BYO Book Reading Club at Falvey Library

Mark your calendar for Falvey Library's BYO Book reading club meetings this spring! They will take place on on Tuesday, February 18^th from 4-5:30pm and Thursday, March 27^th from 12-1:30pm. They spend the first 45 minutes of each meeting reading, and then the next 45 minutes discussing our books. Snacks included, of course. 

Also, look for the Blind Date with a Book display on the Popular Reading shelves tomorrow. Students helped wrap and decorate the covers. 

Finally, Falvey Library orders Popular Reading books almost entirely based on student suggestions, so if any English students are interested in getting involved further, feel free to reach out! There is a group of student volunteers who communicate virtually through Teams, or for a lighter commitment level, Falvey always reviewing suggestions through the suggestion box in Speakers’ Corner or the web form. More info here:https://library.villanova.edu/collections/highlighted-collections/popular-reading.

 

English and CAIS sponsored reading group: Isabella Hammad's Recognizing the Stranger

Join the English department and the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies for a two-part reading group on Isabella Hammad’s recently published book, Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative. The meetings will take place on Wednesday, November 6 and Thursday, November 21 at 6:00 pm in the English Department Conference Room, 402 SAC. The first meeting will cover Hammad’s Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture delivered on September 28, 2023, and the second meeting will cover “Afterword: On Gaza.” There will be copies of the book available to students who register by October 14. Please register here. Everyone welcome!

Social Justice Reading Group: Palestine

 

To get involved in the social justice reading group (this semester, on Palestine), complete the interest form here.

DEI: More of What We are Reading Now

Periodically, our department put out a list of Reading Recommendations for those wishing to learn more about diversity, equity, and inclusion. With the aim of expanding on that effort, our DEI committee would like to provide another update on some of the works that we are currently reading or have recently read that touch on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We're interested in reading books that change, challenge, and expand our thinking on what's happening in our lives and in the world around us. We hope you'll find some exciting or intriguing titles on this list. For those interested in viewing more suggestions, we encourage you to revisit our earlier lists of recommended titles (here and here). You may also want to explore Falvey Library's diversity and inclusion subject guide.

Adrienne Perry: I’ve finished two books in the last week that I’m still thinking about. The first is Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. The second is After the Lights Go Out by John Vercher. I’d heard of Yu’s book before I picked it up (it won the National Book Award in 2020), but I was eager to see how he used the screenplay format and, more importantly, how he wrote about Asian stereotypes, race, and assimilation. The book is about these topics and a lot more. It’s funny, but also really searing. John Vercher is a Philadelphia-based writer and a mixed-race writer, like me. I was eager to read about Xavier “Scarecrow” Wallace, a thirty-something MMA fighter who is suffering from memory loss brought on by his years of fighting. There’s so much happening in this terrific book, but one of the things I found myself most moved by was Xavier’s relationship with his white father, whose racist attitudes rear their ugly head as he struggles with his own memory loss in the form of dementia. The ending is totally gutting. Highly recommend both! 

Mary Mullen: Energized by the Palestine Writes Literature Festival which I attended this September, I’m reading Palestinian literature translated from Arabic. First, Ibtisam Azem’s The Book of Disappearance—a speculative novel that wonders what would happen if one day all the Palestinian people vanished from Israel. This imagined disappearance highlights Palestinian survival despite ongoing colonial violence, on the one hand, and questions the logic of colonialism, on the other. Second, I hope to read Adania Shibli’s Touch and We Are All Equally Far From Love. I read her novel, Minor Detail, a few years ago and it still haunts me and shapes my thinking so I very much look forward to reading her other writing. 

Yumi Lee: Ursula K. LeGuin, The Wizard of Earthsea trilogy: a beautifully written, completely engrossing tale that transports you to another world that then refracts back onto our own. The first fantasy series about a boy going to a wizard school; still one of the only fantasy series with a hero who’s not white. Come for the talking dragons, stay for one of the most inspirational stories of personal growth through hardship that you’ll ever read.

Travis Foster: Feeling hopeless as the mass destruction and killing in Gaza grows more tragic by the day, I’ve been reading Palestinian poetry: a literature that stands witness to the miracle of survival against overwhelming odds. I’ve returned several times to Mahmoud Darwish’s “A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies.” Written at the end of a decade during which Darwish had frequently been arrested by Israeli authorities, the poem opts to imagine peace by embracing the humanity of its eponymous IDF soldier, Darwish’s would-be enemy. As the soldier reflects upon a Palestinian peasant he had shot to death, he gradually comes to realize:

I need a kind heart, not a bullet.

I need a bright day, not a mad, fascist moment of triumph.

I need a child to cherish a day of laughter, not a weapon of war.

I came to live for rising suns, not to witness their setting.

Favorite Summer Books!

The start of the semester doesn't have to mean the end of reading for pleasure. Members of the advisory council share their favorite book from the summer to help you build your to-be-read list.

Kaitlin Gibson recommends Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus: "a great piece of feminist fiction that was lighthearted but grounded in the reality of the female experience. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie would approve!"

Hannah de Melo's favorite summer book was The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

Jo Mastrodomenico's favorite summer book was The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.

Gabe Jimenez enjoyed reading The Bomber Mafia by Malcom Gladwell and Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy

Sonia Singh recommends  Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood because it's a great balance between a classic Hallmark romcom and true feminism in both the protagonist and her love interest.

Mickey Wilcox enjoyed Edith Hamilton's Mythology. It provided a great catalog of Greek and Roman myths. In many cases, the author pulled from different sources for each myth, which made each account thorough while maintaining an entertaining narrative. A wonderful read for those just getting into myth, or for the already well-versed.

Bianca Brucker's favorite summer book is The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand. It is the perfect beach read. The book is full of entertaining gossip and is definitely a page-turner. All of the characters are very distinct and amusing and the setting is a luxurious hotel on the beautiful Massachusetts Island, Nantucket. After finishing this book, she definitely wanted to plan her own trip to Nantucket.

Ella O'Shea says Family of Liars by E. Lockhart was really good. One of her favorite books from when she was younger was We Were Liars, so when she heard there was a prequel, she bought it right away. 

Camille Ferace enjoyed Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh, which she read at the end of last semester and cannot stop talking about!

MT Barry says that her favorite summer book was The Fault in our Stars by John Green. She had been wanting to read it for a few years, and after she finally got her hands on a copy this summer, it did not disappoint! The creativity, complexity and prose expressed throughout was definitely eye-opening and consistently wowed me. She recommends it to anyone looking for an introspective, humorous at times, and witty read!

Emily Hanlon's favorite summer read was Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez. 

Katie Lewis's favorite summer read was The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

DEI: What We're Reading Now

Some time ago, our department put out a list of Reading Recommendations for those wishing to learn more about Black Lives Matter. With the aim of expanding on that effort, our DEI committee would like to provide an update on some of the works that we are currently reading or have recently read that touch on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion:

We're interested in reading books that change, challenge, and expand our thinking on what's happening in our lives and in the world around us. We hope you'll find some exciting or intriguing titles on this list. For those interested in reading specifically about white supremacy, policing, and racial justice, we encourage you to revisit our earlier list of recommended titles. You may also want to explore Falvey Library's diversity and inclusion subject guide.

ADRIENNE PERRY: I’m reading bell hooks Ain’t I a Woman, which she began writing in her early twenties and first published in 1981. This book has been on our shelves for years, but I decided to pick it up recently because I wanted to read more of hooks’ work given her passing at the end of 2021, but also because I’ve found her writings about teaching and love so galvanizing. I also want to center my reading around scholars, artists, and writers of color, particularly Black women. Ain’t I a Woman feels really relevant now, as it has me thinking about feminisms and the “long” “arc of the moral universe.” 

TRAVIS Foster:I just finished Alexis Hall’s A Lady for a Duke. It’s a Bridgerton-esque romance novel with a trans heroine. I picked it up for a novel that gives its protagonist complex humanity and a happy ending, something too often missing from contemporary depictions and transphobic stereotypes. And I love the cover!

JEAN LUTES What I’m reading … 

Annie Proulx’s Fen, Bog, and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and its Role in the Climate Crisis (2022) –  because Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Gathering Moss made me want to learn more about peat. (I know, a book made me want to read another book –but what do you expect?) It’s relevant to me now because of my moral panic about climate change and how we’re not doing nearly enough about it.

Farah Jasmine Griffin’s Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (2021) – because a friend recommended it, because it’s uplifting, and because I’ve been excited to learn more about the long history of what Gholdy Muhammad calls “historically responsive literacy” in Black communities. It’s relevant to me now because of the problem of mass incarceration and ongoing police violence against racial minorities.

YUMI LEE: I’m currently reading Joan is Okay by Weike Wang (2022) – it’s a novel told from the perspective of Joan, a Chinese-American woman living in New York City and working as a doctor in the ICU at a hospital just before the COVID pandemic hits. It hits on so many relevant issues – what it’s like to grow up different from those around you, power dynamics in the workplace, familial conflict, anti-Asian violence – but what drew me in the most was the utterly unique voice of the narrator Joan, who is charismatic, funny, wise, and bold. Highly recommend!

CHARLOTTE DAVIDSON: I’m currently reading The Dating Divide: Race and Dating in the Era of Online Romance by Celeste Vaughan Curington, Jennifer H. Lundquist, and Ken-you Lin. This book takes a look at “digital-sexual racism,” a form of racism that takes place in the online sphere, amplified by the idea that people can hide behind a mask. It takes a theoretical and historical look at how different racial groups are affected by this online dating, but also how dating is very gendered. The authors researched different dating websites and how people of different racial backgrounds, sexual identities, and genders are affected by this modern form of dating. It touches a lot on how early policy in America, specifically anti-miscegenation laws, slavery, and heteronormativity, can explain why, even though the internet is a useful place to expose oneself to many different people, racism and sexism still impede on the online dating experience. It also touches on stereotyping and how that influences the chatting that takes place on these dating sites. I think this is a wonderful book for college students to read. As students turn 18, online dating becomes a lot more popular amongst one’s peers and social circles. It is important to understand the ideas that shape one's dating experience, as well as the history of what dating has looked like in America for people outside of a hegemonic group. 

MARY MULLEN: I’ve been reading and re-reading a lot of Edward Said’s criticism and political writing these days to think about Palestine and the difficulty of representing Palestinian peoples’ experiences under occupation. I’ve especially liked returning to After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives (1986) which reflects on photos by Jean Mohr. On Said’s suggestion, these photos were exhibited at the 1983 International Conference on the Question of Palestine. But the participating states refused to allow any writing to accompany them: there could be pictures but no explanatory text. After negotiations, the UN eventually allowed the name of the location of the photograph to be included as long as there was no other text. After the Last Sky thus offers insight about Palestine, Palestinian people, and occupation but also about the politics of language more broadly. When I finish reading Said, I hope to turn to Suad Amiry’s Mother of Strangers (2022)--a novel set in the cosmopolitan city of Jaffa between 1947 and 1951, and thus narrating the Nakba or Palestinian Catastrophe. I also have been meaning to watch Farha on Netflix.

LISA SEWELL: I’ve been reading The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois by Honoree Fanon Jeffers and I can’t recommend it enough. It is a long, deeply imagined, beautifully written/constructed and utterly absorbing novel that tracks and bravely tries to think through the complex legacies of settler colonialism, the slave trade, reconstruction, segregation and the civil rights and Black power movements on the lives and “souls” of Black people. The story moves between the past and the present and is partly told through the eyes of Ailey Pearl Garfield as she tries to negotiate and understand her own identity as she learns about and investigates her ancestral roots, which include free and enslaved Blacks, Creek tribal leaders, as well as Scottish and other white colonialists. It’s a big, satisfying read but also harrowing as Jeffers does not shy away from difficult subjects like the unremitting violence of plantation life, the complexities of colorism and intra-racial racism, and the silence around domestic sexual abuse. It also takes a deep dive into the history of historically Black colleges and universities, and developments in Black intellectual life. I’m making it sound really dry, but it’s not! Ailey is a funny, vulnerable and utterly human guide that I fell in love with. 

Literary Festival: Robin Coste-Lewis -- April 8

Villanova BIPOC Writers Read Their Work

On Tuesday, November 17, students, alumni, and faculty who have participated in the BIPOC Writing Group read from their work, which included poetry, prose, and nonfiction. The BIPOC Writing Group meets every other Tuesday evening via Zoom. For details, please contact Dr. Adrienne Perry at adrienne.perry@villanova.edu.

The reading was hosted by Dr. Adrienne Perry (top left) and featured the following presenters (clockwise from top left): Dr. Yumi Lee, Lydia McFarlane, Arman Salem, Kamakshi Ranjan, and Cindy Rene.

Students in Prof. Staples' Class in Stoneleigh Gardens Read Their Poetry and Prose

On Monday, November 16, the students in Prof. Cathy Staples Nature Writing Workshop read selections of their poetry and prose on Zoom to an audience of students, faculty, and community members. This event was sponsored by Stoneleigh and the Natural Lands conservation organization. Professor Staples and her students have spent the semester meeting in a safe, socially distanced manner in the Stoneleigh gardens, which are adjacent to the Villanova campus.

Pictured (clockwise from left): Prof. Cathy Staples as host, and student readers Sydney Monroe, Meg Glinka, Lyndey Gallagher, Anna Connolly, Anna Keller, Alexandra Penzi, and Gabby Isola.

Villanova Faculty and Students Read Their Poetry and Stories

On Wednesday, November 11, four Villanova writers—two students and two faculty members-- read from their work to an audience of more than one hundred students, faculty, and other Villanova community members. Dr. Tsering Wangmo began the evening by reading a selection of her recent poems. Sophomore Jacqueline Carroll read next, sharing a section of one of her short stories. Dr. Alan Drew then read from his upcoming novel. The readings concluded with senior Tia Parisi, who read several of her poems. The event concluded with a Q-and-A. 

Dr. Adrienne Perry To Read Her Work at Zoom Event

Come and hear Dr. Adrienne Perry read her work on Tuesday, August 18 at event on Zoom organized by Belladonna* Collaborative. The evening will also feature several other contributors to Matters of Feminist Practice: Frances Richard, Rachel Levitsky, Serena Chopra, and Yanara Friedland.

The reading begins at 7 p.m. EST. Belladonna* promotes the work of women and feminist writers who are adventurous, experimental, politically involved, multi-form, multicultural, multi-gendered, impossible to define, unpredictable, and dangerous with language." This event is free and open to the public.

Tickets available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/matters-of-feminist-practice-reading-2-tickets-116502858185

Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2619763564956231/

Want to Learn More about Black Lives Matter? Villanova English Faculty Reading Recommendations

The Villanova English Department stands in solidarity with our Black students, staff, and faculty and their allies against anti-Black racism, police violence, and racial injustice.

The faculty intend to contact students with an action plan before the fall semester begins, and we will be asking for student input as we proceed. In the meantime, if you have specific suggestions or questions about our department response, please direct them to Dr. Jean Lutes, chair of our department Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee, at jean.lutes@villanova.edu.

As a first step in our response to the rising Black Lives Matter movement, we invite you to consider this reading list on white supremacy, policing, and racial justice:

• James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963) [available online via Falvey Library], and Raoul Peck’s 2018 documentary I Am Not Your Negro [available for purchase on Youtube and Amazon prime video]

• Angela J. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003) [also available online via Falvey]

• Claudia Rankine, Citizen (2014) -- Rankine read at Villanova during the 2019 Literary Festival

• Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (2016) [available online via Falvey]

• Reginald Dwayne Betts, Felon: Poems (2019) -- Betts read at Villanova during the 2017 Literary Festival 

Online Resources

On prisons, policing and punishment:

https://medium.com/@micahherskind/resource-guide-prisons-policing-and-punishment-effb5e0f6620

Breaking down the Prison Industrial Complex Video Project by Critical Resistance: http://criticalresistance.org/videoproject/

Reading Towards Abolition: A Reading List on Policing, Rebellion, and the Criminalization of Blackness:

https://www.radicalhistoryreview.org/abusablepast/reading-towards-abolition-a-reading-list-on-policing-rebellion-and-the-criminalization-of-blackness/?fbclid=IwAR2uIRH37EyEILfH4VsxTytcSsxOPOu29wQ9JU-StnsJkXthgF8_mAHg1qA

Black Lives Matter resources available through Falvey Library. 

“Geographies of Racial Capitalism” video and “Intercepted” podcast episode featuring Ruth Wilson Gilmore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CS627aKrJI

https://theintercept.com/2020/06/10/ruth-wilson-gilmore-makes-the-case-for-abolition/

The #BlackCatholics Syllabus, curated by Dr. Tia Noelle Pratt: https://tiapratt.com/blackcatholicssyllabus-2/

And, to help make sense of all of this reading, a short essay, “What is an Anti-Racist Reading List For?” by Dr. Lauren Michele Jackson: https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/anti-racist-reading-lists-what-are-they-for.html

Writing Through Conflict: Villanova Students and Writers from Seamus Heaney Centre Read Their Work

Last week the Center for Irish Studies and the Seamus Heaney Centre in Belfast organized a reading by Irish writers and four Villanova students who participated in last spring's Writing Through Conflict course. Glenn Patterson kept the audience thoroughly engaged and entertained and invited an audience member to an impromptu recital of Seamus Heaney's poem, "Digging."  Irish writers Nick Laird and Stephen Sexton read alongside Villanova students Madelyn Dyer, Caroline Rini, Courtney Schonewolf, and Reagan Wish. 

English Faculty Shine at College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Poetry Reading

A good-sized audience of poetry lovers gathered in Speakers' Corner in Falvey Library this week to hear faculty from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences read their work. English  Profs. Tsering Wangmo, Catherine Staples, and Jill Karn were among the readers. Thanks to Helena Ernst for the great photos!

Literary Festival welcomes poet Claudia Rankine - April 4