The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

The Graduate English program celebrated its 16th annual Thesis and Field Exam Symposium last night, with nine students presenting on their theses and field exams to an audience of over 25 students, faculty, and staff in SAC 300.  After everyone had a chance to enjoy dinner, Graduate Director Mary Mullen opened the evening with a toast to the graduating class. We then began the academic presentation portion of the evening with students presenting in groups of three followed by time for questions and discussion.  The first student to present was Alexis Atwood, who presented her field exam on Civil War, Poetics, and Vulnerability: Investigating Corporal Vulnerability in Salvadoran Poetry of Witness. Her field exam was based upon a comprehensive reading of selected poems of witness, memoirs, and testimonial narratives that surround the civil war in El Salvador in the late 1970s. Her aim was to explore how poetic forms represent corporeal vulnerability and to understand how poems b...

The 15th Annual Thesis and Field Exam Symposium was held in SAC 300 on Wednesday, May 7, 2025, and featured research presentations by Ariel Hooks, Nosike Okafor, Jaxon Parker, Samantha Philipps, and Jeanbry Torres.  Ariel Hooks presented on a thesis comparing the noir novel Laura (1942) with the videogame Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea (2013-14), and argued that both narratives provide avenues through which their "dangerous, monstrous female heroine can travel to assert authority over her aesthetic portrayal and her voice."  Ariel's audience followed up with a variety of questions, including one about the difference between a reader and a player. Ariel responded that she thinks there isn't much difference--"it's just someone fully engaging with the art that they're presented with."  Nosike Okafor presented on "T he Liberatory Function of Death in the Poetry of Ernest Jones." Jones was a Chartist, who, according to Nosike, felt for the pl...

 The 14th Annual Thesis and Field Exam Symposium was held in SAC 300 on Wednesday, May 8, 2024, and featured research presentations by Megan Hayes MA '24, Sarah Gregory Herr MA '24, Matt Villanueva MA '24, and Eva Wynn MA '24.  Megan Hayes MA '24 presented her field exam, "Gothic Modernism: Exploring Race, Gender, and Sexuality Through Haunted Women." She described gothic modernism as a relatively new field, and fictional women as the topic where gothicism and modernism meet. She addressed questions such as: what constitutes haunting, and how are women haunted differently from men? Megan also provided advice for future students considering field exams. She said that she made her own syllabus at the beginning of her field exam, pairing one or two books per week along with secondary readings, and assigned herself response papers and summaries. Megan then spent three or four weeks in April writing. She found this structure extremely helpful in completing her ...

The Villanova English department held its (lucky) 13th Annual Thesis and Field Exam Symposium on the evening of Friday, May 5th.  We had four presenters: Theo Campbell “Customs Handed Down to Us”: Colonialism and Healthcare in Nurse Bridget Hedderman’s Glimpses of my Life in Aran Theo spoke about their study of Nurse Bridget Hedderman's autobiography on her time serving as a nurse in the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland, and how that work has not previously been viewed as a post-colonial text, nor put into conversation with other, more famous works such as J.M. Synge's The Aran Islands . Theo emphasized Bridget Hedderman's heretofore underreported Gaeltacht background. The complicating factor of medical aid as a colonial intervention was also investigated and discussed. Hannah Kahn The Mediated, Medicalized, and Mortal: Tracing the Body Through Don DeLillo's White Noise and The Day Room and Noah Baumbach's White Noise Hannah Kahn looked at Don DeLillo...

 The 12th annual Thesis & Field Exam Symposium was held on Thursday, May 5th, in the Fedigan Room at Villanova. Graduating students from Villanova's MA program presented their theses and field exams in brief presentations and fielded questions from their peers and from faculty members. This was our first in-person symposium since 2019, so it was especially nice to see everyone and share ideas together. The presenters this year were Amanda Piazza, Sam Covais, Franki Rudnesky, Jess Derr, Em Friedman, Vicki Dearden, and Christina Kosch.  Amanda Piazza presented her thesis, "Mirrored Malfunction: Gothic Doubling in Alan Moore's Graphic Novels," discussing V for Vendetta , From Hell , and Watchmen , exploring the role of doubling in those works, particularly in reference to the characters of V, Jack the Ripper, and Rorschach.  Sam Covais presented her thesis, "'We Know What We Got': Subversive Masculinity in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men ," noting t...

The eleventh annual Thesis and Field Exam Symposium was held on Monday, May 10th, over Zoom. This event was an opportunity to celebrate our spring and summer 2021 graduates, and for them to share excerpts and summaries of their work with friends, family, and colleagues. Completing theses this spring and summer were Mary Cordisco, Caitlyn Dittmeier, Alex Liska, Zac Richards, and Olivia Stowell. Completing field exams were Sarah Beth Gilbert, Catherine Bialkowski, Kathryn Corona, Josh Hsu, Anne Jones, Nick Keough, Carson Schatzman, Shea Szpila, and Lauren Wilke. During the symposium, Caitlyn Dittmeier spoke about women and gender in Irish poetry and folklore. Catherine Bialkowski spoke about manifestations of motherhood in classic children’s novels (in particular, why are there so many absent mothers in classic children’s books?). Josh Hsu spoke about science fiction and post-human concepts, beginning with Frankenstein and leading up to the present day. Lauren Wilke will be working over...

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...

A huge thank you to all of our presenters and guests at our 8th Annual Symposium. Awesome job, and congratulations to William, Stephen, Casey, Michael and Christian!

The Thesis and Field Exam Symposium took place on Saturday, April 26th. Seven presenters explained either completed or ongoing projects to an audience of Graduate English faculty and fellow first- and second-year students. The Symposium is designed as a format for thesis-writing students to present their work to the rest of the department. The environment was relaxed but thoughtful, as many students and professors expressed interest in the students' arguments and posed questions to clarify or expand their points. The presenters and their work are listed below: Adam Hembree: "Creating Negation: 'Playing the Villain' with Iago and Richard III" Teddi Hermes: "(In)Visible Women: The Visual in Black Women's Literature" Katie Parks: "Rediscovering Teresa Deevy"    Caroline Blasi: Solving Mysteries: Where the Gothic and Detective Story Meet"   Susan Peders...