The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

Ashley DiRienzo completed the Summer Studio last summer (2018). Check out what she has to say about her experience! "Thinking about doing the Irish Summer Studio program this summer? Or just generally unsure about summer plans but want to make good use (to say the least) out of your time? Then here are a few reasons why enrolling in this program is an incredible opportunity based on this brief testimonial. I went on the trip last year and it was a highlight of my Villanova career as an English graduate student. Even if you aren’t necessarily invested in Irish literature or theatre specifically this trip is exciting for anyone interested in expanding and learning about what a literary city like Dublin has to offer. As a group, we got to learn the complete ins and outs of developing productions through classes that were engaging and hands-on. We also completed playwriting workshops, put on a production as a team, and worked with other graduate students from Dublin. We also had the...

Prof. Megan Quigley was a Visiting Scholar at Merton College, Oxford, this summer, working in the Merton College Library and Oxford’s Bodleian Library.  Researching the relationship between the poet T. S. Eliot and the genre of the novel, Professor Quigley spent her time looking at the Frank Brenchley T. S. Eliot Collection, focusing on the private correspondence of Eliot (he was a student at Merton), as well as at drafts and editions (also fascinating was the diary of Vivienne Eliot,  Eliot’s first wife who collaborated on sections of The Waste Land and who died in an institution).  This work is for Dr. Quigley’s new book project on Eliot.  She has organized a round table at the Eliot society conference this September at Emory University, stemming from her work at Oxford, entitled, “Reading The Waste Land with the #MeToo Generation."

From Dr. Lucky: "That’s me in front of August Wilson’s childhood home in Pittsburgh. I saw ‘King Hedley II’ on Friday, May 11, 2018. The play was staged and performed in the back yard. It was my final to see performed in the ten-play cycle."

Five of our beloved graduate students, and one recently-graduated undergraduate, participated in the Irish Theatre Summer Studio, which took place over the summer from mid-July through early August. Angela, Alex E., Ashley, Michelle, Lia, and Caitlyn spent three and a half weeks in Dublin and Galway, and were joined by seven theater students, three from Villanova and four from University College Dublin. The program was led by Drs. Joseph Lennon and Valerie Joyce. Working in collaboration with the Lir Theatre, students participated in a variety of theater workshops (movement, voice, directing, devising, etc.) and were able to spend some time in small groups devoted to playwrighting. At the end of their time in Dublin, all Summer Studio students put on a performance of the “scenes” they had written during their time at the Lir. Along the way, students attended a variety of plays put on by the Abbey Theatre, he Gate Theatre, the Peacock, and the New Theatre. Our grad students also...

Current MA student Alex Einspahr and graduating senior Caitlyn Dittmeier  took part in the Irish Theatre Summer Studio program this summer! Here they are  atop the Martello Tower, depicted in James Joyce's opening chapter of Ulysses . They saw the Abbey Theatre's stage version of Ulysses, written by Dermot Bolger, and read the first chapter on top of the Tower!    And here are more of our MA students in Sandycove!

Christie and Nick attended Bloomsday at the Rosenbach celebrating James Joyce's epic novel Ulysses . See what Christie said about the event below! Here are a few photos of the Bloomsday event on Saturday, which included a day-long reading of Ulysses with musical interludes of live traditional Irish music. Ed Rendell and the Irish Ambassador to the US were among the readers at the event. I've been asked to read at next year's event, along with the undergraduate essay contest winner. Each reader did about two pages, and there were short readings from each of the episodes with brief summaries up on the screens. A couple readings were accompanied by professional vocalists, who sang for Simon Dedalus and for the Croppy Boy song. Several people in the audience had their Gabler editions open on their laps. The Rosenbach House was offering free admission, so we got to explore the house a bit and ran into Penn professor Dr. Paul Saint-Amour, who attended the Kevin Dettmar lectu...

It was a vision quest worthy of any of the great road trip narratives, from Don Quixote to Sal Paradise. MA’s Alex Brodin, Christie Leonard and Nick Manai packed up the van and set their sails in a north-easterly direction, making their first stop in Portland, ME to hit the town with local hosts Lia and Sam Mrozinski and fellow English grad Angeline Nies-berger. The next morning the trio left the city to make it out to Wilton to stay at Casey Smedberg’s grandparent’s lake house—thanks Pop-pop and Gram. On the way there were gas-station lobster rolls, roadside PB+J’s, and Vision Quest mix CD’s, along with Appalachian Trail hiking, Lupine foraging, sunset kayaking, and many many late night bonfires. We found some great book deals in little thrift stores, but realized we’d never get a thesis written with the chance to explore the long, tree-encased roads and stay up late with the tall, star-freckled skies of Maine, together. Special thanks to Sam Cooke, Father John Misty and Lucinda Will...

Current students Alex, Christie, and Nick went on a road trip to Maine to visit Casey, a 2018 graduate who is working as a Park Ranger until she heads to Connecticut in the fall to begin her PhD, (and made a stop in Portland to visit Lia along the way)!  Christie, Alex, and Casey Nick, Christie, and Alex

Michael Berthold: I’ve been teaching Octavia Butler’s  Kindred  for a number of years and look forward this summer to reading through the rest of her fiction. Butler visited Villanova back in 2002, and a number of the English faculty had the opportunity to lunch with her! Joe Drury: Here are the books I'm planning to read this summer: Jenny Erpenbeck,  Go, Went, Gone  - much feted contemporary German author. I've been told the novel to read if you want to begin to understand the current European refugee crisis. Cixin Liu,  The Three-Body Problem  - my sci-fi read for the summer, am told it will blow my mind. Preti Taneja, We That Are Young - highly acclaimed new novel about 21st century India, written by someone I worked with briefly in the grim period between college and grad school. Travis Foster: First up, a page-turner of a memoir that addresses rural white poverty far better than the aw-shucks punditry of  Hillbilly Elegy ...