Posts

Coming Up: Digital Seeds Lectures from Falvey Library

Image
Two exciting Digital Seeds lectures, offered by Falvey Library, will be held this coming April, and may be of particular interest to our graduate students.  According to Falvey Library's website, "The Digital Seeds Speaker Series is a library funded program that supports the invitation of guest speakers in the digital scholarship community to speak at Falvey Library about their research and/or give a workshop on a topic of their choice. The goal of the speaker series is to provide an opportunity for Villanova faculty, staff, and students to learn more about digital scholarship and research at the intersection of social science, humanities computing, and data science. The lectures are open to the public and all Villanova faculty, staff, and students to attend. The series is a great way to make connections, build community, and facilitate conversation." The two upcoming lectures are Dr. Sarah Lang on “Leveraging Large Language Models to Unveil Seventeenth-Century Books of S

Just Published: Professor Joe Drury on Humans, Machines, and Automatons

Image
 Professor Joe Drury has a chapter coming out next week in the new  Routledge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Literatures in English , edited by Nicole Aljoe, Sarah Eron, and Suvir Kaul. The title of Professor Drury's essay is “Humans, Machines, and Automatons.” Here is the abstract of Professor Drury's chapter: Lord Macartney’s assumptions about the Chinese taste for spectacular ornamental machinery during his unsuccessful 1793–1794 embassy reflected changing attitudes toward technology within Britain’s Industrial Enlightenment. Where machines had previously been valued for their aesthetic qualities, the labor required to produce them, and the luxurious consumption they excited, late eighteenth-century commentators such as Adam Smith increasingly emphasized their utility, the productive labor they saved, and the frugality required of the capitalists who introduced them. Responding to this shift, Frances Burney’s  Evelina  and William Beckford’s  Vathek  reimagined the longstan

Coming Soon: A Timeline of the "Black Barbie" Doll

Image
Coming soon! Villanova undergrad English major Jenine Hazlewood will be presenting to the school district of Philadelphia on the topic of "What were they made for? A Timeline of the 'Black Barbie' Doll."  This free virtual professional development workshop will take place on March 16 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. To learn more and to register, please visit the virtual form .

Submissions to Ellipsis are Open!

Image
Villanova’s Ellipsis Literary Magazine is seeking submissions! Everyone is encouraged to submit: undergraduates and graduates as well as professors and staff within the Villanova community. They accept a wide host of traditional and non-traditional media from writing, poetry, and art to embroidery, text messages, memes, and anything else with aesthetic value, humor, personal meaning, or, perhaps, a touch of the bizarre.  Simply submit your work to ellipsis@villlanova.edu, and they'll consider it for this year’s edition. Their deadline for submissions is March 20th. 

Fall 2024 Courses Unveiled!

Image
  Fall 2024 Courses ENG 8 000  What’s Hot? Introduction to Literary Theory Dr. Heather Hicks ENG 8106  The Fabulous Middle Ages Dr. Brooke Hunter ENG 8560  Victorian Publics & Populations Dr. Mary Mullen ENG 8640 Modernism & FanFic Dr. Megan Quigley ENG 9520  Reading the Ethnic Canon Dr. Yumi Lee Summer 2024 Course Description ENG 9640 The Modern American Novel Dr. Jean Lutes Summer 2024 Course Description ENG 9640: The Modern American Novel Dr. Jean Lutes CRN 11087 MTWR from 11:00 am to 01:20 pm Summer Session II: 7/1/24 - 7/29/24 This course studies significant works of American fiction written in the first half of the twentieth century and considers how writers responded to the sweeping changes that characterized modernity in America. As we chart modernism’s emergence, we will look both backward and forward, discussing how writers extended and challenged nineteenth-century literary traditions, as well as how they anticipated the concerns of our o

Professor Takahata Takes Part in Land Acknowledgement Panel

Image
On February 21st, VU English Professor Kimberly Takahata moderated a discussion on approaches to including and teaching Lenape materials in the classroom, featuring Adam DePaul, the Chief of Education and tribal storykeeper of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania. This discussion followed a panel on the impact of Land Acknowledgements at academic institutions and why they are merely a starting point to supporting indigenous communities. The panelists included Adam DePaul, Chief of Education and Tribal Storykeeper; Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania; as well as Modonna Kongal, Meg Martin, and Autumn Coard from N.I.S.A, the Native Indigenous Students Association. Elisha Chi, a white settler descendant of the Iñupiat of the Bering Straits region, moderated the panel.  Kimberly Takahata and Adam DePaul

Taught by Literature's New Website Launches

Image
The Taught by Literature project has a new website full of interesting content that Villanova students, both undergraduate and graduate, have helped produce. Founded in 2021 and funded by the Idol Family Fellows Program of the McNulty Center for Women’s Leadership at Villanova, the Taught by Literature Project honors the legacy of Black author, educator, and activist Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935). In partnership with the University of Delaware’s Department of Special Collections, the project is producing a freely accessible digital edition of “The Annals of ‘Steenth Street,” a short-story collection Dunbar-Nelson wrote based on her work teaching Black children at the White Rose Mission in New York City in the 1890s. The project also conducts professional development training on early Black women writers for teachers in the School District of Philadelphia, and is collaborating with award-winning producer and director Hezekiah Lewis, a Communication professor at Villanova, to produce

Jean Lutes's New Co-Written Article (and the Nova Students Who Helped Make it Happen)

Image
Professor Jean Lutes has co-authored an article that investigates a fascinating unpublished manuscript by turn-of-the-century African-American author Alice Dunbar-Nelson. The article appears in  American Literary History , Volume 36, Issue 1, Summer 2024, and is titled"An Unpublished Tale about African American Poetry: Alice Dunbar-Nelson's 'The Grievances of the Books' (1897)." The article acknowledges three Villanova students who helped to transcribe the unpublished manuscript that Professor Lutes and her co-writer, Professor Sandra A. Zagarell, wrote about: Current English major Jenine Hazlewood, '26; current master's student Matthew Villanueva, MA '24; and recent English major graduate Adrianna Ogando, '23.  Here's an excerpt from the article that provides a flavor of Dunbar-Nelson's original piece: In April 1897, an ambitious young author drafted a hallucinatory narrative that was never published. Its unnamed narrator falls asleep and

Professor Kimberly Takahata to present research at Penn

Image
On February 22, 2024 at 5:00 p.m., Professor Kimberly Takahata will give   a talk  titled   “ Not Witnessing John Gabriel Stedman's   A Narrative of a Five Years Expedition. ”  It will take place in the  grad lounge (Fisher Bennett Hall 330)  at the University of Pennsylvania's English department.

Spring 2024 BIPOC Writing Hangouts

Image
BIPOC Writing Hangouts are Back!   The monthly BIPOC writing hangouts are for Villanova community members—students, staff, faculty, and alumni—who identify as people of color. You do not need to have any creative writing experience! Pizza, prompts, and company will be provided at our hangouts hosted by BIPOC faculty in the English Department. This semester, we will meet on February 21, March 20, and April 17. Come join us! If you would like more information, you can email Kimberly Takahata at   kimberly.takahata@villanova.edu . The first meeting of the semester will take place on Wednesday, February 21 from 6:00-7:30 p.m. in SAC 402, the English department conference room.