Dr. Lauren Shohet's Plenary Address: "What is my Archive?"

Dr. Lauren Shohet gave the plenary address at the Conference on John Milton, a biennial gathering of Miltonists from all over the word which was held this year in Provo, Utah. Her talk, entitled "What is my archive?" suggested we think about "archive" as a term that encompasses not only collections of rare books or documents, but also digital archives and also--more abstractly--whatever texts researchers deem relevant for studying a particular problem. 

From Britannica

During this talk, Dr. Shohet proposed that re-considering a problem's "archive" can create fresh questions (especially useful, she said, for junior researchers), then explored the multi-temporal, mutual constitution of archived item, finding aid, and researcher that constellate in the process of archival research.   

Dr. Tsering Wangmo Attends Middle Ground: Nepal Literature Festival

Dr. Tsering Wangmo was invited to the Nepal Literature Festival organized by Middle Ground in Berlin, Germany last week. Dr. Wangmo read poems with fellow poet, Mukahang Limbu, on the panel "Listening to What Endures." Read the description for more information on their writing in conversation here: https://www.hkw.de/en/programme/middle-ground-nepal-literature-festival/listening-to-what-endures  

Dr. Wangmo also moderated a reading and discussion, "Rethinking Geographies of the Disquiet" with three women writers from the Himalayan region: Manjushree Thapa, Farah Bashir, and Tsering Yangzom Lama. More information of the event can be found here: https://www.hkw.de/en/programme/middle-ground-nepal-literature-festival/rethinking-geographies-of-the-disquiet 

Congratulations Dr. Wangmo on both events and your invitation! 

~ by Juliana Catania MA '28

New Podcasts Coming Soon

A new season of the Villanova English podcast is coming soon! In the meantime, why not catch up with our most recent episode, an interview about early American and Indigenous literatures with Professor Kimberly Takahata? You can listen to the podcast using the links above, or subscribe on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or other major podcatchers so you never miss an episode!

Why Don't You Just Call Up the Poetry Phone?

 By Alexis Stakem MA '28

Some people see the liberal arts and STEM fields as being in constant conflict. However, Bryan Serinese ‘91 BA is a Villanova University alum who embodies the melding of these two broad fields.

Last spring, Serinese reached out to Villanova’s English department to gift us a poetry phone. The poetry phone is an old rotary phone that has been rewired to play the dialer/listener/caller one of 333 poems upon dialing any three-digit number – a clear physical representation of intermingling between technology, poetry, and performance art. 

Serinese with the Poetry Phone in Villanova's English Department office

Serinese’s father worked for Bell Labs, now AT&T, and they built their first computer together in 1976. While at Villanova, Serinese also minored in computer science, which at the time was a relatively small department, housed in the basement of Mendel Hall. Self-effacingly, he says to have chosen, or “downgraded,” to computer science he “couldn’t hack [it in] electrical engineering.”

Now a Project Manager at Agilent Technologies, a company responsible for developing biology research supplies, Serinese helps individuals communicate their ideas to a broad array of audiences, all with various levels of technical and background knowledge. 

As he explains, “Someone [will have] an idea, and they don’t know how to express it because they’re so focused on the idea and they have such a specific background… I can help them explain it and document it for someone who has zero background in that.”

Being able to articulate another person’s feelings, ideas, or worldviews are what Serinese consider to be the greatest benefit of studying literature. 

“[Poetry] is about what’s not being said and the intentional interpretation you have to bring to it… It’s always about the words. My interpretation or the connotation I bring to a word may be different from the poet or may be different from you. So, I think that’s the beauty of it. Everyone brings something different.”

Beyond the poetry phone itself, Serinese has continued to interact with art throughout different periods of his life, whether that be in an experiential role or as the creator. He has written a zombie musical for his children titled, Carl’s School for the Apocalypse. Carl’s School lives on through the poetry phone, in fact – dial 888 to hear “Zombie Love” and 666 to hear “I Found My Purpose in the Apocalypse,” both of which are songs written and produced for the musical. Serinese has also attended Burning Man several times over,  and in one instance was led out of a whiteout by means of a hardcore rock and roll band’s continued playing. 

“This guy’s playing rock and roll in the whiteout and just not stopping. They were our beacon. He's jamming out on heavy metal guitar, and… we come up and [now] we’re like 5 feet in front of them. [When] we finally saw them, we were like ‘Thank you, thank you.’”

The cover for Carl's School for Zombie Self-Defense 

Serinese’s creative, communicative, and technological life has given him a great perspective on a liberal arts education, and he advises current students that, “You certainly didn’t waste your time because you will continue using these skills in your personal life... Keep that faith in [a liberal arts degree], just keep telling yourself that. Other people will tell you too, and those are the ones you want to listen to.”

Saints, Sinners, and Selfless: Jason Kim visits English 1975

Professor Lora Novak met Jason Kim, the writer and director of Selfless, at a Hollywood screening this past summer. This screening presented films from the 2026 Emerging Cinematographers awards. Professor Novak attended as her nephew, Jordan Oglesby, won an award for his short film, The Interview. This experience became more than just a celebration, as the film Selfless ended up inspiring Mr. Kim's class visit for "Saints and Sinners," Professor Novak's English 1975 course.  

 

Professor Novak went to dinner with Jason Kim and a group of other screening attendees, where she learned that Mr. Kim lives in New York. After speaking to her nephew, Professor Novak decided to invite Mr. Kim to Villanova for a screening of his film and a Q&A with her students. Not only did Mr. Kim accept her invitation, he inspired a new sense of enthusiasm from Professor Novak's students.  

Selfless is both poignant and thought-provoking, two descriptors only supported by the responding interest from Professor Novak's class. Mr. Kim's film and presence encouraged students to engage deeply with the class discussion during the Q&A. Professor Novak states that even "students who haven't spoken up too much in class before were suddenly chatting away." The guest appearance of Mr. Kim created the space for students to appreciate intellectual dialogue and film critique as a community. It is uncommon to be in the presence of both a piece of art and its creator simultaneously. Students in "Saints and Sinners" got to experience the dynamic conversation surrounding both Selfless as a film and Jason Kim's perspective as the film's writer and director. When asked about their experience, one student says: 

"I noticed that...Jason Kim didn't speak right away when asked a question. He collected his thoughts for a minute and then spoke. He's really intelligent." - Hannah Farrell 

Below are pictures of Jason Kim with Professor Novak's classes: 

 

 

~ by Juliana Catania MA '28

Urayoán Noel visits Villanova for Graduate Colloquium

Grad students, undergrads, faculty, and staff came to SAC 300 on Thursday, September 24, at 3:30pm, for a hybrid critical-creative talk by the award-winning Puerto Rican scholar, poet, translator, and performer Urayoán Noel, who is an associate professor at NYU. Sponsored by the Department of English’s Graduate Colloquium Speaker series, “Bodymind Poetics” drew from Noel's forthcoming monograph Virtually Latinx: Identities in the Age of Social Media, and his in-progress experimental memoir of living with epilepsy, Neural Sea.

Professor Noel presented students with a talk that drew from his diverse interests in academic writing, literary translation, and poetry. He began by discussing the work of poet Pedro Pietri, whom he described as modeling a "radical bodymind freedom." He then read from his upcoming work Virtually Latinx, where he described the presentation of diverse aspects of identity over contemporary social media platforms like tiktok. He went on to read sections from the poet Nicole Cecilia Delgado's work "bioluminiscencia" in Spanish along with his own translation in English. He then read from some of his own poetry, including a piece that drew from fora online such as reddit. Finally, Professor Noel performed an improvisational, multimedia poem, and took questions from the room.

We are grateful to Professor Michael Dowdy for his help in coordinating this visit and to Professor Noel for visiting Villanova. Keep an eye out for additional visitors in the spring!

I, too, sing America: The English Department celebrates 100 years of Langston Hughes's "The Weary Blues"

This past Wednesday, the English Department celebrated 100 years of Langston Hughes’s The Weary Blues with the event “I, too Sing America.” A huge crowd of undergraduate students stopped by the 2nd floor lounge of

Good Counsel Hall for an evening of poetry and pizza.

In his opening remarks, Professor Javadizadeh said he hoped the event would give students a taste of what they could

expect from English classes at Villanova. Professor Javadizadeh originated the event over 10 years ago as a way to

introduce 1st year students to the English major and minor, at the time focusing on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The event has since centered other works including J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and, this year, Langston Hughes’ poetry collection The Weary Blues.

Professor Javadizadeh and Professor Skillings welcome students to the event.

2nd Year English MA Christopher Supplee then took center stage, providing historical context to Langston Hughes’ life

and his publication of The Weary Blues in 1926. Christopher concluded with a reading of Hughes’s poem “Dream Variations.”

2nd Year English MA Student Christopher Supplee reads Hughes' "Dream Variations"

Professor Javadizadeh then asked students to consider the many meanings of “dream” in the poem, as well as the

jazz-related idea of variations. The room split into small groups, led by graduate and undergraduate seniors, to discuss these two elements.

Undergraduate senior John Snyder leads a discussion group

Students reconvened to listen to Professor Emily Skillings, who broke down the poem’s literary devices and how the

use of form doesn’t limit a poem’s creative possibilities, but instead expands them.

Professor Emily Skillings discusses the poem's literary elements

Before the night let out, Professor Skillings invited students to write their own poems inspired by Hughes’ idea of variation.

Students talked, ate, and wrote together in the shared, creative space the event had cultivated. Several students approached the professors afterward to say the event had made them want to pursue the English major.

Thank you to the graduate and undergraduate students who helped with setting up and leading the discussion groups. Congratulations to Professors Javadizadeh and Professor Skillings for a successful event!