The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

Congratulations MA class of 2019! Left to right: Alex Brodin, Alex Einspahr, Ashley DiRienzo, Angela Christaldi, Sara Kolojejchick Angela Christaldi and Sara Kolojejchick on the left; Alex Einspahr on the right Sharon Rose-Davis and Heather Hicks at the reception Travis Foster and Nick Manai Liz Wood and family

Christie’s Icelandic Cake was the 2018-2019 Best Snack in a Graduate Seminar!

Thanks to everyone who attended our 9th Annual Thesis & Field Exam Symposium! It was great to hear from our soon-to-graduate classmates on their recent projects. Alex Einspahr presents "A Prison of the Body" Brian Borosky presents "Composing Home" Here's who presented, along with their topics: Angela Christaldi, “Sister of the ‘Weary Fraternity’: Louisa May Alcott’s Reconciliation to Transcendentalism via Her Writings about the American Civil War” Joseph Alicea, “In-between and Overflowing: Meta-archipelagic Visions of Identity, Community, and Tradition in the Literary Production of Pedro Pietri” Alexandria Einspahr, “A Prison of the Body: Illness, Incarceration, and the Embodiment of Form in Memoir” Brian Borosky, “Composing Home: Things, World, and Futurity in the Poetry of George Oppen” Christie Leonard, “Medicine, Disease, and Pathology in Nineteenth-Century British Gothic Fiction” Nicholas Manai, “The Anglophone Novel of Living and Dyi...

From last year's symposium--look at all the learning!! The Ninth Annual Thesis and Field Examination Symposium will take place on  Monday, May 6th from 5:30-7:30pm in SAC 300 . This event is a great opportunity for students who are completing the program to present their research, while also giving first-year students a sense of the sorts of projects that are undertaken as master’s theses and field examinations.  We typically have two consecutive one-hour sessions, in which students offer ten-minute presentations of their research.  The event is structured to allow for plenty of time for comments and questions by audience members and other presenters.  We will have some refreshments at the start of the event, and offer a hot dinner to follow. If you are currently working on a thesis or field exam we encourage you to present your work !  Whether you will be finishing this semester or over the summer, this can be an opportunity for you to share your co...

Thanks to everyone who came our spring colloquium, featuring Dagmawi Woubshet from the University of Pennsylvania.  His talk was entitled “Outside the Temple: James Baldwin’s Changing View of Love and Sexuality" -- you can read his article, published in The Atlantic this past January, here ! Dr. Kamran Javadizadeh introduces Dr. Woubshet

Our upcoming spring colloquium will feature Dagmawi Woubshet from the University of Pennsylvania.  His talk is entitled “ Outside the Temple: James Baldwin’s Changing View of Love and Sexuality ." From the poster: Dagmawi Woubshet is Ahuja Family Presidential Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, where he works at the intersections of African American, LGBTQ, and African studies. He is the author of The Calendar of Loss: Race, Sexuality, and Mourning in the Early Era of AIDS (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015) and the co-editor of Ethiopia: Literature, Art, and Culture , a special issue of the journal Callaloo (2010). His writing has appeared in many publications, including Transition, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Aperture, The Atlantic , and African Lives: An Anthology . He is currently completing a second book, Here Be Saints: James Baldwin’s Late Style . See you there!

The Department of Philosophy at Haverford College is delighted to invite you to the 2019 Altherr lecture, which will be given by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor in English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University. Professor Spivak’s lecture, titled “Complicity,” will take place on Saturday 23 February, 4:00 pm-5:45 pm in Stokes Auditorium. The lecture will be followed by a public reception in Stokes Lobby from 5:45pm pm-6:45 pm. Gayatri Spivak is a leading figure in the humanities, and her work is foundational in postcolonial studies. Her writings include "Can the Subaltern Speak?", A Critique of Postcolonial Reason,Outside in the Teaching Machine, The Post-Colonial Critic, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics , and an influential translation of, and introduction to, Derrida's Of Grammatology . In 2012 she was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy.

Thanks to everyone who came to Brooke's farewell party last week! We are all, of course, sad to see her go, but are proud of her for the exciting opportunity ahead. We wish you the best of luck in your new position as Student Services Coordinator! We miss you already!

Please join us at noon on Friday, February 1st to say farewell to our beloved program coordinator, Brooke Erdman! Let's give her a nice send off and wish her luck at her new position in the Graduate Studies Office!

Save the date: The 21st Annual Villanova University Literary Festival! All readings begin at 7 p.m., are free, and are followed by a reception and book signing. For a full list and description of events, visit the Lit Fest's informational page .

Below are the Gender & Women’s Studies courses being offered this spring. Students pursuing the certificate may be particularly interested in these offerings. Remember you can take up to two courses in another department with permission from Dr. Radcliffe. GWS 8000: Critical Perspectives on Gender Dr. Elizabeth Kolsky R 7:30-9:30 An interdisciplinary study of gender, women, and sexuality, this course surveys contemporary developments in feminist, gender, and queer theory. It also applies those theories to a variety of topics, such as the representation of gender, the history of sexuality, the science of sexual difference, gender in the workplace, and gender in the digital age. Throughout the semester, we will consider how ideas about gender are bound inextricably to ideas about race and class. Sample student comments on the Spring 2018 course: "Amazing course taken as an elective outside my department. Everything I learned can be integrated into the way I conduct scienc...

The list of spring courses is now available on the Villanova Graduate English program website. Visit here to read the full course descriptions! Please let Brooke ( brooke.erdman@villanova.edu ) know what you want to take , and if you know your student ID please include that as well. If you aren’t quite sure what you want to take, just be sure to let Brooke know ASAP, but certainly before the end of the semester! A few important reminders: Your advisor serves as a resource if you have questions about (1) how to design your course of study so that it best meets your needs, and/or (2) whether to pursue your graduate studies further at the Ph.D. level.  Meeting with your advisor is strictly optional.  Unless you wish to do so, you do not need to consult with your advisor to register for classes.  Regardless of whether you speak to your advisor about the classes you wish to register for, please remember that you must always contact me in order to register for classes. ...