This year the department did something a little different, and faculty members put their heads together to select books as gifts for our graduating seniors. These book selections were inspired by our graduating seniors' interests and tastes, but we hope they will provide useful summer reading suggestions for anyone who is looking for some good tips!
Amanda Atkinson was gifted a book by Evan Radcliffe
Circe by Madeline Miller: Madeline Miller’s reimagining of the figure of Circe turns her from a side character into a hero in her own right, a hero who makes her own way in an ancient male world. In this novel, Circe tells her side of the story, giving a fresh perspective on a number of figures from classical literature as she asserts her own female power while contending with patriarchal and treacherous gods and mortals. In a paper on the Odyssey that drew on her interests in both Classics and Gender and Women’s Studies, Amanda explored what she called an ancient misogynistic society riddled with double standards; Circe aims in part to use story-telling to subvert those standards.
Madison Barber was gifted a book by Lisa Sewell and Tsering Wangmo Dhompa
Birthplace with Buried Stones by Meena Alexander: In Maddie’s stunning creative works on “home”, the everyday routines of a neighborhood––coffee on the porch, kids returning from school, the USPS delivery van, sunset––are figurations of knowledge about place, body, and language. I hope Alexander’s poems on physical dislocations, postcolonial memory, and personal geographies will keep Maddie company when she has to update her address again.
Kate Clawson was gifted a book by Jean Lutes
White Teeth by Zadie Smith: This big sprawling novel with audacious plotting and gripping characters that tackles questions of race, immigration, technology and teeth will be perfect for Kate, a fantastic reader, skillful with parsing modernist styles and hyper-realism. Kate also just completed a capstone paper analyzing intersectional feminism and the limits of White feminism, and I think that Smith’s 2000 debut will provide further evidence for her claims.
Catherine Cook was gifted a book by Lauren Shohet
Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck: The compassionate, cosmopolitan characters remind me of Catherine. The legal and ethical questions of what it means to be a refugee or a citizen tie together law, reading, and community-- three things Catherine engages in such great constellations.
Joseph D'Antonio was gifted a book by Ellen Bonds
How I Learned What I Learned by August Wilson: Joseph’s paper, “Dimensions of Gender and Race in August Wilson’s Fences,” was particularly impressive. He analyzed the intersections of gender and race within the play’s historical context, the 1950s-1960s. He applied a gender reading of the play, synthesizing analyses from three scholarly articles to argue that “Wilson utilizes the marriage of Troy and Rose Maxson to portray these [historical] conflicts of race and gender in society.” So, I would like to share my love of August Wilson's work with Joe, who I know appreciates Wilson's work as well.
Erian Fabian was gifted a book by Lauren Shohet
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman: Erin appreciates the genre of nuanced exegesis of theological and literary heritage undertaken through fantasy fiction. She’s positioned to engage the copious, multidisciplinary corpus this book mines.
Malik Fisher was gifted a book by Kamran Javadizadeh
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay: One of the things I love about Ross Gay is how closely and obsessively (how lovingly, really) he pays attention to seemingly ordinary things--and then how he shows that they are portals to other worlds, deep histories, full of riches and meaning and insight. What I’ll remember most about my time with Malik in the classroom was his curiosity about poetry and his generosity and joy; I think he’ll find Ross Gay to be a beautiful guide to whatever comes next.
Charlie Gill was gifted a book by Alice Dailey
Gemini by Michel Tournier: What to choose for a student who has read everything--a student whom I count as one of my teachers? A novel featuring the most exquisite description of garbage ever written in French (and then translated into English). Charlie, you will revel in Gemini for all the reasons I have reveled in your career at Villanova: for its beauty and brilliance; its intensity, humor, and transgressions; its wisdom; its honesty and strangeness. I only wish I could have you in another seminar to talk about it when you’re through.
Michael Keeley was gifted a book by Lauren Shohet
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon: Mike, I have chosen Michael Chabon’s, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The novel’s explorations of making and unmaking worlds with different kinds of art speak to Mike’s intellectual energy, keen eye for media affordances, and infectious enthusiasm about good stories.
Valentina Lopez was gifted a book by Lauren Shohet
Orpheus Lost by Janette Turner Hospital: The ways characters use myth, art, smarts, and love to connect across continents and generations dig deep into pain and come to some hopeful places. That’s a magical possibility to take with you from your Villanova English and Spanish studies as you move into the world.
Julia Mills was gifted a book by Megan Quigley
The Secret History by Donna Tartt: Unreliable narrators, untrustworthy friends, religious battles, mysterious murders and a devotion to education drive Tart’s cult favorite. [She also wrote The Gold Finch which is great, just not as great!] I’d love to read Julia parse her way through the competing truths at work in The Secret History, as she has with so many books we’ve read together. I also know that she would teach it beautifully, as I’ve been fortunate to observe her do in our classes when she was a powerful TA.
Ashley Park was gifted a book by Alice Dailey
We That Are Young by Preti Taneja: I have chosen Preti Taneja’s We That Are Young For a student who studied Shakespeare with me at the beginning of her Villanova education, I give you a different kind of Shakespeare at the end: a fierce, brilliant, feminist revisioning of King Lear set in contemporary India. (This novel has the most astonishing description of garbage ever written in English; you may be starting to notice a pattern in my recommendations.) May Ashley, like Taneja, use your English education to tell the stories that most matter to her.
Shivani Patel was gifted a book by Lauren Shohet
Small Island by Andrea Levy: The complex shifting of fiction, truth, self-deception, self-revelation, and the dynamics of race, power, and coming into one’s own through and despite all of this, resonate with Shivani’s academic, vocational, and aesthetic passions.
Jessica Sardina was gifted a book by Joe Drury
A Visit to Don Otavio by Sybille Bedford: Jessie is heading for Mexico after she graduates and this is a book about a woman travelling to Mexico in the 1940s by one of my favourite authors. I think Jessie might find in this book much of her own wit, curiosity, and sense of adventure.
Jackie Soloman was gifted a book by Megan Quigley
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: Beloved has captured Jackie’s imagination, as it has so many astute readers, inspiring her to tackle its themes in her writing for her capstone paper. While The Bluest Eye uncovers so much of the world’s ugliness and pain, it does so through Morrison’s exquisite, precise, and haunting language. The Breedloves and the MacTeers, literary descendents of Sethe, Paul D, and Denver, will intrigue Jackie with their challenges of northern migration and generational trauma. I hope the gift of both books inspires Jackie to read them all.
Tileyna Zamorano-Gonzalez was gifted a book by Crystal Lucky
The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison: The late Nobel laureate reminds us that self-worth comes from a deep place of love and strength. As Tileyna ventures into the world beyond Villanova’s protection and support, Morrison’s sagacious words will remind her that she is enough and absolutely prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.
