Halloween Horror: A Creative Writing Hangout with the English Department

 On Monday, November 1 at 7:00 pm join the English Department in Good Counsel Lounge for a creative writing hangout. We’ll provide writing prompts, Halloween candy, and good cheer. ACS approved.

Getting to Know Dr. Kimberly Takahata

 An interview conducted by Alexander Matkowsky, 1st Year MA/Graduate Assistant in English

This week I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Kimberly Takahata, the English Department’s new Assistant Professor of “Literature of the Americas to 1900”, who is currently teaching the undergraduate courses “American Literature Traditions 1” and “Race & Ethnicity in American Literature” in the Fall 2021 semester. Dr. Takahata pursued her undergraduate degree at Brown University and completed her graduate work and PhD at Columbia, working as a postdoctoral instructor at the West Point United States Military Academy. Her field of study, “Early American Literature”, is quite broadly defined; she works primarily with Long Eighteenth Century texts from Massachusetts down through the Caribbean.

I asked her how her interest in this specific field came about. During her undergraduate experience, she found herself to be one of only a few students “jazzed by” Early American poetry and Puritan texts, and she couldn’t help but feel that there was more to learn from these literatures. Taking her particular focus to graduate school, she realized that the kinds of questions she had been asking when evaluating these works were applicably helpful in other geographies and developed an additional attachment to Indigenous Studies. Therefore, thinking at the intersection of both fields became a logical (and interesting!) academic pursuit. A desire to teach others coincided with her studies. She explained how she “had felt strongly that literature matters and wanted to be able to tell people why”; she was excited by the idea of “exploring works alongside many others who are in agreement regarding the importance of literary studies.”

The focus of the interview then turned towards a discussion of Dr. Takahata’s ongoing projects. She is delighted to be one of several scholars involved with the online edition of The Sugar Cane, a project focused on the 1764 georgic poem set in the West Indies. This collaborative venture incorporates several Early American educators with the primary goal of “figuring out how to center Black and Indigenous life” in the massive text so that the colonial progression of the British Empire (so typically associated with the literary canon) isn’t prioritized as per the norm. Dr. Takahata is looking forward to expanding on her dissertation research – to identify how to read for structural foundations of Indigenous life in American literature instead of merely including the narrative as supplementary information coinciding with the traditionally canonical.

I then posited the ultimate question – “what has you most excited about working at Villanova?” Dr. Takahata is so grateful for the feeling of community that she gets from the students of the English department. The commitment that we have to anti-racist thinking, inclusion, and equity have been so important to her in imagining herself being here, and now more so with her actually being here. She is absolutely excited by “the way it feels that we are all trying to figure out how to make [literature] worth what it deserves to be worth”; bringing her ideas into the classroom and hearing students come up with some incredible responses “has been really amazing.” She hopes for the prospect of field trips to arise within her courses (when COVID restrictions are lifted); current and prospective students will have the opportunity to truly immerse themselves, what with the locality of her selected Early American texts to the greater Philadelphia area.

Dr. Takahata closed our interview with a piece of information that she wished to convey: she is “really excited to be here and to learn with/alongside students and to hear all their thoughts – to dive into the literature together!”

Thank you to Dr. Kimberly Takahata for taking the time to share her academic journey with Villanova students and faculty! I can with no doubt reiterate that Villanova welcomes you to its English department. We are certainly looking forward to your interesting pedagogy among such a diverse assembly of outstanding professors!

Today, 5:30 pm Idea Accelerator Lab: “Twice Militant: Women’s Intersectional Anger from the 1381 Uprising to #SayHerName”

Tonight Dr. Carissa Harris will give a lecture in the Esmonde Colloquium Series that draws connections between the women's anger that allegedly sparked the 1381 Uprising, according to medieval and early modern chronicle accounts and collective anger at police violence against Black women more recently.

Two Poetry/Nature/Art Events on Thursday, Nov. 4

 The English Dept and Program in Creative Writing present Two Poetry/Nature/Art Events on Thursday, Nov. 4:

Both events are ACS approved and masks are required.

 

ONE:

“A Bird, came down the Walk”: A poetry workshop focusing on birds.

with Nathalie Anderson

Thursday, Nov. 4, 4-5 pm

SAC 300

 

Please register using this Google Form:  A Bird Came Down the Walk

 

Description of the workshop:

“A Bird, came down the Walk”:

A Workshop Celebrating Birds as Familiar and Unfamiliar Entities Through Poetry

  

Description: In this workshop, we’ll look at videos and photographs of birds to consider what we see that’s familiar, and what’s unexpected. We’ll try to find words for both sorts of observations, in poems that

both affirm and surprise. 

 

Writing materials will be provided

TWO:

Birds of North America

Thursday Nov. 4, 6-7 pm

Falvey Library, Room 205

 

An artists talk and poetry reading to celebrate the publication of Birds of North America, an artists book

including miniature drawings/paintings of numerous North American birds, plus a series of poems

by Nathalie Anderson and Lisa Sewell that respond to the art and to each other.

Pre-Registration Reception Recap & Spring 2022 Course Booklet

Friday's pre-registration was a success! There was poetry busking! Swag! Good conversation! Good food! A book raffle featuring books by Spring 2022 Literary Festival authors Camille Dungy, Jericho Brown, and Emma Dabiri: stay tuned for the literary festival schedule soon. Take a look at the photos below and check out the spring 2022 course booklet, available in paper form in the English department office on the fourth floor of SAC.

Elena Rouse shares what she learned at her internship with Dana Farber

Advisory council members celebrate the swag!

There were poets and poetry!

Our fearless leader, Dr. Heather Hicks, talks to students

Adrienne Perry! Kimberly Takahata! Alice Dailey!

So many smiles--the English department throws the best parties, for real.

Open Mic Night: Kelly Writer's House 11/3

Join Jackie Carroll, English major extraordinaire, and attend the November Open Mic Night at Kelly Writer's House at Penn on Wednesday, November 3 at 7:30 pm. Jackie will be taking public transportation to the event and welcomes company. If you are interested in attending, contact her directly at jcarro29(at)villanova.edu or 215-207-1092. 

As the Kelly Writer's House puts it:

"Our student-run open mic night welcomes all kinds of readings, performances, spectacles, and happenings. Bring your poetry, your guitar, your dance troupe, your award-winning essay, or your stand-up comedy to share"

Build a writerly community in the Philadelphia area!

Pre-Registration Reception: Friday, October 22, 12:30-2:00

 Interested in learning more about spring classes? Want a chance to talk to English majors about their experience? Excited about delicious sandwiches and book raffles? Come to the Pre-Registration Reception on Friday, October 22nd in SAC Courtyard East (just go through the iron gate to the right of the front door of SAC--we'll be in Mendel tent if there's bad weather) RSVP to cindy.farrell@villanova.edu by Wednesday, October 20th by noon.

All About the Bagels Coffee Hour: This Thursday!

 The English department continues to be all about the bagels! Join us for free coffee and bagels and camaraderie this Thursday, October 7 from 11:30-1:00 in SAC East Courtyard. Rumor has it that there may be ridiculous board games.

"Ever-Pending: U.S. Literature of the Long Korean War" a talk by Dr. Yumi Lee

 On Thursday, October 7, at 12:00 pm Dr. Yumi Lee will share her research on the newfound visibility of the Korean War in American literature from the late 1990s with the James Joo-Jin  Kim Program in Korean Studies Korean Studies Colloquium at Pennsylvania University.