Welcome to the blog for the Villanova English department! Visit often for updates on department events, guest speakers, faculty and student accomplishments, and reviews and musings from professors and undergraduates alike.

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Publishing Internship Opportunity

Roots Wounds Words (RWW) is offering unpaid internships to students interested in book publishing and/or arts administration careers. 

Their internship program, which runs from September – December and February – May, allows students to work 20 hours per week and offers an opportunity to learn about the literary arts and publishing industries. As a RWW Publishing Intern, you would have the opportunity to work closely with seasoned professionals and gain hands-on experience as you own day-to-day tasks, help with special projects, assist with the publication of anthologies, and attend organizational meetings.

Since 2018, Roots Wounds Words has offered free, donation-based, and low-cost literary arts programs such as writing workshops, multi-month writing intensives, master craft talks, book clubs, monthly storyteller showcases, and publication opportunities. Their storytellers are located across the country, as well as in Canada, China, the UK, Côte d'Ivoire, and elsewhere. RWW's former Faculty include literary artists such as Saeed Jones, Deesha Philyaw, Joel L. Daniels, Linda Villarosa, and more. According to RWW, "In 2022, RWW will offer workshops in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, speculative fiction, and young adult fiction. The RWW 2022 Spring Publishing Fellow will have the opportunity to support the tribe we serve--talented, yet often overlooked and cast aside, up-and-coming Storytellers of Color."

The following is from their internship posting:

Who you are:
• A rising junior, senior, or graduate student interested in exploring a career in book publishing and/or arts administration
• Self-starter with strong interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills
• Enthusiastic and excited about discussing recent BIPOC books you’ve read and celebrating BIPOC storytelling traditions
• Possess a great attitude and a desire to learn as well as excellent organizational skills
• Resourceful with the ability to balance multiple responsibilities and work independently
• Must be results driven, and take appropriate steps to achieve goals while taking ownership of situations as needed
• Proficient in MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint

What you will learn:
• Book production and publishing
• Interviewing BIPOC authors
• Writing book reviews
• Creating and reviewing submission materials
• Managing and updating databases
• Managing and organizing literary arts events

How to apply:
In order to be considered, all candidates must submit both a resume AND cover letter to: Nicole Shawan Junior, Executive Director Roots. Wounds. Words. NSJunior@rootswoundswords.org

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT: As a leading arts organization that champions BIPOC storytellers, we believe that including and representing diverse voices in all aspects of our business is fundamental to what we do. Roots. Wounds. Words. provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, social-economic status, justice involvement, body type or size, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

Thursday, December 9, 2021

PAID STUDENT RESEARCH FELLOW POSITION for SPRING 2022

PAID STUDENT RESEARCH FELLOW POSITION for SPRING 2022 


DESCRIPTION

Undergraduate student sought to join a collaborative, public-facing humanities initiative focused on an understudied Black woman writer, racial justice education, and literary recovery.

 

EXPECTED TIME COMMITMENT

8-10 hours a week


COMPENSATION TBA, pending grant approval, expected in early January 2022

 

QUALIFICATIONS

The successful applicant will be intellectually curious, detail-oriented, self-motivated, committed to racial justice, interested in women’s literature and history, and an excellent writer, reader, and communicator. Because this is a long-term project with the possibility of extending the work beyond the Spring 2022 term, preference will be given to first-years and sophomores, although juniors and seniors will also be considered.


HOW TO APPLY

Submit a letter of interest and a resume to Dr. Jean Lutes at jean.lutes@villanova.edu by Jan. 5, 2022.


DETAILS

Dr. Jean Lutes (English department) is looking for a second student to join a team of scholars working on “The ’Steenth Street Project: Recovering Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s Stories of Black Childhood.” This project aims to recover a lost short story collection written in the 1890s by Black author and activist Alice Dunbar-Nelson


In deference to Dunbar-Nelson’s long career as an educator and advocate for racial justice, the project goal is to produce an open-access digital edition of the story collection, along with curriculum resources and to make our work scalable, relevant, and adaptable to multiple K-12 school systems. 

 

Dr. Lutes and her two collaborators – Dr. Brigitte Fielder (University of Wisconsin) and Ms. Denise Burgher (University of Delaware) – have prioritized collaborating with the Black-majority school district of Philadelphia to collectively produce a text and its accompanying resources, which will bring Dunbar Nelson’s work directly to the people who inspired and shaped the Annals of Steenth street, American children. 


The ’Steenth Street stories feature children in a poor urban neighborhood and the middle-class reformers who show up to help -- and who often misunderstand and misstep. The collection is based on Dunbar-Nelson’s work teaching Black kindergarteners at the White Rose Mission in the 1890s in New York City. 

 

The Student Research Fellow hired in Spring 2022 will help to document the publication history of the 12 stories in the collection (several were published both independently, both during Dunbar-Nelson’s lifetime and after), to compare story versions to establish a definitive text, to conduct original archival work for the introduction to the edition, and to identify historical documents to be published as appendices to draw the reader into the world of the author and the text.

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Winning T-shirt Design!

 Congratulations to Carlos Antonio Alvarez for submitting the winning design for the new English department t-shirt contest! New swag, coming soon!


new English department t-shirt design