The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

Christoforos Sassaris, MA '22, has had a paper published in La Bibliofilía , Italy's oldest and preeminent peer-reviewed journal for bibliography and book history, in an issue dedicated to the memory of book historian Dennis E. Rhodes. You can learn more about the journal on their official site . Here is the abstract to Christoforos's article: "Yerasimos Vlachos’ Thesauros Tetraglossos —published in Venice, first in 1659 by Ducali Pinelli and again in 1723 by Antonio Vortoli—is a key text in the histories of modern Greek printing and the NeoHellenic diaspora. The book is a dictionary that contains modern Greek, ancient Greek, Latin, and Italian. Several notable differences exist between the first and second editions, and these differences shed light on the 1723 edition’s relation to the Hellenic community’s identity and its use of the text in the eighteenth century. Following the work of Vasilis Tatakis and others, I argue that the second edition served two main purpos...

Professor Tsering Wangmo Dhompa was featured in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review , in a biographical piece written by Emily DeMaioNewton. The piece marks the publication of Dr. Wangmo Dhompa's latest book of poetry, Revolute , and highlights both her trailblazing achievements (she is the first Tibetan woman to publish poetry in English) and her complex life story (she was born on a train in India to exiled Tibetan parents). Dr. Wangmo Dhompa was raised by her mother in India and Nepal and, following her mother's death, enrolled in an MFA program in San Francisco because "she thought that keeping busy and being in an unfamiliar place might help lessen the pain of loss." Since then, Dr. Wangmo Dhompa earned her PhD and has written many chapbooks and books of poetry, as well as a memoir. You can learn more about her work and her life by reading the article  from Tricycle . Illustration by Natalie Foss for Tricycle

​​​​Interview conducted by Jacqueline Ridberg Larabee VU MA '23 student Daniella began her Masters in English at Villanova knowing she wouldn’t end up in an typical “English” field. Rather her passion was always art. As an undergraduate she majored in Art History & English, and she knew that “Art history has a huge writing emphasis, but it is a flaw of most art history programs that they do not prioritize writing coursework.” Thus Daniella decided to pursue her MA in English. She talks about two divergent paths she saw herself going down after receiving her Masters: “One was to get a PhD in Art History, not English, and the other path was to pursue communications for an art museum.” Daniella decided to tangibly explore her post-grad career options by taking advantage of the English Department’s Professional Research Option (PRO), focusing on marketing & communications for Museums. The PRO course, available to second year English Masters students, consists of cre...

 Congrats to our grad students Em Friedman MA '21 and Christoforos Sassaris MA '21, who presented posters at the Villanova Graduate Research Symposium this fall. Em's topic was Feminist Abolitionism Across Time , and Christoforos's was Locating the Byzantine in Medieval English Literature: The Auchinleck Manuscript . More information about the graduate research symposium can be found here . Here is Em's abstract: The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS) was an interracial women's abolitionist group active in Philadelphia from 1833-1870. This project explores the PFASS's ideological and rhetorical strategies by close reading documents in their archive, including annual reports, minutes, correspondence and personal letters to other abolitionists, speeches and financial records. The PFASS's archive is housed with the Abolitionist Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. By focusing on the three Women's Anti-Slavery Conferences —hel...