The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

Africana Studies is sponsoring a lecture by Dr. Tess Onwueme, University of Wisconsin Professor of Global Letters. As the seventh annual Senghor-Damas-Cesaire lecture in Africana Studies, she will be presenting "Erupting Silences: Dr. Tess Onwueme Speaks/Performs the Soul of Africana" on November 14 at 4:00 pm at the Connelly Cinema . Click here to view the event postcard The event is co-sponsored by the Cultural Studies Program and the Institute for Global Interdisciplinary Studies.

Mark your calendars for the annual Graduate English Program Forum on applying for the Ph.D. On Tuesday, November 15 at 7:30 p.m. in SAC 300 , our two newest faculty members, Dr. Joe Drury, who received his Ph.D. at Penn, and Dr. Kamran Javadizadeh, who received his Ph.D. at Yale, will talk about the decision to pursue a Ph.D. and the nuts and bolts of applying. One of our recent graduates of the M.A. program, Don James McLaughlin, who is now pursuing his Ph.D. at Penn, will also talk about life in a Ph.D. program. Please email Dr. Hicks to R.S.V.P. by Friday, November 4th at 5:00 pm.

The New York Times recently published an article entitled "I was an Under-Age Smiotician" by Steven Johnson.  Co-creator of Findings.com and author, most recently, of  Where Good Ideas Come From  and the editor of  The Innovator’s Cookbook , Johnson ruminates on the lasting effects of his semiotics major from Brown. Click here to read the article!

Check out UPenn English Department's CFP page, where you can find daily updates about calls for conference papers and journal submissions. Everyone is welcome to subscribe to the site, so  Click here  to browse the recent posts for upcoming conferences and journal issues. 

Deena ElGenaidi was busy this spring with three different conference presentations. On April 9, 2011 at University of Delaware's Geis Student Research on Women Conference, she presented her paper "Cruel Femininity: The Androgyny and Performative Femininity of Shakespeare's Queen Margaret." The following weekend, on April 16, 2011, she presented at University of Rhode Island's [Pre]Occupations Conference. Her paper was entitled "Flying to Freedom: Stephen Dedalus's Nietzschian Journey." Finally, on May 28, 2011 at Northwestern University's Queertopia Conference, she presented the paper "Escape through the Exotic: Dorian's Struggle with Homosexuality in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray."

Irish Studies has lined up a semester full of great lectures, readings, theatrical performances, and film screenings. On October 17 , Patrick Mason, one of Ireland's leading theatre directors, will give the inaugural lecture for the Villanova-Abbey Theatre Exchange . His lecture, focusing on the new Irish Theatre, will be held at Dougherty West Lounge at 7:00 pm and will be followed by a reception.  Click here to view the event poster! On November 1, Booker Nominated Novelist Patrick McGuinness will host a reading at 5:30 pm in the Falvey Library Lounge. Click here to view the Irish Studies fall 2011 event calendar Check back for future events, or visit the  Irish Studies website  for more information.

As part of our arrangement with the Women's Studies Consortium of Greater Philadelphia, Villanova Women's Studies is bringing Dr. Karen Barad to Villanova to run a seminar on "agential realism" on Wednesday, November 9th at 1:30 in the afternoon in Room 200 of the Health Center Building . Dr. Barad is a Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research topics include feminist theory, physics, twentieth-century continental philosophy, epistemology, ontology, philosophy of physics, cultural studies of science, and feminist science studies. Barad earned her Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics. Her topic for the seminar is "Entanglements of Matter and Meaning" -- agential realism as an ethico-onto-epistemological understanding of mattering; what is entanglement?; why and how do entanglements matter; how to think with phenomena rather than objects; how to simultaneously acknow

Laura Freeman presented a paper entitled "What's Wrong with the Mainstream? Discovering a Feminist Poetics in the Lyrical Style of Marie Howe" at the University of Delaware's Geis Student Research on Women Conference in the spring of 2011.