Ann Marie Jakubowski wins the Fathman Award from the International T. S. Eliot Society!

 

Ann Marie Jakubowski won the Fatham Award, a prize given by the International T. S. Eliot Society at its annual meeting to the best paper presented by an early-career scholar, for her paper "Conversion as Revision: The Retrospective Poetics of Burnt Norton." She is currently a Lilly Postdoctoral Fellow at Valparaiso University, where she teaches literary and humanities courses in the undergrad honors college (Christ College). She graduated from Villanova's Masters program in English in 2017 and received a PhD from Washington University in St. Louis in 2024.

The 13th Annual Thesis and Field Exam Symposium

 On Friday, May 5, Theo Campbell, Hannah Kahn, Caitlin Salomon and Jamie Wojtal shared their research at the 13th Annual Thesis and Field Exam Symposium. Here's a photo from the event:

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.

2021 Department Awards Ceremony

On April 30, the department held its annual awards ceremony to celebrate the members of our 2021 English Honor Society, the winners of our creative writing and essay awards, and the winner of this year's Medallion of Excellence. The event was supposed to be held in the Driscoll Tent, but high winds meant we had to move the event indoors at the last minute to the Driscoll Auditorium!

Congratulations, first of all, to the 2021 English Honor Society (see below, left to right): Amanda Atkinson, Catherine Cook, Joe D'Antonio, Erin Fabian, Julia Mills, Julia Mills, Shavani Patel, Jessie Sardina, Dom Sceski, Julia Valenti, and Jackie Solomon. Also honored, but not pictured: Jamie McClelland and Ashley Park.

The winner of this year's Core English Literature and Writing Seminar Prize, for the most distinguished scholarly or critical essay written for a Core Seminar in 2020 was Walter McDonald, for his essay, "Female Independence Challenging Social Norms" in Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Walter's essay was written for Dr. Ruth Anolik's Spring 2020 course on "The Cultural Uses of Horror and Terror."

The judges for this award were Dr. Joe Drury and Prof. Robert O'Neil.

There were two winners for this year's Jerome J. Fischer Memorial Award, for the most distinguished scholarly or critical essays written by undergraduate students for an English course in the last year: Julia Valenti and Lily Switka. 

Julia's essay, "Austen Adaptations and the 'Accomplished Woman," was written for Dr. Joe Drury's Fall 2020 Senior Seminar on "Jane Austen Then and Now." 

Lily's essay, "Unrealistic Expectations: Miltonic Marriage and the Fall," was written for Dr. Lauren Shohet's Fall 2020 course on "Milton."

Ava Lundell also received an honorable mention for her essay, "Intimacy in Lament for Art O'Leary," written for Dr. Joseph Lennon's Fall 2020 course on "Irish Epics, Visions, and Hauntings."

The winner of this year's Margaret Esmonde Powell Memorial Award for the most distinguished essay by a graduate student written for an English course was Anne Jones. Her essay, "The Vexed Position of the Black Secret-Bearer: Concealments and Revelations in Hannah Crafts' The Bondwoman's Narrative," was written for Dr. Travis Foster's Fall 2020 course, "American Fiction Before 1900."

The judges for the Fischer and Esmonde Awards were Dr. Joe Drury, Dr. Lauren Shohet, and Dr. Brooke Hunter.

The winner of this year's George D. Murphy Award in Poetry was Madison Barber (below, second from right).

The winner of the Creative Writing Program's Award in Prose was Ashley Oh for her work, "Letter" (second from left). Pictured with them are Dr. Cathy Staples (left) and Dr. Tsering Wangmo (right).

The judges for the two creative writing awards were Dr. Alan Drew, Dr. Lisa Sewell, Dr. Adrienne Perry, and Dr. Tsering Wangmo. This year's visiting judge was the poet and educator Airea D. Matthews.

Finally, the winner of the 2021 English Medallion of Excellence was Shivani Patel, pictured with English department chair, Dr. Heather Hicks.

Congratulations, everyone!

Dr. Jean Lutes and Dr. Travis Foster Discuss Gender, American Literature and White Supremacy

Please join Villanova English faculty Dr. Jean Lutes and Dr. Travis Foster on Tuesday, March 16 for "We Have Been Here All Along: Gender, American Literature, and White Supremacy," an event to celebrate the publication of a new collection of essays on Gender in American Literature and Culture. The volume, co-edited by Dr. Lutes, will be published this month by Cambridge University Press and features essays by Dr. Lutes and Dr. Foster.

The book introduces readers to key developments in gender studies and American literary criticism. It offers nuanced readings of literary conventions and genres from early American writings to the present and moves beyond inflexible categories of masculinity and femininity that have reinforced misleading assumptions about public and private spaces, domesticity, individualism, and community. The book also demonstrates how rigid inscriptions of gender have perpetuated a legacy of violence and exclusion in the United States. Responding to a sense of 21st century cultural and political crisis, it illuminates the literary histories and cultural imaginaries that have set the stage for urgent contemporary debates.

Also speaking at the event will be Dr. Lutes's co-editor, Dr. Jennifer Travis, professor and chair of English at St. John's University, as well as two contributors to the volume: Dr. Brigitte Fielder, associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Dr. Seulghee Lee, assistant professor of African American and English literature at the University of South Caroline.

The event will be held on Zoom, starting at 7.30pm. You can register here.

Just Published! Villanova English Alum Jess Swoboda on Postcritique

Check out this terrific article, "Practicing Acknowledgment," by Villanova English alum Jess Swoboda ('15), which was just published in The Point. 

Jess, pictured below with Dr. Megan Quigley, is currently enrolled in the University of Virginia PhD program.

Annual Luckow Family Lecture: Dr. Rob Nixon on "The Less Selfish Gene"

On Tuesday, Dr. Rob Nixon, professor in the Humanities and the Environment at Princeton University, delivered Villanova English's Annual Luckow Family Lecture: "The Less Selfish Gene: Forest Altruism, Neoliberalism, and the Tree of Life.". About 85 students and faculty attended the lecture, delivered by Zoom, which was followed by a lively Q & A. In his talk, Dr. Nixon argued that the recent surge of interest in popular science writing about forest ecosystems and plant communication reflects public curiosity in models of the natural world and modes of flourishing opposed to the egotism and individualism popularized by neoliberalism. 

Register for Annual Luckow Family Lecture: Rob Nixon, October 27

Please join Villanova English this month for the department's annual Luckow Family Lecture. Rob Nixon, Barron Family Professor of Humanities and Environment at Princeton University, will be joining us by Zoom on Tuesday, October 27 at 5.30pm, to present a talk, "The Less Selfish Gene: Forest Altrusim, Neoliberalism, and the Tree of Life." 

Please register here to receive the Zoom link for the event.

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

University of Notre Dame's ESTEEM Graduate Program

Interested in getting a one-year Master's Innovation and Entrepreneurship? The University of Notre Dame's ESTEEM Graduate Program is still recruiting for its Class of 2021. Many students come into the program feeling restless and boxed in by the career choices laid out in front of them, but full of energy to create a better world and make an impact. For this reason, ESTEEM emphasizes the action of entrepreneurship, not just the study of it. ESTEEM encourages students with technical backgrounds to explore the world of business and entrepreneurship, learning how to combine their current skills with new ones to make an impact fixing things that matter. Courses begin in June 2020. The deadline for applying is March 15.

ESTEEM curriculum: 

·  11 months of transformative experiences 

·  includes design thinking, customer validation, financial modeling, BMC, data analysis, finance and prototyping

·  Master’s Thesis Capstone: go-to-market approach with ND-based research, industry-sponsored projects or Founder’s Idea

ESTEEM students:

·  56 students in the class of 2020 from various STEM fields

·  100% receive some level of scholarship award

·  average scholarship of approximately $24k

ESTEEM graduates:

·  are changing the world at companies such as Apple, Eli Lilly, McKinsey, Walt Disney and more

·  85-90% are placed at graduation; 98% @ 90 days from grad

·  1 in 4 alums are in startups; 25% as founders or co-founders (including Enlighten Mobility, founded by Marissa Koscielski, ESTEEM 2018)

See below for a number of additional materials on our program:

·  2019 ESTEEM Brochure

·  2019 Placement Report

·  ISP Student Capstone Profiles 2019-2020

·  Enlighten Mobility: Fixing Things That Matter (YouTube link)

·  Fighting to Help Others Walk Again (YouTube link)

·  ESTEEM Trip to Indy July 2019  (YouTube link)

Submit your work on Joyce to the Rosenbach Museum's Bloomsday Essay Contest

Calling all emerging Joyceans! Submit your best essay on Ulysses or another Joyce text for the Rosenbach Museum's Bloomsday Essay Contest. Critical essays are welcome from undergraduate and graduate students in the Tri-State area. Winners will be announced on June 16, 2019, at the Rosenbach’s Bloomsday celebration. All participants are encouraged to attend but need not be present to win!

An extra incentive for Villanova English majors: our own Dr. Megan Quigley is one of the three judges for the contest.

Requirements:

• Essays must be original work, unpublished elsewhere.
• Essays that were submitted to the Bloomsday Essay Contest in previous years may be resubmitted.
• Essays must be written in the English language.
• Entrants must attend a college or university in, or have a permanent address in, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware.
• Entries must be submitted from a valid academic address (.edu) by the essay’s author.
• Length should be between 2000-9000 words in length, excluding footnotes.
• Essays must be formatted in MLA style (12 pt, double-spaced, numbered pages) with MLA citation.
• Please include the essay’s title on the first page of the essay as well as in the Essay Title field below.
• To ensure blind judging, identifying information (name, institution) should ONLY be included in the submission form below, and not in the essay.

Submissions that do not meet all the above requirements are not eligible for consideration.

Judges:

• Paul Saint-Amour, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania
• Megan Quigley, Associate Professor of English, Villanova University
• Ted Howell, Lecturer, Rowan University

Two awards will be given:

• $300 for an outstanding paper written by a graduate student
• $200 for an outstanding paper written by an undergraduate student

All entries must be submitted by midnight EST on Tuesday, April 15, 2019. Please contact press@rosenbach.org if you have any questions or issues with the submission form.

Dr. Lisa Sewell's Graduate Class Meets Jeff Bridges!

Members of Dr. Lisa Sewell’s Ecopoetry and Environmental Criticism class, who recently attended the on-campus screening of the documentary Living in the Future’s Past, were treated to a special event last week. Two of the documentary's "luminaries," Susan Kucera (director) and Jeff Bridges (producer and narrator) met with Dr. Sewell’s class via video chat to discuss various aspects of the film. You heard that right: the group got to virtually “meet” The Dude himself!

Lisa Sewell's Ecopoetry & Environmental Criticism Graduate Class 

Living in the Future’s Past, which is described on its website as a “beautifully photographed tour de force of original thinking on who we are and the environmental challenges we face,” explores the pressing environmental issues facing our world today. The film, which includes expert commentary from an impressive group of psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers (including Timothy Morton!), and more, is driven by its core question: “What kind of future would you like to see?” LITFP has received overwhelming critical praise, and also recently qualified for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the Academy Awards.

Producer and Narrator Jeff Bridges (on video chat)

Students were able to ask Bridges and Kucera a range of questions about filming strategies, the creative choices behind the visual components of the film, the team’s process for arriving at the film’s positive and even hopeful tone, plans for future promotion of the film, and more. Students learned that in addition to promoting an environmental awareness message via her film work, Kucera also practices environmentalism in her personal life: she edited LITFP using exclusively solar power. The class also learned that Bridges is hopeful the documentary will be widely incorporated into the curricula of various educational institutions, since its message is educational and empowering for positive change.

Director Susan Kucera (on video chat)

The screening, which took place on November 14, was co-sponsored by English, Geography & the Environment, Honors, Global & Interdisciplinary Studies, Ethics, Philosophy, Peace & Justice, and Gender & Women's Studies.

You can visit the film’s website (or ask Dr. Sewell and her students) to learn more! The film is also available to watch on iTunes and Prime Video.

Department Teaching Roundtable

On Thursday, November 1, students and faculty met over pizza to discuss various topics related to teaching. The event began with thoughts from graduate students who are participating in (or who recently participated in) the English department’s Teaching Internship program, and the conversation ranged from the differences between teaching high school students and college students to ways of generating class discussion.

Irish Summer Studio Information Meeting - Oct 2

Graduate students interested in participating in Villanova’s Irish Summer Studio program are encouraged to attend an informational meeting on Tuesday, October 2nd, at 3:30 pm in the Theatre Department's Green Room in the ground floor of Vasey Hall.

Dr. Valerie Joyce (Theatre) and Dr. Joseph Lennon (English), as well as students who have participated in the program, will be present at the meeting to explain the program and how students can go about getting involved.  

THE IRISH SUMMER STUDIO

From the studio to the stage, students in the program will study the workings and history of Ireland's world-class national theatre while developing their own theatre skills, knowledge, and practice. Students from Villanova will work alongside students from Irish and other universities and be taught by practitioners and professors from Ireland and the US. Student work will culminate in a showing of final work at the Lir, Ireland's National Academy of Dramatic Art and guided by Abbey Theatre professionals.

The program is an exciting joint enterprise between Villanova University, the Lir, the Abbey Theatre, the National University of Ireland in Galway, and University College, Dublin. It offers a select group of students from Ireland and the United States the opportunity to study with Irish Studies scholars and Irish theatre professionals. Students from any college or university may apply and receive credit through the Villanova University Office of Education Abroad, in conjunction with their home university.

For more information, see here.

English Students at the Irish Theatre Summer Studio in Dublin

English and Theatre graduate students on the cliffs of Moher. Pictured (left to right) are: Angela Christaldi, Nickolette Jones, Alex Einspahr, Mary Lyon, Michelle Wrambel, and Ashley DiRienzo.

The picture below was taken on top of the Martello Tower, which appears in the opening of chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses. Pictured here are Alex Einspahr, MA student, and Caitlyn Dittmeier, graduating senior. They read the chapter on top of the Tower!

Below, Caitlyn Dittmeier, Lia Mrozinski, Ashley DiRienzo, Angela Christaldi, Alex Einspahr, Michelle Wrambel went to see the Abbey Theatre's stage version of Ulysses, written by Dermot Bolger.

Here are English and Theatre students on performance day at the Abbey Theatre! Pictured (clockwise from top left) are Alex Einspahr, Caitlyn Dittmeier, Ali Dennan, Mary Lyon, Seán Butler, Lia Mrozinski, Michelle Wrambel, Nickolette Jones, Angela Christaldi, One Helne, Megan O'Malley, Kristin Curley, and Ashley DiRienzo. 

Rutgers English Diversity Institute

The Rutgers English Diversity Institute (REDI) is a one-week summer program at the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University. REDI is designed for advanced college students and recent graduates whose cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds may contribute to diversity in the  fields of English and American literary studies. The purpose of REDI is to encourage students to attend graduate school and to pursue careers as teachers and scholars in the field.  At REDI, students will learn about traditional and nontraditional subfields and critical approaches in English and American literary studies from Rutgers University faculty. REDI activities will include seminars, lectures, workshops on applying for graduate school and on digital resources in literary studies, a trip to a research library, and a cultural excursion to New York City.

Up to fifteen students, chosen from a national pool of applicants,will each receive a $500 stipend for participating in the program.  Application Deadline = March 1, 2018.  Apply online at redi.rutgers.edu.

Info Session: Application to Ph.D. Programs in English

The department will hold an information session for students considering application to Ph.D. programs in English on Wed., Oct 26, 12-1:30, in SAC 300.  If you plan to attend, please RSVP Sharon Rose-Davis (sharon.rose-davis@villanova.edu) by Mon., Oct. 24.  Lunch will be provided.

Lunch and Learn

If you are interested in pursuing graduate studies, see the flyer below for a March 17th “Lunch and Learn” event for Villanova undergraduates at which you can learn about Villanova’s graduate programs—including our own well-regarded English program.  There is still time to apply to many graduate programs, including English, for Fall 2016.

You can register using this link.

If you have any questions about the graduate program in English, Dr. Heather Hicks (heather.hicks@villanova.edu), the director of our program, would be happy to answer them.

Graduate Studies: Lunch and Learn