The students and faculty of Villanova English have been engaged in research that speaks to contemporary conversations surrounding topics such as climate change, gender and sexuality, and the impact of racism and colonialism—historically and in the present.

Kimberly Takahata, PhD, spoke about “Indigeneity and Indigenous Life in Colonial Virginia” at the Northwestern Undergraduate Conference on Literature. Heather Hicks, PhD; Jean Lutes, PhD; Kate Neilsen, PhD; and Lisa Sewell, PhD, presented a panel on climate stories and writing for change appropriately titled “The Apocalypse Isn’t Here Yet.” Mary Mullen, PhD, presented on “Comparison, Colonial Unknowing, and Ireland” at a conference devoted to "How Victorianists (Might) Talk about Race." Yumi Lee, PhD, gave a colloquium at the University of Pennsylvania on the renewed visibility of the Korean War in American literature. Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, PhD, participated in a Tibetan Women Writing Seminar at The University of Virginia. Finally, Jean Lutes, PhD, and her student assistants (including Madeline Davids '22 MA) continue to work on the ‘Steenth Street Project, an effort to recover a book of short stories, written by the pioneering Alice Dunbar-Nelson, about Black children in turn-of-the-century New York.

Our community also benefited from the work of visiting scholars who engaged with relevant topics, such as Erin Murphy, PhD, of Boston University, who spoke at the Villanova GWS conference on “Amazons and Zombies: Margaret Cavendish’s Soldiers, Gender, and the Paradoxes of War.” In addition, as part of this year’s Esmonde Colloquium, Carissa Harris, PhD, of Temple University presented on “Twice Militant: Women’s Intersectional Anger from the 1381 Uprising to #SayHerName” and Robbie Richardson, PhD, of Princeton spoke on the place of Indigenous peoples’ bones in the history of museums in Europe and North America. And we had a diverse, talented and engaged group of prominent writers visit us for our Literary Festival.