12th Annual Thesis & Field Exam Symposium

 The 12th annual Thesis & Field Exam Symposium was held on Thursday, May 5th, in the Fedigan Room at Villanova. Graduating students from Villanova's MA program presented their theses and field exams in brief presentations and fielded questions from their peers and from faculty members. This was our first in-person symposium since 2019, so it was especially nice to see everyone and share ideas together. The presenters this year were Amanda Piazza, Sam Covais, Franki Rudnesky, Jess Derr, Em Friedman, Vicki Dearden, and Christina Kosch. 

Amanda Piazza presented her thesis, "Mirrored Malfunction: Gothic Doubling in Alan Moore's Graphic Novels," discussing V for Vendetta, From Hell, and Watchmen, exploring the role of doubling in those works, particularly in reference to the characters of V, Jack the Ripper, and Rorschach. 

Sam Covais presented her thesis, "'We Know What We Got': Subversive Masculinity in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men," noting that she feels Steinbeck is frequently written off by academics in favor of his contemporaries, and exploring the ways in which Steinbeck explored differing conceptions of masculinity in his work. 

Franki Rudnesky presented her thesis, "Tragedy of the Teenage Girl: Female Characters in Contemporary Shakespearean Commercial Film Adaptations," exploring the nineties filmic modernizations of three Shakespeare tragedies (Hamlet, O, and Romeo and Juliet), and noting that the change in setting for these plays did not seem to lead to a change in autonomy for their tragic female heroines. 

Jess Derr presented her thesis, "Surviving More than Monsters: Post-Horror in the Age of #MeToo," exploring Midsommar, The VVitch, and It Follows, interrogating the genre framing of "post horror," and evaluating these films for how they engage with the ideas of MeToo. 

Vicki Dearden presented her thesis, "Narrative and Nation in Literature," looking at the ways that canonical American fictional works contribute to narratives of national identity and how those works are taught in the American school system. 

Em Friedman presented their thesis, "Being Nothing: Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls and the Poethics of Annihilation," drawing parallels between a contemporary critical theorist who writes on Black Lives Matter (among other things), and a medieval mystic who wrote about the soul in relation to God. Em drew parallels relating to both works' questioning of existing social epistemological constructs, particularly in relation to our ethical values. 

Finally, Christina Kosch presented her thesis, "The Passion According to Benjamin Moser: Clarice Lispector Through Moser's Lens," looking at the ways in which a Brazilian author writing in Portuguese has had her works shaped (both in terms of their reception, but also in terms of the works themselves) by her translator into English. 

We'd like to also note our spring 2022 MA grads who did not present at the symposium: Sam Dugan, Christoforos Sassaris, Alicia Sakers, and Lori McErlean. 

Congratulations to all our MA grads!