The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

Congratulations to second-year student William Repetto for winning this year’s Meyer Innovation and Creative Excellence Award from the Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship (ICE) Institute . The ICE Awards were created to recognize a spirit of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship that enhances Villanova University. The annual award of a trophy and $1,000 goes to one graduating student from each college (as well as to one faculty member). William won the award for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences for serving as the project lead for the launch of the Diversity and Inclusion Resource Guide at Falvey Library. As stated on the guide’s home page, it is intended to aid students in exploring a “vast range of social, political sexual, racial, and gendered issues in today’s world. This page offers a point of entry for exploration and seeks to provide a space for genuine personal, intellectual and emotional growth. As a library community composed of diverse voices,

A few of our own showed up for this year's Spring Gala!

Congratulations to first-year student Nick Manai for getting his paper published in The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies! Nick’s paper will appear in the 2018 issue, Volume 18. The title of Nick’s paper is “Turning Inward: Using Insight as a Catalyst for Change in The Corrections.” Nick’s paper looks at the ways Jonathan Franzen's characters make meaningful change to their lives in his novel  The Corrections . Nick argues that they are able to expand strict moral perspectives through reflection that yields insight into their own lives or the lives of their family members. Franzen's thematic commitment to insight is indicative of Marilynne Robinson's belief in the mind’s introspective powers and Foucault's concern, later in his career, with knowledge of the self. This reading also confirms Rachel Greenwald Smith's sense of the "affective hypothesis" in contemporary fiction where characters actively seek to improve their emotions, but Nick argue that ra

Our English MA students took over the Journal of Graduate Studies this year! Congrats Nick, Lia, Angeline, Stephen, and Casey! For more information about Concept and to read their articles,  click here .

George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia has issued a call for papers for its "Computers & Writing" conference, which will take place May 24-27 . Visit our full post on the Conference Opportunities page for more information. The Graduate Studies office has exhausted its budget for funding students’ travel, but the English department can still reimburse up to $100 of expenses.

The English Department announces the following prizes to be awarded for the best essays written for English classes.  Essays can be submitted by faculty or students.  They should be e-mailed to Sharon Rose-Davis, English Department administrative assistant ( sharon.rose-davis@villanova.edu ).    (1)    Undergraduate Award   - The Jerome J. Fischer Memorial Award ($250), given to the most distinguished scholarly or critical essay written by an undergraduate student at Villanova. (2)    Graduate Award   - The Margaret Powell Esmonde Memorial Award ($250), given to the most distinguished scholarly or critical essay written by a graduate student at Villanova.  Eligibility Both competitions are open only to students taking courses at Villanova University.  To be eligible, essays must have been (1)  written within a year preceding the deadline; (2)  written either for a Villanova English course (2100 level or higher) or for a Villanova course (2000 level or higher) that was

This past Monday, April 9, the department hosted two visiting professors for our annual English Department Colloquium. Dr. Pearl Brilmyer , from the University of Pennsylvania, is currently working on a book project entitled that concerns the philosophical implications of the disarticulation of character from plot in late Victorian realism.  She has recently published in PMLA, Representations, and Victorian Studies . For the Colloquium, Dr. Brilmyer presented on "George Eliot and the Body Semiotic." Dr. Cristobal Silva , from Columbia University, is currently writing a book titled  Republic of Medicine , which is a literary history of the late eighteenth-century Atlantic world that examines the interchange of pathogens, treatments, and medical narratives that shadowed the slave trade. He is also the author of Miraculous Plagues: An Epidemiology of Early New England Narrative . For the Colloquium, Dr. Silva presented on "The Silent History of Nostalgia."

Arcadia University’s English Department has issued an invitation for their upcoming graduate conference, "The 19th Century and Gender & Sexuality," which will take place close by on Saturday, October 6th. Visit our post on the Conference Opportunities page for more information! As always, remember that if you decide to submit proposals to any conferences, be sure to consider applying for funding. See the Graduate Studies Office’s webpage on Conference Travel Funding . And remember that you have to apply for the funding before you attend the conference. (In recent years, the funding has tended to run out early in the spring semester.) You can apply before you hear whether your paper is accepted, but next year’s funding cycle doesn’t begin until June 1, so don’t apply before then. One further note: the Graduate Studies Office will give students only one travel grant in a fiscal year, so if you think you might also present at a conference that would cost more to get to,