The YAWP: Villanova's Graduate English Program Blog

Lisa Sewell's poem, "The Land of Nod" was published on  t he Academy of American Poets poem-a-day site on December 6.  Read the full poem here .

 A belated post with photos of Professors Alice Dailey and undergrad Chelsea Phillips in their Legacies of Revenge class on Dress as your Favorite Avenger Day.

J oin us for an exciting reading and conversation with two phenomenal authors! Thomas Swick is a veteran travel writer, newspaper editor, and Villanova alum celebrating the publication of his new memoir,   Falling into Place . Ariel Delgado Dixon is the author of   Don't Say We Didn't Warn You  and   Sourland , forthcoming from Random House. Swick and Delgado Dixon will share their paths to becoming writers, as well as their varied and interesting experiences, from Swick’s life behind the Iron Curtain to Delgado Dixon’s work as a farmer. This event is a good fit for anyone interested in travel writing, becoming a novelist, journalism, and editing (for starters). Refreshments provided! 

GEO Conference 2023-24 Call for Papers: Displacement The University of Maryland’s Graduate English Organization invites proposals relating to the theme of “Displacement” for our 17th annual conference, to be held hybrid/in-person on March 8th, 2024. Displacement can refer to the forced migration and movements of peoples across the globe over centuries. From slavery to the internal displacement of peoples and the contemporary refugee crisis, the term allows us to connect the literary with the cultural and the political in myriad ways. More broadly, displacement speaks to the physical and metaphorical movements, transfers, and undulations that undergird human existence. It is both a frictional and harmonic phenomenon that interrogates the ideas of space, place, and (dis)possession. Displacement also allows us to engage productively with contemporary challenges facing the humanities. It can help us think creatively about the public role of the humanities, the literary value of language an...

There will be a second teach-in on Palestine focused on Solidarity taking place on Monday, November 6 in the Driscoll Auditorium. The event will take place from 4:00-6:00 pm and will be followed by a student-led strategizing session from 6:00-7:00 pm. Come with questions. There will be pizza!

Please join us on November 8th, 2023 6 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. for an in-person event at Larson Kelly Auditorium in Driscoll Hall. This is a collaboration between the Lepage Center, the English Department, and Global Interdisciplinary Studies to consider what speculative fiction can tell us about real world history. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, post-apocalyptic fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, alternate history, weird fiction, climate fiction, all their overlap and subgenres come out of a milieu of real world experiences for their authors, shaped by the structures within which they live their lives. From gothic horror to Afrofuturism, writers and artists have responded to the real world by creating fictional ones that speak to the conditions of society, different understandings of what has come before, and conceiving what might come next. From Mary Shelley to Ursula K. Le Guin to N.K. Jemisin; from Jules Verne to Samuel R. Delany to Kim Stanley Robinson; all these writers, their ...

Professor Michael Dowdy just signed a book contract with University of Nebraska Press. They will publish his collection of essays on fathering in anxious times,  Tell Me About Your Bad Guys , in spring 2025. For more about this collection and his other essays, see his  personal website.

By Ariel Hooks, MA '25 I had a chance to interview Graduate English Program Coordinator Mike Malloy and Undergraduate English Senior Administrative Assistant Amanda Eliades and am thrilled to introduce them to current and prospective students in the English department. I talked to them about their respective roles within the English department, common questions students ask them, Villanova resources students might not know about, and what they’re currently reading. Read on to learn more about these wonderful people. Q: What is your role within the English department? What does a daily schedule look like for you? Mike Malloy Mike has many roles within the department, but he mostly works with the English graduate program and its students. As the Graduate Program Coordinator, he tackles anything related to the logistics of the program, including recruiting prospective students, helping students understand the program, answering any logistical or administrative questions from newly-adm...

We have 75th anniversary crew-neck sweatshirts and t-shirts in stock, as well as hats, totes, hoodies, and more! Stop by the office or write to Program Coordinator Mike Malloy if you are interested!

 Spring 2024 Course Descriptions ENG 8460 Science & Fiction Before Sci-Fi Dr. Joseph Drury ENG 9520 Writing & Indigeneity Dr. Kimberly Takahata ENG 9730 Staging the Spanish Tragedy Dr. Alice Dailey GWS 8000 Critical Perspectives on Gender Dr. Travis Foster ENG 8460 Science & Fiction Before Sci-Fi Dr. Joseph Drury CRN 33402 Thursday 7:30-9:30 pm   An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby The first science fiction novel is often said to be Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But what did literary authors have to say about science in the century and a half between the Scientific Revolution and the creation of the world’s most famous monster, the period now known as the Enlightenment? In this course, students will read and analyze some of the key philosophical texts that helped establish the distinctive methodology and goals of the new science alongside a range of fictional texts—drama and poetry as well as novels—that explore its social and p...