Department News

Dr. Gregory Baker's article, "'Attic Salt into an Undiluted Scots': Aristophanes and the Modernism of Douglas Young" in Brill's Companion to the Reception of Aristophanes (Philip Walsh, ed. [Leiden, 2016]) received mention in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review's praise for the volume: "Baker’s chapter is almost cinematic, presenting ten pages of taut exposition before turning to Young’s work on Aristophanes. Baker’s narrative tributaries rapidly convene into a flood, forcefully illustrating that context is always crucial for reception. It is salutary for full-time Classicists, too, to conceive of reception not as texts in search of an audience, but as societies groping for the right artistic-historical work for their moment." The full review of the book can be read here: http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2017/2017-03-35.html
Ph.D. candidate Bethany Besteman presented a paper, "Bridging Church and Stage: Theo-political consensus within the antitheatrical debates of the 16th Century,” at the College English Association - Middle-Atlantic Group 's annual Conference in March.
Dr. Daniel Gibbons has had both a book and a scholarly article published in the last year. The book, titled Conflicts of Devotion: Liturgical Poetics in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century England (U of Notre Dame Press, 2017), examines the ways in which writers of liturgy and lyric poetry struggled to revise and restore a sense of spiritual community in reformation-era England. The article, titled "Inhuman Persuasion in The Tempest" (Studies in Philology 114.2 [Spring 2017]) is part of Dr. Gibbons' current book project on Shakespeare's struggle with Augustinian ideas.
Dr. Lilla Kopár co-authored a journal article published in fall 2017 (Martin Findell and Lilla Kopár, “Runes and Commemoration in Anglo-Saxon England.” Fragments: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Ancient and Medieval Pasts, Volume 6 (2017): 110-137)
The English department was well-represented at University Research Day on April 19, 2018. Iain Higgins (B.A. English ‘18) presented a poster entitled, "The Ulysses Trial." The poster detailing the legal battles which marked the torrid reception and censorship of James Joyce's 1922 novel, Ulysses, forms part of Iain's work in this year's senior seminar with Dr. Baker on WB Yeats and James Joyce. Dr. Megan Murton presented a poster with Dr. Kevin White (Philosophy) entitled "Teaching Philosophy to Speak English and English to Speak Philosophically." The poster grew out of the Boethius Reading Group they have been running, in which for the past year they’ve been slowly reading through The Consolation of Philosophy, examining Boethius's Latin and Chaucer's Middle English translation side by side. They’ve been looking closely at Chaucer's translation strategies, and the poster focused specifically on his invention of new English words to convey concepts from the Latin. Dr. Lilla Kopár presented a paper, “Depicting the Dragon-Slayer: Visual Narratives in the Viking World.”
Ph.D. candidate Jessica Schnepp was selected by the English faculty as the recipient of the 2018 Capstone Teaching Award. The Capstone Award is for a Ph.D. student who is within one year of finishing the degree and who has demonstrated excellence in teaching throughout his or her career as a Ph.D. student at Catholic U.
Ph.D. candidate Hannah Bormann was selected by the English faculty as the recipient of the 2018 Excellence in Teaching Award. The award is for a Ph.D. student who has completed at least two semesters of teaching at the Ph.D. level and has, even at this early point in his or her career, established a strong record of teaching.
Iain Higgins (B.A. English ‘18) wrote an article for The Tower about W. B. Yeats' 1904 visit to the campus of Catholic University. Higgins’ research formed part of his first semester coursework in this year's senior seminar with Dr. Baker on Yeats and James Joyce. Link to the article: http://cuatower.com/2017/11/w-b-yeats-catholics-legendary-literature-guest/
Ph.D. student Justin Keena’s article "David Hume in To the Lighthouse" will appear in the upcoming October 2018 issue of Philosophy and Literature (42.2) and his article "Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua and Gregory of Nazianzus's De Vita Sua" was recently accepted by Notes and Queries.
Dr. Taryn Okuma and Lindsay Myers (M.A. ‘18) presented a workshop, “Helping Others Tell Their Stories: Application Materials in/and the Writing Center,” in collaboration with Dr. Matthew Capdevielle (University of Notre Dame) at the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, Hofstra University, October 2017.
Elena Perkins (B.A. English ‘18) presented her poster, “The Presence of Positive Feedback in the Catholic University of America Writing Center at the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, Hofstra University, October 2017.
Current M.A. student Wesley Rothman's debut collection of poems, SUBWOOFER (New Issues Poetry & Prose), selected by National Book Award recipient Mary Szybist, was published in fall 2017. Recent poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, Southern Humanities Review, The Los Angeles Review, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Recent book reviews have appeared in Publishers Weekly and American Microreviews and Interviews. He is currently a Teaching Artist at the National Gallery of Art, and presented "Re-Membering: The Work and Legacy of Jake Adam York" at the 2018 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference.
Dr. Lilla Kopár delivered a public lecture on “Mysteries of the Runes: From the Vikings to Tolkien and Modern Gamers” as part of Catholic U.'s Women in Science public lecture series at Alice's Jazz and Cultural Society in Brookland, Washington, D.C., on February 19, 2018.
Ph.D. candidate and Adjunct Professor Ryan Wilson’s essay, "The Polyvocal Poet: Tradition, Translation, and the True Original" appears as the Prose Feature in the Spring 2018 issue of Birmingham Poetry Review, which also includes his original poem, "Lemons." Wilson’s poem, "For a Dog," appears in the Spring 2018 issue of The Yale Review. The essay "Verses and Conversions" appears in the April 2018 issue of The New Criterion. The poem, "Face It," originally printed in the March 2017 issue of The New Criterion, will be re-printed in Best American Poetry 2018 (eds. Dana Gioia & David Lehman). Five original poems ("The Birth of Tragedy," "Velocities," "Heorot," "The Sharecroppers," and "The Problem") will appear in the upcoming issues of The Sewanee Review. The poem, "A Haunted House," appears in the forthcoming issue of The Dark Horse (Scotland). Three translations (Catullus iii, Rimbaud's "My Bohemia," and Baudelaire's "The Enemy") will appear in the upcoming issue of Able Muse, and Wilson’s translation of Horace's ode ii.3 will appear in the upcoming issue of Measure. His poem, "Disobedience," has been accepted for publication by Modern Age, and the poem, "Philoctetes, Long Afterward," will appear in the upcoming issue of The Hopkins Review.
Dr. Lilla Kopár co-authored an article about the NEH-funded digital initiative Project Andvari published in August 2018 (Joseph Koivisto, Lilla Kopár, and Nancy L. Wicker, “Bridging the Gap: Managing a Digital Medieval Initiative Across Disciplines and Institutions.” In: Meeting the Medieval in the Digital World. Ed. by Matthew Evan Davis, Tamsyn Mahoney-Steel & Ece Turnator. Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2018, 223-240.) Link: https://arc-humanities.org/products/m-77101-108100-39-7752/

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