What’s New

• Emails to English majors.  Some English majors have not been receiving departmental emails intended for all students majoring in English (it's a problem with the computer systems).  To minimize this problem, we have created a page where we will post emails.  Click here to see recent emails to English majors.
• Fall 2008 courses!  Descriptions of courses for fall 2008 are now being posted online; to see the descriptions, go to the Master Schedule in Novasis and click on the Syllabus Available link.  To help you plan your year, a list of courses tentatively scheduled for spring 2009 is available here.
  For a chart showing which English courses count for which departmental areas, as well how they fulfill diversity requirements or minors and concentrations, click here.
  For a pdf file containing all descriptions, click here (but be aware that the most up-to-date information is on Novasis).
• New Guide to Advising for English Majors.  We have put together a new 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. It includes links to current courses in each area, as well as lists of all courses offered in each area.
• English department awards. The English department gives out a number of awards each year, including essay awards of $100 to the best essays written for English courses.  Details about the essay awards live here.  The deadline for spring 2008 has just been extended to April 11.
• 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 2007-2008 peer advisors, from Trisha Aiello to Caitlin Valenziano.
• Shared documents for faculty.  The English Department stores documents for faculty to consult at this password-protected site.

News & Events

• Shakespearience!  An all-female production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, the result of a semester-long interdisciplinary study of the play, will take place in the Connelly Center Cinema on Thursday, May 1, at 8:00 pm, and Friday, May 2, at 5:00 pm.  This free production is the culmination of the course Shakespeare in Performance, taught by Prof. Alice Dailey (English) and Prof. Shawn Kairschner (Theatre), and engages meaningfully with the play’s contentious and often contradictory critical and performative traditions.  It runs approximately one hour and twenty minutes and will be followed by a student-led Q & A.  See the poster here.
• Murphy in Top 100!  Prof. James Murphy has been named one of the top 100 Irish Americans in the April/May 2008 issue of Irish America magazine.  See Prof. Murphy's profile under the category of Education.
• Literary Festival.  The tenth annual Villanova Literary Festival concluded with poet Arthur Sze reading on Thursday, April 24 in the first floor lounge of Falvey Memorial Library.
• Debating Ralph Ellison.  "A Dialogue in Black and Blue: A Public Debate on the Life and Legacy of Ralph Ellison" took place on Wednesday, April 16, in the first floor lounge of Falvey Memorial Library.  This event featured John S. Wright of the University of Minnesota and noted writer and cultural critic Stanley Crouch.
• Passing of Prof. Irwin.  The English department is saddened to report that Dr. L. W. Irwin, an Assistant Professor in the department for 41 years, passed away on Sunday evening, March 23.  Dr. Irwin was 70.  A funeral Mass took place on Saturday, March 29, in the chapel of New Sharon Convent, Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, in Rosemont.   The on-campus memorial service that was originally intended will not be taking place.  For further information, contact the English Department at 610-519-4630.
• New English faculty.  Two new faculty will be joining the English department in the fall:
  Prof. Alan Drew is a creative writer, specializing in fiction; his novel Gardens of Water has just been published by Random House.  Prof. Drew has an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and a B.A. from California State University – Long Beach.  In the fall he is teaching English 2005 (Writing the Short Story) and Honors 1331 (The Literary Experience).
  Prof. Megan Quigley is a specialist in British and Irish modernism.  She received her Ph.D. from Yale University, and also has an M.A. from Oxford University and a B.A. from Stanford University.  Prof. Quigley has been teaching at Wesleyan University.  In the fall she is teaching English 2250 (Ways of Reading) and English 8640 (Modernism and its Manifestos), a graduate course.
• Pre-Registration Reception.  The English Department hosted a pre-registration reception on Friday, March 14, at 1:00 pm in the first-floor lounge of Falvey Library, where students and faculty mingled to eat lunch, share information about Fall 2008 courses and the English department in general, and socialize.
• English Department lecture.  Playwright Jenny Lyn Bader spoke on Monday, March 10, at 4:30 pm, in the first-floor lounge of Falvey Library.  Her recent plays include None of the Above, which premiered at the Lion Theatre in New York in the fall of 2007, and Manhattan Casanova, which appeared at the Hudson Stage Company in 2006.  She has received the Edith Oliver Award from the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times.
• Reading by new Heimbold Professor.  Claire Keegan, the award-winning writer of short stories who holds the Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Chair of Irish Studies this term, read at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, March 12. in the President's Lounge of the Connelly Center.
• New faculty book.  Prof. Chiji Akoma’s Folklore in New World Black Fiction: Writing and the Oral Traditional Aesthetics has recently been published by The Ohio State University Press.
• Villanova English graduate writes best-seller.  Karen Abbott, who graduated in 1995, hit the New York Times bestseller list with her acclaimed first book, Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys and the Battle for America’s Soul, published by Random House.  (Among the elements unearthed by her portrait of the Everleigh Club, “the most famous brothel in American history”: a role for poetry recitals.)  Read more about the author and her book here.
• Senior presents paper at conference.  English major Angela Allen ’08 presented a paper entitled “A Game for Knights: Chivalry and Misogyny in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep” at the Undergraduate Conference in Medieval and Early-Modern Studies hosted by Moravian College on December 1.
• Lecture by Scott Black.  Prof. Scott Black of the University of Utah spoke on "Romance, Anachronism, and Histories of the Novel" on November 19.
• Careers for Arts majors who have an interest in Finance.  Career Services hosted a panel discussion and networking event on Nov. 19 which featured two recent Villanova English major graduates (Michael O’Connell ’06, from JP Morgan, and Dominique DuMouchel ’01, from Wilmington Finance), as well as two other Villanova liberal arts alumni, speaking about how their degrees led them to successful careers.
• Session on applying to grad school.  Prof. Jill Rappoport, the English department's advisor for graduate applications, offered guidance on applying to M.A. or Ph.D. programs in English literature in an informational session on Friday, Nov. 2.  Contact her to receive a copy of the session handout.
• Literary Festival.  The tenth annual Villanova Literary Festival begins with award-winning poet Eavan Boland on Thursday, February 21.  Four other writers will also be reading in the spring.
• New faculty member.  Prof. Edmund Goode has joined the department as a Teaching Fellow.  He is completing his Ph.D. from Cornell University, and has a B.A. degree from Columbia University.  His field is American Literature and Culture before 1865.  This spring he is teaching English 4590 (Humor in 18th and 19th Century American Literature) and English 1050.
• New Workshop: How to Use Your English Skills in the Corporate Environment!  The English department held a highly informative two-hour faculty-student discussion on using one's skills as an English major in the corporate world on February 23.
• A Tribute to Wendy Wasserstein.  January 29–February 4  A series of events including performances, film excerpts, and lectures, in honor of Wasserstein, who died at age 55 on January 30, 2006.