SHARE:  
Department of English

On the Books

Graduate Alumni Newsletter

Letter from the Director


Welcome to the latest electronic edition of the newsletter of the Villanova Graduate English Program! As always, it’s meant to keep you in touch with what’s happening in the program.


You can read about the first course on Asian-American literature that Villanova has ever offered; the production of Thomas Kyd’s Early Modern revenge tragedy The Spanish Tragedy, featuring several Villanova English grad students; graduate student Anne-Marie Jakubowski's award from the International T. S. Eliot Society; and other news about program events, current grad students, alumni and faculty.


Please stay in touch with us—let us know what you’re up to, and of course contact me or Mike Malloy if you have any items for this newsletter or for the English Graduate blog, The YAWP. The YAWP is always a way you can keep up with what’s going on. Subscribe, and you won’t miss a thing!



Best,


Evan Radcliffe, PhD

Director, English Graduate Program

Get Involved

Villanova English 75th Anniversary Merch


Want to support our students and bedeck yourself in the height of fashion at the same time? The Villanova English Department is selling t-shirts and fleeces with cool designs marking the undergraduate major’s 75th anniversary on campus, and we’ll be using the proceeds to support current undergraduate students’ academic needs. For more information or to place an order, please email Mike Malloy. We accept cash or check—through the mail or in person at our office on campus.

Villanova English Podcast,"In Theory"


The English podcast, "In Theory," soldiers on; please keep an eye out for new episodes! You can check out the podcast on our blog, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And if you’re looking for more Villanova English audio, check out the podcast by Kamran Javadizadeh, PhD, as well!

Grad Center


For current and prospective graduate students: check out Villanova’s Graduate Center and newly improved Graduate Lounge!

Faculty News

Course Spotlight: Villanova’s First Asian American Literature Course

By Katie Lewis ’26 CLAS


What does it mean to be Asian American? This is the central question asked by Professor AJ Yumi Lee, PhD, in a new undergraduate English course as of spring 2024, Introduction to Asian American Literature. The course explores how literature has represented and shaped Asian American identity since the 20th century. The course is the first to be offered by the English Department that focuses entirely on Asian American literature.

“There is growing interest in this field because students want to see themselves reflected in the curriculum,” said Dr. Lee. “It’s also reflective of larger trends in academia. It’s exciting to be in this moment at Villanova that reflects what is happening nationally and especially on college campuses across the East Coast.” 


Read the full story on Villanova English’s blog

Legacies of Revenge: The Spanish Tragedy in Performance and Context

By Melody Gleason ’25 MA 


In fall 2023 and spring 2024, English Professor Alice Dailey, PhD, and Associate Professor of Theatre Chelsea Phillips, PhD, along with a group of students from various programs and departments worked together to examine the theme of revenge and justice as a tragic element. The first half of this project started as a class in the fall 2023 semester called “Legacies of Revenge – Across Time, Space, Genre and Media.” The course engaged both graduate and undergraduate students from multiple disciplines including English majors, minors and theatre majors. Students in the course studied narratives of revenge across a plethora of entertainment media. The class especially focused on the play The Spanish Tragedy written in the 1580s.


Learn more about Villanova’s production of The Spanish Tragedy.

Faculty Publications and Honors

Alice Dailey, PhD, Mother of Stories: An Elegy. New York: Fordham Press, 2024.


Joseph Drury, PhD, “Haywood’s Whimsical Adventures: The Rococo and the Novel.” The Eighteenth-Century Novel and the Arts, edited by Jakub Lipski and M-C. Newbould, Edinburgh University Press, 2024, pp. 195-210. 


“Humans, Machines, Automatons.” The Routledge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Literatures in English, edited by Suvir Kaul, Nicole Aljoe, and Sarah Eron, Routledge, 2023, pp 527-40. 


“Afterword: On the Uses of the History of Technology for Literary Studies and Vice Versa.” British Literature and Technology, 1600-1830, edited by Kristin M. Girten and Aaron R. Hanlon, Bucknell University Press, 2023, pp. 164-176. 


Dr. Drury also won a Short-Term Fellowship at the Winterthur Museum and Library for 2023-24.


Travis Foster, PhD, "White Supremacist Submission." TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 3-4, 2023, pp. 426-448. (Honorable mention, 1921 Prize, tenured category; awarded annually by the American Literature Society to the year’s best published essays on any topic related to American literature.) 


Dr. Foster was also invited to present work from his new book project, Girl-Boy: The Racialization of Trans Feminine Childhood, at the Rosenbach Library in Philadelphia and the University of Mississippi in Oxford, as well as starting a new role as book reviews editor for Legacy: The Journal of American Women Writers.


Heather Hicks, PhD, “‘Stripped of These Things They Were Kin’: Tracking Judith Butler’s Post-9/11 Conception of Vulnerability in Recent Apocalyptic Fiction.” Contemporary Vulnerabilities, edited by Pier Paolo Piciucco, Nuova Trauben, 223, 197-216.


Joseph Lennon, PhD, was invited to present on “Seed Sharing: Sustainability, Culture, and Irish Soft Power” for the Boston College Irish Studies Annual Adele Dalsimer Lecture. He was also invited to speak and direct a symposium with Susan Kelly vonMedicus, hosted by Prince Albert of Monaco, at the Princess Grace Irish Library on “Sustainability in Irish Culture.”


Jean M. Lutes, PhD, and Sandra A. Zagarell, PhD, "An Unpublished Tale about African American Poetry: Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s 'The Grievances of the Books' (1897)," American Literary History, Volume 36, Issue 1, Spring 2024, Pages 51–73, https://doi.org/10.1093/alh/ajad158.


Megan Quigley, PhD, and David E. Chinitz, PhD, editors. Eliot Now. London: Bloomsbury, 2024.


Megan Quigley and David E. Chinitz. “Mature Fans Steal: Eliot’s Fictions.” Eliot Now. Ed Megan Quigley & David E. Chinitz. London: Bloomsbury, August 2024.


Lauren Shohet, PhD, “Touching the Shield of Achilles: Ekphrasis and/as Re-Mediation,” Anglia 142, 3 (Fall 2024): 1-16. 


Dr. Shohet is also the subject editor for “Literature and Drama in English” for Routledge Online Resources: The Renaissance World


Kimberly Takahata, PhD, “Reading with Powhatan Ancestral Remains in Robert Beverley’s The History and Present State of Virginia.” Early American Literature, vol. 59, no. 1, 2024, pp. 69–94. "Mutual Aid in Early America: A Roundtable. INSURRECT!, https://www.insurrecthistory.com/archives/vczgaj59ytbdhctoedf54foq5x4f68


Dr. Takahata was also invited to present "Not Witnessing John Gabriel Stedman’s Narrative, of a Five Years Expedition" at the University of Pennsylvania's Restoration to Victorian Studies Reading Group.


Tsering Wangmo, PhD, The Politics of Sorrow. New York: Columbia University Press, 2025. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-politics-of-sorrow/9780231212472.

Student News

Celebrating MA Graduates


Congratulations to our recent MA graduates!


Spring 2024: Bailee Formon, Megan Hayes, Sarah Gregory Herr, Adam Riekstins, Matt Villanueva and Eva Wynn


Fall 2023: Jamie Wojtal


Spring 2023: Deidra Cali, Theo Campbell, Hannah Kahn, Caitlin Salomon and Ethan Shea

Taught by Literature at the MLA in Philadelphia

By Matt Villanueva '24 MA

In January 2024, I had the privilege to attend the 139th annual Modern Language Association (MLA) conference in downtown Philadelphia. Throughout the four-day conference I was able to attend many panels and special sessions on various topics and presented on a special session “Recentering Black Women Intellectuals: A Philadelphia School District Collaboration” to discuss our research project with other scholars and educators and to debut the Taught by Literature website.


The Presidential theme of the conference was a celebration of joy and sorrow. Listening and conversing with all these scholars throughout the weekend affirmed the value of the humanities, for me. I was amazed by their openness to sharing their work. For the first time ever, I met other Filipino literary scholars and each of them were more than happy to share their research and connect me with other people in the field. These sessions also gave me a framework for presenting at future conferences.


Read the full story on our blog.

Student Publications and Honors


Megan Hayes '24 MA, “I’m Her and I’m Me: Race, Power, and Sexual Violence in Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress,” Concept, Vol. 47, 2024.


Sarah Gregory Herr '24 MA earned the Graduate Research Prize for her paper “In a Mirror Clearly: Narrative-Based Interventional and Restorative Possibilities in There There,” Concept, Vol. 47, 2024.


Jaxon Parker '25 MA earned a summer research fellowship from Villanova and published “Tom’s European Fantasies: Commodifying Authenticity in The Talented Mr. Ripley,” Concept, Vol. 47, 2024. Jaxon also presented on this topic at the Transnational American Studies Revisited Symposium, held by Texas Tech University.

Sarah Gregory Herr '24 MA

Samantha Philipps '25 MA presented on “Forbidden Delicacies: An Analysis of Wine and Revenge” at the Pacific Ancient Modern Language Association in Florida. 


Adam Riekstins '24 MA, “The Aesthetics of Phrenology: Re-Examining the Lost Paragraph in Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’” Concept, Vol. 47, 2024.


Matt Villanueva '24 MA was featured in an episode of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences' podcast Research that Resonates and presented at the 139th annual MLA conference in Philadelphia on “Recentering Black Women Intellectuals: A Philadelphia School District Collaboration.” Matt also contributed to an article co-written by Dr. Jean Lutes, “An Unpublished Tale about African American Poetry: Alice Dunbar-Nelson's ‘The Grievances of the Books’ (1897),” American Literary History, Vol. 36, Issue 1, Summer 2024, and presented at the Northeast Modern Language Association in Boston.


Eva Wynn '24 MA, “Individual Success is Not Liberation: A Critique of #GIRLBOSS and Neoliberal Feminisms,” Concept, Vol. 47, 2024.

14th Annual Thesis and Field Exam Symposium


The 14th Annual Thesis and Field Exam Symposium was held in SAC 300 on May 8, 2024, and featured research presentations by Megan Hayes ’24 MA, Sarah Gregory Herr ’24 MA, Matt Villanueva ’24 MA, and Eva Wynn ’24 MA


We are grateful to all the students and faculty who presented at and attended this event. It was interesting to hear the results of our students’ research, and it was fun to watch the ways that these projects echoed and spoke to one another over the course of the symposium. 

Alumni News

Villanova English Alum on Vox Podcast

Olivia Stowell ’21 MA was recently featured on the Vox podcast Today, Explained. She spoke about artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom and described her decision to ban AI use in the courses she teaches as she pursues her doctorate in Communication and Media at the University of Michigan.

Kamran Javadizadeh, PhD, Ann Marie Jakubowski MA '17, and Megan Quigley, PhD

Villanova English Alum Wins Fathman Award



Ann Marie Jakubowski, PhD, ’17 MA is the recipient of the Fathman Award from the International T. S. Eliot Society for her paper, “Conversion as Revision: The Retrospective Poetics of Burnt Norton.” The Fathman Award is presented each year by the T.S. Eliot Society at its annual meeting to the best paper presented by an early-career scholar.


Jakubowski earned her Masters in English at Villanova in 2017 and a doctorate at Washington University in St. Louis in 2024. She is currently a Lilly Postdoctoral Fellow at Valparaiso University, where she teaches literary and humanities courses in the undergrad honors college, Christ College. Congrats!

Recent Alumni in Doctoral Programs


  • Joseph Alicea ’19 MA, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Theo Campbell ’23 MA, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Sam Covais ’22 MA, Binghamton University
  • Matthew Edholm ’20 certificate, University of St. Andrews
  • Em Friedman ’22 MA, University of Pennsylvania
  • Sarah Herr ’24 MA, University of Delaware
  • Angeline Nies-Berger ’18 MA, Rutgers University
  • Stephen Reaugh ’18 MA, Washington University in St. Louis
  • William Repetto ’18 MA, University of Delaware
  • Matthew Ryan ’20 MA, Catholic University of America
  • Caitlin Salomon ’23 MA, University of Delaware
  • Avni Sejpal ’20 MA, University of Pennsylvania
  • Kristen Sieranski ’21 MA, University of Notre Dame
  • Casey Smedberg ’18 MA, University of Connecticut
  • Olivia Stowell ’21 MA, University of Michigan
  • Jonathan Weiss ’22 non-matriculated, Temple University

Alumni Activities


Charles Bloomer ’76 MA earned a doctorate in psychoanalysis and is now a lead regulatory medical writer for the pharmaceutical industry. He notes that he is still working at 79 years old and is continuing his studies in the 17th and 18th century with emphasis on Samuel Johnson.


Becca Burnett ’10 MA recently became certified as an instructional coach through the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and has been appointed Upper School Dean of Faculty at Germantown Academy, where she has begun her 22nd year this year.


Christina Kosch ’22 MA is working as the manager for Comcast Business’s Customer Experience Communications team. 


Andrew Mathis ’91 MA earned an Masters in History from the University of Pennsylvania.


Stephen Reaugh ’18 MA earned his doctorate in English and American Literature from Washington University in St. Louis this past summer and works at Georgia Institute of Technology as a Marion L. Brittain postdoctoral fellow. 


Kenny Roggenkamp ’17 MA co-authored Samuel R. Delany: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works—an encyclopedic reference guide to Delany's novels, short fiction, critical theory and biography—with Elizabeth Mannion, Lavelle Porter and Ann Matsuuchi. The book will be available from Rowman and Littlefield this winter.


Karen Schnarr van Ham ’81 MA writes, “I am still editing for an art history professor whose research is internationally published. My MA from Villanova has served me well over these many years—book edits, adjunct professor of English at Bryn Athyn College for five years, translation editing, and now art history articles. My love for the English language in all its nuances has not waned, nor has the job market! I was just telling a former student about the value of getting your foot in the door in the editing field. Once you have an established reputation, the work keeps coming. Thank you, Villanova graduate program!”


Ron Vitale ’96 MA is a fantasy and non-fiction author. He has published 17 novels to date, with the Cinderella’s Secret Witch Diaries series being his most successful. Vitale is also the author of the Let Go and Be Free series, which contains daily reflections for those who identify as Adult Children of Alcoholics or grew up in a dysfunctional family, and is the host of the Let Go and Be Free weekly podcast, available on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

Stay In Touch


If you have a story, publication, conference presentation or job update you would like to share in a future newsletter, please reach out!

Send us your news

STAY CONNECTED


Villanova University College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Facebook  X  Instagram  
You are receiving this e-newsletter because you are a graduate of Villanova University’s English program. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click the link below.