News & Events

• Literary Festival.  The 12th annual Villanova Literary Festival continues, following the reading by Elizabeth Strout, with fiction writer Arthur Phillips at 7:30 on Feb. 11, in Room 300 of the St. Augustine Center.  The other readers will be fiction writer Anthony Swofford (Feb. 18), and poets Ange Mlinko (April 13) and Peter Fallon together with Seamus Heaney (April 20).
• Prof. Drew's novel selected for One Book.  The city of Pasadena has made Prof. Alan Drew's novel Gardens of Water the 2010 One City, One Story Book Selection.
• Searches for new faculty members.  The English Department is currently conducting a search for a tenure-track faculty member in eighteenth century literature and culture, with specialization in the novel.  (All Villanova positions are posted at https://jobs.villanova.edu/.)  The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is also conducting a search for a Director of the Irish Studies Program.
• Irish Studies readings.  Novelist Mary Pat Kelly read from her novel Galway Bay at 4:30 pm on Tuesday, Nov. 3.  Award-winning poet Paula Meehan, author most recently of Painting Rain, read at 4:30 pm on Monday, Oct. 26.
• Pre-Registration Reception! The English department hosted a pre-registration reception on Friday, Oct. 23, at 1:00 pm in the first-floor lounge of Falvey Library, where students and faculty mingled to eat lunch, share information about Spring 2010 courses and the English department in general, and socialize
• Pearsall lecture and colloquium.  Derek Pearsall, Gurney Professor of English emeritus at Harvard, gave a lecture entitled "Historicism in Medieval Literary Studies. What Is It? Do We Need It?" on Wednesday, Oct. 21, and also spoke at a colloquium on "The Value of Studying the Manuscripts of the Medieval Literary Texts That We Read" on Friday, Oct. 23.
• Recent Graduates as Working Writers.  Megan Angelo and Jackie Lebowitz, both English majors (and concentrators in the Program on Writing and Rhetoric) from the class of 2006, spoke about their writing careers on Sept. 28 in Falvey Library.  Ms. Angelo is a writer for AOL's Walletpop Blog (click here for her Sept. 16 article on the new TV season in the New York Times). Ms. Lebowitz is Assistant to the Editor in Chief for Brides Magazine (Conde Nast, New York).
• Talk by Prof. Hicks.  Prof. Heather Hicks discussed her recent book, The Culture of Soft Work: Labor, Gender, and Race in Postmodern American Narrative, published just last year by Palgrave Macmillan on Sept. 30 in Falvey Library.
• Law and Literature symposium: Law, Literature, & Religion.  The English department and Villanova Law School convened the first annual Law and Literature Symposium, on the topic of Law, Literature, & Religion, in the new Law School building from Thursday, Oct. 1, to Saturday, Oct. 3. Along with a number of panels, the symposium featured three keynote addresses:
  • Robin West, Georgetown: “Religious Rights as Protected Wrongs: The Case of Homeschooling” (Oct. 2, 1:00 pm)
  • Steven J. Mailloux, Loyola Marymount: “TheoRhetoric: St. Paul, Interpretive Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act” (Oct. 2, 6:00 pm)
  • Peter Goodrich, Cardozo School of Law: “Legal Enigmas” (Oct. 2, 1:00 pm).
• Prof. Fried wins award.  Visiting professor Daisy Fried, who is teaching an Honors-English poetry workshop this fall and will be teaching the Honors-English Literary Festival course in the spring, has been awarded the Editors Prize by Poetry magazine for Best Feature Article of the year.  Her article, "Sing, God-Awful Muse! On Milton and the Nipple Nazi of Northampton," appeared in the July/August 2009 issue of Poetry and can also be read online here.
• Session on applying to grad school. Prof. Cristina Maria Cervone, the English department's advisor for graduate applications, offered guidance to students applying to graduate programs this fall in a session on Friday, Sept. 18. (There will be a session in the spring for juniors, sophomores, and freshmen who are considering graduate study.) For more information, email Prof. Cervone.
• Villanova Writers Club. The Villanova Writers Club met on Monday, September 14. If you are interested but couldn't make the meeting, feel free to email Prof. Karyn Hollis.
• Open Mic Poetry Reading!  The English department and Falvey Library hosted an open mic poetry reading, celebrating seniors who submitted work to the Class Poet contest, the publication of Arthology, and National Poetry Month, on April 15.
• Spearing on Chaucer.  A. C. Spearing, Kenan Professor of English at the University of Virginia, gave a talk entitled "Master Chaucer and His Pupils" on Thursday, April 2.
• Pre-Registration Reception.  The English Department hosted a pre-registration reception on Friday, March 13, in the Falvey first-floor lounge, where students and faculty will mingled to eat lunch, share information about Fall 2009 courses and the English department in general, and socialize.
• Talk by Prof. Akoma.  Prof. Chiji Akoma discussed his recent book, Folklore in New World Black Fiction: Writing and Oral Traditional Aesthetics, published just last year by The Ohio State University Press, in a talk entitled "New Readings of African Folklore Aesthetics in the Americas," on Feb. 11 in Falvey Library.
• Prof. Drew's novel out in paperback.  Gardens of Water, by Prof. Alan Drew, came out in paperback from Random House on Feb. 10.  The novel has received a number of positive reviews, including one in the New York Times Book Review, which referred to it as “sensitive and thought-provoking.”  Click here for the announcement.

What's New

• Spring 2010 courses!  Descriptions of courses for spring 2010 are now available.
  For a pdf file containing all descriptions, click here.
  To see the descriptions in Novasis, go to the Master Schedule and click on the Syllabus Available link.
  A chart showing which English courses count for which departmental areas, as well how they fulfill diversity requirements or minors and concentrations, is available here; the listings also include links to individual course descriptions.  (Be aware, however, that the most up-to-date information is on Novasis).
• Emails to English majors.  Some English majors have not been receiving departmental emails, so we have created a page here with those emails.
• Guide to Advising for English Majors.  We have put together a guide to advising.  If you are an English major, you have probably already received a copy.  It is also available here.
• Charts for English majors.  This chart can help you see where you stand with relation to your department requirements.
• English department awards. The English department gives out a number of awards each year, including essay awards of $100 and $200 to the best essays written for English courses.  Details about the essay awards live here.
• English department class poet award. The English department awards $100 to the best poem written by a senior.
• The Concentration and Minor in Writing and Rhetoric. An interdisciplinary program for achieving excellence in thinking, writing and speaking.
• Tracks! A way to give more focus to your English major.
• Current Peer Advisors. Email addresses, phone numbers, and brief biographies of the 2009-2010 peer advisors, from Alison Baxter to Christina Yatrakis.
• Shared documents for faculty.  The English Department stores documents for faculty to consult at this password-protected site.

Prof. Megan Quigley and her students visited the Rosenbach Museum and Library to see the manuscript of  Joyce's Ulysses (and other materials) on Nov. 12th