The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

One of our grad students, Adam Riekstins, MA '24, recently interviewed Dr. Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, currently Professor and chair in the Department of Religion and chair in Science and Technology Studies at Williams College. According to Adam, "A few weeks ago, I had an amazing opportunity to interview Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, a current academic 'celeb' who has laid a lot of the groundwork for metamodernism, a trending school of theory (both academically and publicly). I have written a lot about metamodernism in my graduate studies and presented on it at a few conferences as well." Adam initially reached out to Dr. Storm with a question about his work: "I approached reaching out to Dr. Storm very carefully, since his work has been the cornerstone of my graduate career so far and I didn't want to trigger a Wayne's World 'we're not worthy!' moment," he said. "I sent him an email with a few quick questions about metamodern...

Where are you from? I'm from Wayne, PA. What do you do outside of grad school? Where do you work, and what are some of your hobbies? I'm a high school English and French teacher in Center City Philadelphia. Outside of school,  I love to write creatively--I write poetry and creative nonfiction, primarily. I also like going hiking, and I like to sing.  Favorite text you’ve read in a class this semester?  I really liked "Ahistorical" by Valerie Rohy, which we read for Mary Mullen's session on Historicism, Presentism, and Anachronism in the Theory course. It was a really interesting reading of "Ligeia"--personally, I wouldn't have thought to read the text that way and I appreciated doing a queer reading of such a classic text. What are some areas of study you're considering? I've become really interested in the idea of the archive and the limitations of the traditional archive in its dominant structural form, as well as tran...

Dr.  Christine Muller  graduated from Villanova's English MA program in 2002 and went on to earn her PhD in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Muller is now the Dean of Saybrook College, a residential college at Yale. She is also a lecturer in American Studies at Yale. In January of 2017, Dr. Muller published a book entitled  September 11, 2001 as a Cultural Trauma: A Case Study through Popular Culture.  Lia Mrozinski, a current first-year graduate student, had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Muller about her new book, her experience in academia, and more: LM: I read on Palgrave Macmillan that your recently published book,  September 11, 2001 as a Cultural Trauma: A Case Study through Popular Culture , explores cultural trauma in the early twenty-first century. What catalyzed your interest in this field? CM: Immediately after September 11, 2001, the idea that the “world had changed” circulated pervasively. I felt viscera...