The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

This past fall, Ann Marie Jakubowski, who completed her MA at Villanova in 2017 and is now a graduate student in the English department at Washington University in St. Louis, won the 2020 T. S. Eliot Studies Annual Prize for “‘Never anything anywhere’: Whiteness in Eliot’s Literary Imaginary.” The prize is awarded annually to the best seminar paper presented by an early-career scholar at the Annual Meeting of the International T. S. Eliot Society. Ann Marie's paper was presented as part of a peer seminar on ‘Eliot and Racial Others.’  Congratulations, Ann Marie!

Shirley Wong , PhD, from Westfield State University, will deliver a talk titled, " Contemporary Irish Poetry and the Creative Economy,"   from her forthcoming book on globalization, place, and contemporary Irish poetry   Monday, February 15th at 7:00 P.M. EST. The talk is open to all!   In this lecture, Wong will discuss occasional poetry, which memorializes a specific event such as a funeral or military victory. Wong argues that contemporary Irish poets exploit the poem’s historic ties to patronage in order to critique the creative economy schemes (e.g. UNESCO City of Literature; Per Cent for Art Scheme; World Cities Culture Forum). Focusing on the work of Paula Meehan, she argues that occasional poetry dramatizes the capitalist crisis of contemporary Irish literature, which has been transformed by Ireland’s rapid financialization from the 1980s to the present. Wong makes the case that contemporary Irish poetry proves an exemplary site to explore how the ...

Here is an opportunity for diverse applicants interested in further study... "The University of Michigan invites outstanding individuals to apply for the Michigan Humanities Emerging Research Scholars Program ( MICHHERS ). This program is designed to encourage rising seniors, recent B.A. s and terminal master’s students from diverse cultural, economic, geographic, and ethnic backgrounds to consider pursuing a doctoral degree in the humanities at the University of Michigan. Our goal is to attract diverse scholars with unique experiences who foster innovation and push the humanities to meet today’s challenges. For 2021, students interested in the fields of Asian Languages and Cultures, Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, English, History, Linguistics, Sociology (qualitative), and Women’s and Gender Studies (any humanities field) are eligible."  Visit their website for more information!

On Monday, February 8, Villanova English professor Dr. Travis Foster will join Dr. Lara Langer Cohen (Swarthmore College)  and Dr. Edlie Wong (University of Maryland) for a conversation about his recently published book  Genre and White Supremacy in the Postemancipation United States .   T he event starts at 7.30pm. Please register here to receive the Zoom link. You can also visit this link to receive a discount of 30% on the book.  

This April, Carnegie Mellon University’s English Colloquia hosts their first-ever graduate conference on "Bridges and Borders: Navigating Problems and Possibilities in Language and Culture." They encourage any graduate student in the humanities to propose a paper, poster presentation, or roundtable. The conference keynote speaker is Dr. Jasbir K. Puar. The submission deadline is January 29, and the conference will be held virtually on April 23. Visit the conference website for the full call for papers and submission details. 

George Washington University's annual English Graduate Student Association Symposium is looking for presentation proposals for their virtual symposium this March. See the original CFP and symposium details below:  The George Washington University's English Graduate Student Association (EGSA) is pleased to circulate a call for papers for its annual spring symposium.  This year, the conference theme is "Decay and Regeneration," and our keynote speaker will be Anna Mollow, co-editor of Duke UP's Sex and Disability .  The conference will be held over Zoom on Friday March 5, 2021 from approximately 9 am to 4 pm EST.   GW EGSA Syposium : Decay and Regeneration Keynote: Anna Mollow March 5th, 2021 The theme of decay and regeneration captures our current global moment of political uncertainty, environmental catastrophe, public health crises, and mass protest. In the past few years, we have witnessed a once-in-a-century pandemic; global protests in response to police bru...

Boston College's Comhfhios Irish Studies conference is looking for proposals for a virtual conference this March. In the past, a number of Villanova grad students have presented at this conference. This year, the conference will be virtual, but if there are costs, the Irish Studies Program can provide support. See the original CFP below: Call for Papers Comhfhios Boston College Conflict and Resolution: Looking Back and Looking Forward March 5th, 2021 Boston College, Connolly House, Chestnut Hill, MA The Irish Studies Graduate Students of Boston College, in conjunction with the Irish Studies Program, are pleased to be hosting the fourth annual Comhfhios Boston College conference. Comhfhios (pronounced “co-is”) meaning “knowledge together,” or “open to all knowledge,” invites emerging scholars in all Irish Studies fields to gather again in Boston. This year, we will discuss the themes of conflict and resolution in Irish Studies; from military struggles to social quarrels, from cent...

 All events will take place online!

 Joe Drury recently wrote an introduction for a forum on "The Postcritical Eighteenth Century," which was just published in the new volume of  Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture . The forum emerged out of a panel Drury organized at the 2018 annual meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies in Orlando. The articles explore the possibilities opened up for scholars of eighteenth-century literature by the recent "postcritical turn" in literary studies. According to Drury's introduction, the term "postcritical" was coined by Rita Felski in 2015, as a "catch-all for a group of recent methodological interventions and experiments in literary studies" which "spring from a widespread dissatisfaction with the mode of critique initiated by Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche and retooled for literary analysis by the successive waves of Marxist, psychoanalytic, deconstructionist, new historicist, feminist, and queer criticism to...

Villanova's interdisciplinary graduate student research journal,  CONCEPT,  recently opened for article submissions! CONCEPT is also searching for volunteers to serve as peer-reviewers. This is a great opportunity to publish your research or gain experience with peer-reviewing. See more details below: Call for Papers The journal is now accepting article submissions. The author of the best article in the 2021 issue will receive the Graduate Student Research Prize. The deadline for submission is Monday, February 1, 2021. Submissions should be material that has been researched as part of graduate work at Villanova. Authors should register with the website, http://concept.journals.villanova.edu   and follow the instructions there for posting their submission. (An author may submit no more than one (1) article for consideration.) Any questions should be directed to the Faculty Managing Editor, Dr. John Kurtz (john.kurtz@villanova.edu). Call for Volunteers The journal is...