The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

This past summer, many of our faculty traveled and gave talks all around the world. We’ll be featuring a few of them in the coming weeks—this time, we’ll be focusing on Dr. Kamran Javadizadeh, who traveled to the UK and spoke about poetry in Oxford and Cambridge. Professor Javadizadeh was invited to give a lecture on June 5th at the American Literature Research Seminar in Oxford, and he presented on ‘The National Poetry Crisis.’ Dr. Javadizadeh drew from the conclusion to his forthcoming book for his talk, which centered on a poetry festival which had been organized at the Library of Congress in the fall of 1962, and which happened to coincide with the Cuban Missile Crisis. “After the first day of the conference,” explained Dr. Javadizadeh, “President Kennedy came on television and announced that there were these missiles in Cuba. The Poetry Festival was happening in the Library of Congress, which is right next to the capitol building itself.” The festival’s setting, and its status...

Novelist and editor Jason Rekulak captivated his audience with stories about his journey from English graduate to editor and writer in Philadelphia. In conversation with Dr. Joe Drury and Dr. Adrienne Perry, Rekulak discussed the success of  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies  and its film adaptation, the creative process behind writing books, literary fandom, and the realities of life as a writer and editor. 

Our very own subject librarian Sarah Wingo will be facilitating a workshop on literary text analysis using NLTK and Python on November 5, 2025, from 12-1 p.m. We encourage you to attend and add to your digital humanities skills! No coding experience is necessary.

 The authors (and one translator!) who will be appearing as part of Lit Fest 2026 have been announced and can be viewed over on the English department's website .  We hope to see you at the readings!

  ENG 8260: Medieval Romance Dr. Brooke Hunter CRN 34350 Thursday from 5:20 pm to 07:20 pm Romance—the mode of literature that tells stories of chivalry, ladies, and love—shaped medieval ideas about everything from racial and cultural identity to best practices for flirting. Focusing on the romances of King Arthur and other English heroes, this course will consider three main questions: how romances structure the experience of love, sexuality, and gender; how romances shape the practice of religion and notions of religious and racial otherness; and how romances construct ideas about peoples ( nationes ) and political power. Half of the course reading will be in Middle English, including the cannibalistic crusader sieges of  Richard Coer de Lyon , several works by Geoffrey Chaucer, and a selection from Thomas Malory’s exhaustive collection of Arthuriana,  Le Morte d’Arthur . We will also read several works of early Arthuriana in translation, including Geoffrey of Monmo...

 The English Department is proud to share the release of Dr. Lauren Shohet's new edited collection,  Queering Early Modern Death in England: Figuration, Representation, Matter.  This new collection, edited by Dr. Shohet and Dr. Christine Varnado of the University of Buffalo, analyzes a variety of celebrated texts, including  The Duchess of Malfi ,  The Alchemist ,  The Spanish Tragedy ,  The Winter's Tale ,  Richard III , and  A Midsummer Night's Dream , using queer theoretical methodologies to offer fascinating insights regarding early modern conceptualizations of humanity, embodiment, and temporality, among others. Dr. Shohet and Dr. Varnado utilize queer logics to suggest poignant understandings of early modern death as non-dualist, non-linear, a-teleological, and fruitfully muddled, showcasing the fascinating expansiveness of death through a queer lens. A worthy addition to the collection of anyone interested in questions of queernes...