News, Publications, and Presentations

Dr. Megan Murton was interviewed by the Center for Cultural Engagement as part of a new series introducing university departments to first-generation college students. The interview was edited into two short Instagram videos:  
Part 1   Part 2

Dr. Gregory Baker presented work on the Nigerian poet, Christopher Okigbo, at the annual conference of the Modernist Studies Association, held in November 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. The title of his paper was “‘...leave the borders of our land, fruitful fields:’ Aboriginal Alienation, Virgil and the Roman Vision of Christopher Okigbo."

Dr. Megan Murton delivered the annual Drumwright Lecture at the Honors College of Baylor University. Her talk was entitled: "Beyond Consolation: The Virtue of Hope in Boethius and Chaucer."

Dr. Taryn Okuma organized and moderated a two-part seminar on "Teaching Writing through Literature" for the Association of Literary Critics, Scholars, and Writers conference at Catholic University in October. The seminar included CUA English alumni Christopher Petter (The University of St. Thomas, Houston), Michael (M.I.) Devine (State University of New York at Plattsburgh), Sr. Maria Frassati Jakupcak (The University of St. Thomas, Houston), and Rebecca Vaccaro (Bishop Ireton High School), as well as current Ph.D. student Marissa Cina.

An essay by Dr. Jeremy Specland (Postdoctoral Fellow) entitled "'The Tune Then Used': Psalm Verse Numeration and English Bible Readers" was published in the collection In Readers' Hands: New Perspectives on Premodern Bibles, a volume of Brill's Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History (vol. 78, pp. 233-74). https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/71253

Rachel Daly (PhD Student) presented a paper entitled "James Joyce's Ghostly Fathers: Aquinas and Hegel in the 'Scylla and Charybdis' Episode of Ulysses" at the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers (ALSCW) annual conference at the Catholic University of America on October 18, 2024

Dr. Megan Murton delivered the inaugural lecture in the School of Philosophy's lecture series commemorating the anniversaries of Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Boethius. Her talk was entitled, "Consolation, Hope, and Prayer: Reading Boethius in Late-Medieval England."

Dr. Beth Newman Ooi presented a paper titled “Object-Text Connections in Inscriptions on Elite Christian Objects from Early Medieval England” at the Annual Meeting of the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS) in Denver, 16 November 24.

Dr. Lilla Kopár (co-editor) and Dr. Beth Newman Ooi (associate editor), along with two colleagues at Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Germany), founded a new e-publication for discussion and dissemination of new discoveries and work in early medieval runology and related fields. The inaugural volume of runes:et:al is now available online.
https://edoc.ku.de/id/eprint/33410/1/runes%20et%20al_Vol1_complete_with%20DOIs_12-Jun-24.pdf

Events

Join English Society for our November book discussion:
The Other Name: Septology I-II (2019) by Jon Fosse
Monday, November 25th
8pm, McMahon B6 (English Department Conference Room)
All members of the CUA community - current students, faculty, staff, and alumni - are warmly invited - you don't have to be an English major to join us!