Submissions may be excerpted from a senior Honors thesis.

The Core Literature and Writing Seminar Essay Award, which also comes with a prize of $250, is given to the most distinguished critical essay written for a Villanova Core Literature and Writing Seminar (ENG 1975) in the previous calendar year (i.e. in 2019).

Format

• In addition to their essay, students should include a cover page including the course and professor for which the paper was written, as well as their local address, email, and telephone number.
• Students should also submit the essay assignment or an approximation of the assignment.
• Essays should be formatted in Times New Roman 12 (or equivalent font) and double-spaced. For the Fischer Award, papers up to 6 pages will be considered separately from papers that are 6-15 pages. Longer papers are expected to engage scholarly sources.
• Essays should be formatted in MLA or Chicago Style.
• Only one submission per student is allowed.
• Judges are looking for argumentative originality and rigor, elegance of writing, and interpretive incisiveness. Submissions should be carefully proofread.

The deadline for submissions is April 10, 2020.  E-mail submissions via attachment to sharon.rose-davis@villanova.edu or joseph.drury@villanova.edu.

For previous winners, as well as information about Jerome J. Fischer, see our department Awards page.

Villanova English's 2018 Awards Ceremony

Job Opportunity! Editorial Assistant at Publishing Company in New York

Villanova English alum Jackie Douglass ('19) recently contacted us with information about an exciting job opportunity with her employer, Sourcebooks, an independent publishing company. The opening is for an editorial assistant in their New York office.

Responsibilities include:

• Oversee the project management, workflow, and planning of new and existing children’s and young adult titles, including setting schedules and meeting aggressive deadlines
• Ensure timely completion of series and solo projects developed and produced by New York children’s and young adult acquiring editors
• Research prepublication project and category competitive sets for sales, positioning, price, package, etc.
• Copywriting for launch, catalog pages, ARCs, other metadata maintenance
• Read, log and review incoming manuscripts and prepare them for submission
• Prepare materials for launches, presales, and sales conference
• Maintain a good relationship with agents and authors by being responsive, professional, and helpful
• Daily maintenance of NY office, including organization of materials, ordering office supplies, books
• Travel to Naperville, Illinois for quarterly sales meeting.

Qualifications:

• Excellent written and verbal skills
• Proficient in Excel and Power Point
• Good working knowledge on all children’s book categories from board book to young adult

For more information and to apply for the job, visit here.

Just Published! Dr. Travis Foster's New Book on Genre and White Supremacy in the Postemancipation US

Congratulations to Dr. Travis Foster, whose new book Genre and White Supremacy in the Postemancipation United Status was just published by Oxford University Press.

Challenging the prevailing literary critical inclination toward what makes texts exceptional or distinctive, the book underscores the urgent importance of genre for tracking conventionality as it enters into, constitutes, and reproduces ordinary life.

In the wake of emancipation's failed promise, Dr. Foster argues, two developments unfolded: white supremacy amassed new mechanisms and procedures for reproducing racial hierarchy; and black freedom developed new practices for collective expression and experimentation. This new racial ordinary came into being through new literary and cultural genres--including campus novels, the Ladies' Home Journal, Civil War elegies, and gospel sermons. Through the postemancipation interplay between aesthetic conventions and social norms, genre became a major influence in how Americans understood their social and political affiliations, their citizenship, and their race.

Dr. Foster traces this thick history through four decades following the Civil War, equipping us to understand ordinary practices of resistance more fully and to resist ordinary procedures of subjugation more effectively. In the process, he provides a model for how the study of popular genre can reinvigorate our methods for historicizing the everyday.

The Referent of Ireland Conference -- February 21

"The Referent of Ireland" conference was held at Villanova on Friday, February 21. Panelists read and responded to a series of shared articles with short papers, and will reconvene over the summer in Galway to continue their work. The conference was designed to build "on fresh work on reference—or how the text refers to a world outside of the text—in order to rethink the aesthetics and politics of nineteenth-century Irish literature."

Panelists considered questions such as: "What does literature about nineteenth-century Ireland refer to, and what are its habits of reference? Does the referent change for readers across time? Now that old saws about Ireland’s failed realism have been put to bed, what purposes might be served by thinking about Irish referential habits? Does thinking about Ireland and reference strand nineteenth-century Ireland in old paradigms of representation that preclude us from thinking about mediation? How does the nineteenth-century literature and culture of Ireland refer to our own culture and moment?"

Anne Jones, a current English graduate student, said: "Most interesting to me was how the texts discussed included both conventionally recognized 19th century Irish realist novels and 'texts' as defined more broadly—such as, for example, the analysis on the Irish Villages in the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and how Brexit influences references to Ireland. I also found generative the exploration of the very term 'realism'—one that is often taken for granted—and the vibrant conversations regarding its functionality or lack thereof."

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Zac Richards, another current English graduate student, mentioned Simon Joyce's talk, "Nineteenth-Century Ireland After Brexit," and said, "I felt his analysis of Brexit as informing how we view 19th century Irish literature particularly resonant. He argued for a new model of analysis, one that turns away from anglocentrism as the paradigm of what constitutes high literature and I feel that such a model could have a major impact for future literary studies as it makes the case for looking toward the periphery as not deficient in any way but rather perhaps more provocative and generative than what the British were producing."

Many panels were chaired by Villanova graduate English students, including Matthew Ryan, Kristen Sieranski, and Avni Sejpal. The conference boasted over 40 attendees, many of whom are also planning to attend the book launch party of Villanova's own Mary Mullen, to take place this weekend.

Panelists: Jennifer Joyce (Villanova), Gordon Bigelow (Rhodes College), Mary Mullen (Villanova), and Yoon Sun Lee (Wellesley College)

Villanova Graduate students Caitlyn Dittmeier, Zac Richards, Avni Sejpal, and Matthew Ryan

Caitlin Phillips, Shea Szpila, Heather Hicks, Tsering Wangmo, and Kristen Sieranski discuss the panels during a break

Job Opportunity! Consumer PR Agency Is Looking for Account Coordinators

Diffusion PR, a tech and consumer PR agency, is looking to hire a slate of account coordinators for their New York and Los Angeles offices.

The role is a full-time position that provides recent grads the chance to dive into the PR industry head-first while learning the ins and outs of agency life in an open and supportive environment. Competitive entry-level salary, full benefits, 401K, etc. – comes with the works, and is a program only available to graduating seniors this spring.

The job application, and instructions to apply for your students, can be found here: https://diffusionpr.com/us/news/47/do-you-have-what-it-takes-to-be-a-diffusion-rookie.

Diffusion is accepting applications until Friday, April 17. Contact Tim Williams at tim.williams@diffusionpr.com if you have questions.