Department of English

Welcome to English at Villanova University!

Please enjoy browsing our web site. Here you'll learn about our faculty, undergraduate and graduate programs, and much more. 

 For questions about the undergraduate program, please contact Prof. Michael Berthold. For questions about the graduate program, please contact Prof. Heather Hicks.  The department Chair is Prof. Evan Radcliffe.

News

• Junot Diaz reading.  The 15th annual Villanova Literary Festival concluded with a reading by prize-winning novelist Junot Diaz on Tuesday, April 16.
  
• Internship at Sports Illustrated.  The English department and Sports Illustrated have a special partnership by which one or two English majors each semester will have the opportunity to work in New York for Sports Illustrated, in a paid internship position that also earns you 12 credits.  Applications for fall 2013 are due on Wednesday, April 10.
  
• English Twitter feed and blog.  English is now on Twitter as VUEnglish!  And we have a blog!  You may have seen the article about it in the Oct. 4 issue of the Villanovan.  The blog lives at http://villanovaenglish.blogspot.com/, and is full of interesting posts.  We're constantly adding to both the blog and Twitter, and we welcome contributions by students; if you are interested in the Twitter feed, please contact Prof. Jody Ross, and for the blog, please contact Prof. Michael Berthold.  You could write about a book you've read recently or particularly responded to (in or outside class), a play you've seen, an internship you did or a job where you made use of your English skills--the possibilities are endless.
     We urge you to sign up to receive updates; just enter your e-mail address in the Follow by Email spot near the top on the left of the webpage.
  
• Pulitzer Prize Week, Sept. 24-27.  In celebration of 2012 Pulitzer Prize winners from the area--Philadelphia Inquirer reporters as well as English major Eileen Sullivan (see below)--this week-long series of events included keynote addresses and workshops on reporting, editing, and photography.
  

Faculty awards and achievements

• Fellowship in California.  Prof. Megan Quigley is currently on fellowship at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA.  Her project is entitled "Vaguely Philosophical: Modernist Fiction and the Challenge of Philosophy."
• Golf Writers Award.   Prof. Jeff Silverman was awarded third place in Non-Daily Features in the Golf Writers Association of America's annual writing contest.  Prof. Silverman was recognized for his article "Book Worms" in Golf World, about avid collectors of books on golf.
• Faculty Book Award.  Prof. Hugh Ormsby-Lennon's book Hey Presto!: Swift and the Quacks has been selected by Choice magazine as a 2012 Outstanding Academic Title in the "Humanities, English and American" category.  See http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/feb/udpress-book-award-020413.html.
• New Faculty Book.  Prof. Alice Dailey's book The English Martyr from Reformation to Revolution is being published by the University of Notre Dame Press.
• Fellowship in Italy.  Prof. Lauren Shohet, the Luckow Family Professor of English, has been awarded the first Shakespeare Association of America-Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship.  Prof. Shohet will be in residence at the Liguria Humanities Center, in Italy, for a month, pursuing research on intersections of translation theory and theories of literary adaptation.

English majors

• Alumna awarded Pulitzer Prize.  Eileen Sullivan, class of 1999, who covers counterterrorism for The Associated Press and is an expert on homegrown terrorism and domestic radicalization, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, along with three colleagues.  She will be participating in Pulitzer Prize Week, Sept. 24-27.
  

New faculty positions

• New faculty member.  Prof. Travis Foster is a specialist in American literature before 1900.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and his B.A. from Amherst College, where he majored in both English and Economics.  Prof. Foster previously taught at the College of Wooster.  He is currently teaching English 1975 (Sophomore Seminar: Secrets and Lies) and English 4690 (Reading Sexualities in American Literature).
  
• New faculty member.  Prof. Brooke Hunter is a specialist in medieval literature.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas and her B.A. from Whitman College.  Prof. Hunter previously taught at Loyola University, Maryland.  She is currently teaching English 2101 (The British Literary Tradition I) and English 3190 (Knights, Ladies, and Love: The Medieval Romance).