GUIDING PRINCIPLES
In our department, you will join a community of students and teachers who love reading and writing, appreciate the power of language, and embrace the pleasures of great literature.
Our commitment in the Villanova English department is to help you read, write, and think with greater confidence and clarity, affording you skills you need for a satisfying career and meaningful life. In your English coursework, you will learn to express yourself both critically and creatively. You will analyze formative histories and expressive traditions of the past, as well as the most vibrant literature and culture of the twenty-first century. You will immerse yourself in literature written by diverse writers, pursuing a curriculum that embraces differences of race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, body size, age, ability, religious affiliation, and legal status. The texts you read will inspire you, challenge you with difficult truths, and bring you joy. By engaging with accomplished Villanova English alumni, pursuing internships, and taking advantage of the many other career resources we provide, you will graduate prepared to use your new perspectives and skills in a profession that you love.
As Villanova English majors, you will read, discuss, write about, and craft literature. In the process, we aspire for you to meet the following learning goals and objectives:
develop intellectual curiosity, cultural empathy, and a heightened capacity to understand different points of view.
become well-versed in an array of global literary genres in English, including those by Black, Africana, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian-American and Asian writers.
become attentive to the power of language, learning to identify and evaluate the aesthetic dimensions of literary and cultural forms, including how joy, beauty, and passion inform the history and practice of reading and writing.
cultivate your imagination and learn how to use various literary techniques and devices through the practice of creative writing.
explore challenging questions of human experience, including issues of social justice, and the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, disability, ethnicity, environment, and faith.
employ the disciplinary vocabulary of English studies to interpret a wide variety of texts and assess their historical, cultural, and political contexts.
develop expertise in writing cogent, evidence-based arguments, expressed in clear, persuasive, insightful, and well-organized prose.
learn how to conduct research, consulting legitimate sources to advance your thinking and solve problems.
hone your capacity to listen carefully and speak effectively.
take part in internships and other departmental career opportunities that help you move from completing your English degree to pursuing a meaningful career and living a fulfilling life.
As Villanova's mission statement indicates, the University is committed to creating "a community of scholars with varied backgrounds, talents, experiences and beliefs, united and dedicated to the highest academic standards.” The English Department shares this imperative and views antiracism and inclusivity as essential to the work of our department. Only through this grounding can we fully understand the literary traditions we teach, the texts we read, and the world we inhabit. Our approach builds upon the most influential developments in literary criticism in the last fifty years, which have featured a dramatic expansion of the literary canon beyond white male authors, the rise of multifaceted structures of analysis based upon evolving theories of identity and difference, and special attention to the history of subordinated subjects within national literatures. Similarly, our commitment to inclusion and antiracism stems from a respect for the differences present among our faculty and students and in our course content, including, but not limited to, citizenship status, religious and political affiliations, ability, age, gender and gender expression, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.
Our departmental commitment to inclusion requires not merely that we acknowledge differences, but that we affirm our common human dignity across those differences and oppose systems of oppression based on them. Our work based on these principles of Catholic social teaching helps us enact the University’s mission, which outlines a commitment to “the common good” and to using “the knowledge and skills of our students and faculty to better the human condition.” While we expect that we will make mistakes in our work to cultivate our values, we remain committed to learning from one another and from our students and to researching and teaching for justice. Rather than a goal to be achieved, we understand the commitment to inclusion and antiracism as a process in which we must all be engaged.
UNITAS Initiatives
Find out more about our efforts to promote diversity, and feel free to reach out with questions, comments, or concerns.
Each semester, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Yumi Lee, Adrienne Perry, and Kimberly Takahata host a regular In Solidarity writing hangout for the Villanova community. All are welcome to join this group, which is oriented around the concerns of students, staff, faculty, and alumni who identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color, and their allies.
At each of our hangouts, we provide creative writing prompts as well as time to share and check in. No need to see yourself as a writer in order to attend. It’s a fun, warm, and welcoming creative space. We also have pizza! See our department calendar on our home page for more specific information about upcoming meeting times and places. You can also email Professor Yumi Lee with questions or to express an interest in joining.
Department-wide professional development: Because developing inclusive and anti-racist practices in the classroom requires ongoing learning, English faculty regularly share inclusive pedagogy resources and lead short, focused reflection exercises during department meetings. Recent and upcoming topics include trans inclusive practices, advising first-generation college students, handling racist slurs in the literature we study, supporting students with disabilities, and accommodations.
COLLEGE GUIDING PRINCIPLES
COLLEGE MISSION
UNITAS: INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
SUSTAINABILITY