The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

  Coming Soon! Augustine and AI Panel discussion, on Monday, January 26th at 6 p.m. in Falvey 205. Featuring as a special guest Villanova MA alum el friedman, along with Villanova faculty. Organized by the English department AI committee.

Don James McLaughlin, who graduated from the Villanova MA program in 2009, has just published  Phobia and American Literature, 1705-1937: A Therapeutic History with Oxford University Press.  Per Don James's website, " Phobia and American Literature, 1705-1937: A Therapeutic History provides an intellectual history to explain how phobia first came to prominence as a medical diagnosis, political analytic, and aesthetic sensibility in American print cultures." The book "demonstrates how in the early 1800s a phobic imagination emerged by way of an experimental comparison integrating understandings of infectious disease and psychopathology: rabies and racism." The book goes on to analyze "how phobia evolved into a framework for exploring myriad themes, including the relationship between individual psychology and social injustice, the benefits and limits of empathy as a mode of political engagement, and various functions of fear as an affective force in civil s...

Four former Villanova English majors will discuss the work they do, the paths they took to their current jobs, and how their English studies contributed to their careers. The speakers will be Lawrence Flynn '17, Teaching Associate and MFA Candidate in Fiction at UMass Amherst; Lindsay Gallagher '22, Investment Banking Analyst at Barclays; Kashae Garland '22, Paralegal at The Faries Firm, Inc. and J.D. Candidate; and Amanda Gerstenfeld '20, Editorial Assistant at Yale University Press.  Please register for the Zoom event  here .

 Olivia Martel '00, English, and MA '03, English, has just published her debut novel, How to Fly .  From Olivia's website:  "Twenty-nine-year-old Chelsea Pearl is thrown for a loop when her therapist asks her that one simple question. Always a helper, Chelsea isn’t one for self-reflection. She’s fooled herself into believing that planning social events for graduate students at elite Swank University and hanging with friends is enough. But is it? Even her two best friends—Raquel, a globe-trotting stunt woman, and Matteo, a former love interest—are worried about her lately... "Chelsea’s most challenging student, Ivana Volkov, has issues of her own and isn’t into Chelsea’s so-called help. When Chelsea finally meets a great guy, her ability to keep playing by the rules is threatened. He’s off limits, and she runs the risk of losing her job. But if she doesn’t take a chance, she fears she’ll stay stuck and miss out on growing into who she is really meant to be. "I...

Laura Tscherry, a current PhD student at Indiana University and 2017 graduate from the Villanova English MA program, was recently published in the Print Plus edition of Modernism/modernity . Laura wrote on "Queer Domestic Architectures: Theorizing Kinship and Communal Modernism," focusing on the way that various intimate living situations exist in literature (and in life!) beyond the heteronormative family unit. In their words, "I propose a theory of communal domestic spaces that asks what it means to share one's private life with strangers and what happens to relationality and space when those strangers become kin without the normative trappings of romance and children."  To pursue this theme, Laura writes on "more liminal or atypical domestic arrangements such as convents, tenement buildings, boarding schools, and old age homes," which "collapse, or complicate, neat boundaries of public and private." Laura goes on to note that "Communa...

 Alexandra Edwards, a 2012 graduate of Villanova's MA English program and an instructor at Texas Christian University, was recently awarded an honorable mention from the Modern Language Association for their Prize for Contingent Faculty and Independent Scholars. Alex received the mention for her book,  Before Fanfiction: Recovering the Literary History of American Media Fandom . According to Edwards's book's  website , her book "investigates the overlapping cultures of fandom and American literature from the late 1800s to the mid-1940s, exploding the oft-repeated myth that fandom has its origins in the male-dominated letter columns of science fiction pulp magazines in the 1930s." In the words of the MLA prize committee: “ Before Fanfiction: Recovering the Literary History of American Media Fandom makes an ambitious intervention and speaks across genres and disciplines. Alexandra Edwards’s study will become required reading in the growing genre of fanfiction studi...

Ann Marie Jakubowski, Villanova English MA '17, has won the Fathman Award from the International T. S. Eliot Society for her paper, "Conversion as Revision: The Retrospective Poetics of Burnt Norton ." The Fathman Award is presented each year by the T.S. Eliot Society, at its annual meeting, to the best paper presented by an early-career scholar. Graduate students and recent PhDs are eligible. Ann Marie graduated with a Villanova MA in 2017 and a PhD at Washington University in St. Louis in 2024. She is currently a Lilly Postdoctoral Fellow at Valparaiso University, where she teaches literary and humanities courses in the undergrad honors college, Christ College. Congrats, Ann Marie! Kamran Javadizadeh, Ann Marie Jakubowski, and Megan Quigley

Villanova English MA alum Olivia Stowell '21 was recently featured on the Vox podcast Today , Explained , in which she spoke about AI in the classroom and described her decision to ban AI use in the courses she teaches as she pursues her PhD in Communication and Media at the University of Michigan. Olivia described the genesis of her decision: "It was fall of 2023; I was the TA for a TV class with my advisor. They had an assignment where they had to write about social media reception... I noticed the repeated use of phrases and repeated sentence structures. I was like, this does not feel like student writing to me. I was pretty certain that a student had used ChatGPT and they ended up admitting to it." Olivia noted that, at the time, "There was no institution-wide policy, and there still isn't, that I know of, so professors are kind of setting their own." Prompted by her experiences with ChatGPT as a TA, Olivia began to think critically about how she would t...

Sam Covais, MA '22, recently published  "'A Guy Needs Somebody': A Study of   Philia   in   Of Mice and Men."  You can read the article here . Congrats, Sam!

Each week, for the next few weeks, we'll be talking with an alumnus/a from our graduate English program, catching up on their studies and/or careers. This week, we'll be talking with Alex Liska MA '21, Director of Retention & Sponsored Programs at Neumann University.  1. What do you do at your job? What are some advantages and some challenges of working in your field? Until recently, I served as Coordinator for Student Affairs at Neumann University, but I have recently accepted the position of Director of Retention & Sponsored Programs at Neumann. As Coordinator for Student Affairs, I supported the student experience through a myriad of functions including event planning, assessing campus engagement, parent and family engagement, building campus traditions, advising the budgets of the Student Government Association and all clubs, and more. Something that was both challenging and immensely rewarding in that role was fostering the growth of student leaders by helping ...

Each week, for the next few weeks, we'll be talking with an alumnus/a from our graduate English program, catching up on their studies and/or careers. This week, we'll be talking with Michael Nace, MA '08, the Brand Director for Rare Disease Advisor with Haymarket Media. 1. What do you do at your job? What are some advantages and some challenges of working in your field? I am the Brand Director for Rare Disease Advisor (RDA), which is part of Haymarket Media’s network of Advisor websites. RDA is a news-driven web brand that fills informational gaps within the rare disease community with much-needed news, perspectives, and resources. Our goal is to foster increased awareness of rare diseases and decrease the time to diagnosis — a nearly-universal problem among those with rare diseases and disabilities. As Brand Director, I am responsible for every facet of RDA’s operation. I was initially brought into Haymarket to launch the brand, given my experience at another company spec...

Each week, for the next few weeks, we'll be talking with an alumnus/a from our graduate English program, catching up on their studies and/or careers. This week, we'll be talking with Franki Maria Rudnesky, MA '22, a staff writer with the Philly Voice . 1. What do you do at your job? What are some advantages and some challenges of working in your field? As a staff writer, I research, interview sources and curate information to write articles related to the happenings in Philadelphia and the surrounding region. I particularly love writing about all the vibrant events, restaurants, fashion and people that make the city unique. I always enjoyed writing, social media and being creative, and this job allows me to marry so many of my interests together. It can be challenging to experience writers’ block at times and to find new and interesting story ideas, but many of the skills I learned through my studies allow me to push through. 2. Did the Nova English MA help you get your job...

Corey Waite Arnold MA '14  Alumni Interview by Deidra Cali MA '23 1. You currently work in writing video games and even have your own games online! How did you get into this after you graduated with your English MA?     It wasn't something I planned. After getting my MA I started teaching composition and critical reading courses as an adjunct at Community College of Philadelphia and Eastern University. But I was also making games as a hobby, mostly with a local dev community called  Philly Game Mechanics (PGM) . This is something I've always done, make and play games, usually dumb board games and stuff with my brothers. But with PGM I started collaborating with local video game makers, mostly as a writer.   Eventually someone in the Game Design and Production department at Drexel needed someone to write grants for their lab. They were looking for someone who knew a lot about games but also had research and writing skills. The indie dev community in Philly is small, so...

In conjunction with the exhibit on illustrated and military maps co-curated by our own Christoforos Sassaris MA '22, Falvey Memorial Library and the Office of Veterans and Military Service Members will soon be presenting an exhibit talk and reception. Invited speakers will discuss maps, their history, their use, and what the future holds for them in the military and beyond. The event will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 9 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. in Speakers’ Corner, Falvey Memorial Library.  According to Falvey Library, "The event will feature remarks from Francis A. Galgano, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment and US Army Lt. Colonel (Retired), followed by a roundtable discussion joined by Ken DeTreux, MA, MPA, US Marine Corps Colonel (Retired) and Joseph Evans, current Villanova PhD student, US Army Lt. Colonel (Retired). The event will be moderated by Michael Brown, Director, Office of Veterans and Military Service Members, Villanova University. ...

A new exhibit of military and illustrated maps has debuted at Falvey Memorial Library, which was co-curated by Villanova graduate English alumnus, Christoforos Sassaris '22. Per the Falvey Library blog, "Our latest exhibit, Art of War: Illustrated and Military Maps of the Twentieth Century , is now on display on the 1st floor of Falvey Library and in select cases at the Prince Family Veterans Resource Center. Both locations feature a selection of two types of imagery: maps that are illustrated, highly pictorial, and created for public distribution; and topographic maps that have been created by government war offices for use in military conflict. The juxtaposition forces a close analysis of the very nature of maps. Often assumed as truthful and accurate, maps lead and guide the way, provide direction, and help us make decisions. Yet as with anything that is human-made there are things to consider – the knowledge or bias of the creator, the intended audience, the purpose of the...