Category Archives: Annual Grad Student Symposium

Annual Grad Student Symposium

Writing Image Text (WIT) 2026 Graduate English Symposium, Saturday April 25, Noon Eastern, on Zoom

On Saturday April 25 the MA program will host its annual “Writing Image Text” or “W.I.T.” Graduate English Symposium. The event will be held live on Zoom starting noon, eastern. The length of the event will depend on how many of our grad students present, but usually it runs for a few hours.

This call for papers (CFP) is open to both current grad students in the program and alumni. Anyone in the graduate English community who wants to attend but not present is welcome and encouraged to do so as audience members. The deadline for responding to this CFP and declaring as a presenter is the end of Saturday, April 11.

The symposium is a casual mini-conference at which students present scholarly or creative work of any sort, medium, or genre. A paper or project that you’ve created for any of your MA courses would do just fine.

Graduate students and professional scholars often attend and read at local, regional, national, and international conferences, so this symposium provides a friendly small-scale introduction to the conference experience. And for anyone who reads a paper, it becomes a line-item that you can list under the scholarship section on your CV (click here to read more about the CV).

Anyone planning to attend this year’s WIT symposium, as presenter or audience member, please indicate as much by sending an email to cloots@mercy.edu no later than the end of Saturday, April 11. And please use the subject line “WIT Symposium 2026” for your email. Zoom info will be sent out after April 11 to everyone who RSVPs.

On behalf of the MA faculty: we hope to see you all there! Please contact cloots@mercy.edu if you have any questions about any of this.

Annual Grad Student Symposium, Course Schedules

Fall (and Summer) Offerings, Shakespeare Performance on campus, Grad Symposium on Zoom

Hi all, below you can find info on upcoming course offerings, as well as a few events taking place this spring. For the fall graduate schedule we’re starting with three courses. If demand warrants we’ll add more but we anticipate that three courses will suffice.

FALL 2026 COURSE OFFERINGS

  • ENGL 507 – Narrative Strategies in the Novel (Dr. Fritz)

This course studies the novel and various narrative methods used in the novel over the centuries and across the British and American traditions. 3 credits. Fulfills either the Writing & Literary Forms field requirement or an elective.

  • ENGL 524 Reason & Imagination (Dr. Sax)

This course studies a range of literature emerging first during the Enlightenment, and then during the subsequent Romantic era, with attention to Neoclassicism, among other things. Students will explore and consider some of the tensions between and informing these different eras and literary movements, will consider ways that these eras and movements relate to one another, including how the Romantic era and its emphasis on imagination emerged to some degree as a response to the Enlightenment and its emphasis on reason. As such, particular attention will be paid to the historical contexts from which the literature of these eras emerged, and to the role of reason and imagination in literature, history, and life. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 requirement or works as an elective.

  • ENGL 541 Search for Identity in American Lit (Dr. Loots)

This course will study the search for identity, individually and collectively, as it manifests in American (United States) literature from Colonial times through the early twentieth century. Attention will be paid to the rapidly changing historical/cultural contexts from which such literature emerged, as well as to different literary movements emerging in America over the eras studied (e.g. Colonial, Revolutionary, Romantic, Realist, Modern). Part of the goal of the course is to provide students with an understanding of the foundations of literature in America. Another goal is for students to recognize just how vast and diverse the literature of America is, as well as how vast and diverse are the definitions of what it has meant, and means, to be “American.” Readings in previous instances of the course have included works by Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, Olaudah Equiano, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Phillis Wheatley, Philip Freneau, Poe, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Walt Whitman, Kate Chopin, Fanny Fern, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Henry James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Charles Chestnutt, W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Zora Neale Hurston. Likely we’ll encounter many or all of these authors and their works again this fall, and still others too might find their way into the course readings. Students might further elect to pursue readings of works from other nations, works emerging in time with the assigned American literature, to gain a more comprehensive and comparative understanding of the literature emerging globally during these centuries. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or works as an elective.

SUMMER 2026 COURSE OFFERING

For the summer we’re planning just one course, but if student demand warrants it we’ll add another. The summer course offering is:

  • ENGL 515: Creative Writing – Telling Your Story (Dr. Sax)

Students in this course will work on crafting their memoirs, in various ways and forms. Unlike autobiography, which chronologically details the events and facts of a person’s life up over time, memoir involves personal reflections and life-stories centered around a theme: for example discovering one’s heritage, or overcoming fears or trauma, or coming of age, or the quest for belonging, etc. Students will consider existing published memoirs, explore themes for their own memoirs, craft and draft memoirs, and share and discuss them as a learning community of creative writers. No prior experience with creative writing is necessary to enroll in this course. Fulfills an elective but can work for any other area requirement, if needed.

UPCOMING SPRING EVENTS

For those local to the New York City area: Mercy English will be hosting our annual “Christie Day” Shakespeare festival on Wednesday, April 8, on the Dobbs Ferry campus, in the Main Hall Lecture Hall. The NYC-based Red Bull Theatre/Apocalyptic Artists acting company will be putting on a version of MacBeth, followed by Q&A between audience and actors. Admission is free and everyone in the graduate English community is welcome to attend, whether current grad student, alumni, or family/friend. Curtain is 4pm and the performance will end around 5:30pm. “Christie Day” is named for the late Joannes Christie, founder and former Chair of Mercy’s English Department.

The 2026 “Writing/Image/Text” or “WIT” Graduate English Symposium will take place on Saturday, April 25, at noon eastern, on Zoom. All students in the program are encouraged to attend and hopefully to participate by sharing a selection of your work. You could share a scholarly paper, or your creative writing, or a digital or multi-media project, or something musical or audio-visual, or practically anything else that’s of your scholarly or creative efforts. A distinct call for presentations will go out later, but anyone interested in presenting or simply attending as an audience member should clear your calendar now to be sure Saturday 4/25 is free. Although we limit presentations to our active grad students, all of our alumni and anyone else associated with the MA English Lit program’s learning community are welcome to attend.

For questions about any of this, please contact cloots@mercy.edu.

Annual Grad Student Symposium, Student News

Presenters Needed! 2025 Grad English Symposium, Live Online Saturday April 26, Noon Eastern.

We’re still hoping for more grad students to step forward to present at this year’s “Writing / Image / Text” Graduate English Symposium, so please consider sharing something of your work (e.g. scholarly or creative writing) at the event on Zoom, at noon eastern, April 26. Also consider that the thematic title of the symposium, Writing / Image / Text, invites work that goes beyond just literary scholarship or creative writing. We’ve had students present visual-storytelling, have had students present analysis of video games, have had students present studies of visual and studio arts, and more. Anything in the world that can be analyzed and that involves, invites, or even requires interpretation to understand is a text, and so practically any sort of study of any sort of text is welcome and encouraged.

Presenting at events like this is an important step for anyone hoping to step into the profession of higher education in any way, including those who aspire to a PhD program. Beyond that, it’s also a community event, a collegial event, an event where people who appreciate ideas, literature, creativity, media, and the arts in general, can get together for a few hours and enjoy a thoughtful exchange of ideas. So, please consider stepping forward and presenting something of your work alongside your fellow grad-students.

Please write to cloots@mercy.edu asap if you will step forward to present something of your work, or if you have any questions. Those who want to attend but not present are certainly welcome and encouraged to do so too; and again, just write to cloots@mercy.edu to let me know if so. Thank you.

Annual Grad Student Symposium

2025 Grad English Symposium; Live Online Saturday April 26, Noon Eastern

On Saturday April 26 the MA program will be hosting its annual “Writing Image Text” or “W.I.T.” Graduate English Symposium. The event will be held on Zoom. We will begin at noon, eastern time. The length of the event will depend on how many of our grad students will present, but usually it runs for a few hours.

This call for papers (CFP) is limited to current students in the program. Active students who want to attend but not present, as well as alumni, prospective students, faculty, family, guests, etc., are all very welcome and encouraged to attend as audience members. The deadline for responding to this CFP and declaring as a presenter is the end of Saturday, April 5.

The symposium is a casual mini-conference at which active MA English students present scholarly or creative work. A paper or project that you’ve created for any of your MA courses would do just fine. Full instructions and guidance for presenting will be shared with presenters after April 5. The symposium is also a community event at which you might see/meet fellow grad students, program professors, alumni, and others in the MA community.

Graduate students and professional scholars often attend and read at local, regional, national, and international conferences, so this symposium provides a friendly small-scale introduction to the conference experience. And for anyone who reads a paper, it becomes a line-item that you can list under the scholarship section on your CV (click here to read more about the CV).

Anyone planning to attend this year’s WIT symposium, as presenter or audience member, please indicate as much by sending an email to cloots@mercy.edu no later than the end of Saturday, April 5. And please use the subject line “WIT Symposium 2025” for your email. Zoom info will be sent out after April 5 to everyone who RSVPs.

You can read about some of our previous symposiums on the blog here, as well as here, here, here, and here. On behalf of the MA faculty: we hope to see you all there! Please contact cloots@mercy.edu if you have any questions about any of this.

Annual Grad Student Symposium

2024 Grad English Symposium; Live Online Saturday April 27, Noon Eastern

On Saturday April 27 the MA program will be hosting its annual “Writing Image Text” or “W.I.T.” Graduate English Symposium. The event will be held on Zoom. We will begin at noon, eastern time. The length of the event will depend on how many of our grad students will present, but usually it runs for a few hours.

This call for papers (CFP) is limited to current students in the program. Active students who want to attend but not present, as well as alumni, prospective students, faculty, family, guests, etc., are all very welcome and encouraged to attend as audience members. The deadline for responding to this CFP and declaring as a presenter is the end of Saturday, April 6.

The symposium is a casual mini-conference at which active MA English students can read aloud a scholarly or creative work. A paper that you’ve written for any of your MA courses would do just fine. Full instructions and guidance for presenting will be shared with presenters after April 6. The symposium is also a community event at which you might see/meet fellow grad students, program professors, alumni, and others in the MA community.

Graduate students and professional scholars often attend and read at local, regional, national, and international conferences, so this symposium provides a friendly small-scale introduction to the conference experience. And for anyone who reads a paper, it becomes a line-item that you can list under the scholarship section on your CV (click here to read more about the CV).

Anyone planning to attend this year’s WIT symposium, as presenter or audience member, please indicate as much by sending an email to cloots@mercy.edu no later than the end of Saturday, April 6. And please use the subject line “WIT Symposium 2024” for your email. Zoom info will be sent out after April 6 to everyone who RSVPs.

You can read about some of our previous symposiums on the blog here, and here, and here, and here, and here. On behalf of the MA faculty: we hope to see you all there! Please contact cloots@mercy.edu if you have any questions about any of this.

Annual Grad Student Symposium, Course Information, Course Schedules

Fall (and Summer) 2024 Course Offerings; Also, Preliminary Grad Student Symposium Info

First please note that the annual Graduate English Symposium will again this year be held on Zoom, in order to accommodate our students at a distance. The date hasn’t been finalized yet but it will likely be near the end of April, and likely on a Saturday. A post with further information and details, including the call for presenters, will be coming soon, so stay tuned to this blog for more on that.

The fall (and summer) 2024 schedules will be appearing soon in Mercy Connect. Many of our students don’t take summer courses, whereas all of our students take fall and spring courses, which is why I’m privileging fall here in my phrasing. It’s also why we offer just a few summer courses. Fall and summer registration will open for veterans on Monday, March 11. General registration will open for all students on Monday, March 18. Registration normally opens at or around 9am, eastern (it begins when the Registrar’s Office opens and they activate the reg system).

Specific book info will be coming later, and some of these descriptions will change as professors refine their courses over the months ahead.

The five fall 2024 course offerings are:

  • ENGL 500 Theory and Practice of Lit Criticism1 (Dr. Kilpatrick)

An introduction to some of the major movements and figures of the theory of criticism. The question “what is literature?” is a primary concern of this course. Such an inquiry necessarily engages other, closely affiliated signifiers such as work/text, writing, reading, interpretation, and signification itself. After brief encounters with ancient antecedents and seminal moderns, influential contemporary approaches to the question concerning literature and its cultural significance are engaged. An assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of current trends in the practice of literary criticism, and their theoretical groundwork, is the ultimate objective of this course. Fulfills the requirement for ENGL 500.

  • ENGL 505 Transformations of the Epic (Dr. Sax)

This course is based on the conception of the epic as an encyclopedic narrative of substantial length featuring a central figure who reflects the values of a particular culture. It will proceed chronologically, studying the taxonomy and transformations of the epic, from its earliest Classical manifestations, through its emergence in Medieval and Renaissance texts, to its incorporation after the Renaissance into modern writing. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms requirement or an elective.

  • ENGL 525 Victorian Age in Literature (Dr. Dugan)

If one were asked to define the timeline of Victorian literature, one might be hard-pressed to do so. As literary genres are fluid, it is hard to determine when the Romantic Period ends and the Victorian Period begins; and when the Victorian Period ends and Modernism begins. Whatever the dates, a defining characteristic of Victorian England would be change, change matched with a belief in progress: societal, religious, economic, and artistic. While some benefited from these changes, others did not. The semester we will look closely, through Victorian literature, at issues that challenge the notions of change and progress, notably the role of women, industrialism, gender roles, and poverty as shown in fiction, poetry, and drama of the Victorian age. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 requirement or an elective.

  • ENGL 543 American Renaissance (Dr. Loots)

This course will study representative American writings from “The American Renaissance,” a period during the mid-nineteenth century (roughly 1832 to 1865) which saw the rise of the first truly non-Colonial, non-Revolutionary body of national literature; a literature which no longer concerned itself with European precedent, engagement, or approval. When F.O. Matthiessen coined the term “The American Renaissance” in 1941 he did so in light of five monumental American works by five different writers, all produced within five years (1850-55): Emerson (Representative Men), Thoreau (Walden), Melville (Moby Dick), Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter), and Whitman (Leaves of Grass). Since Matthiessen’s time the notion of an American Renaissance has expanded to encompass a greater diversity of representative works, writers, and perspectives from this era. In this course we’ll study selections from across the American Renaissance, most likely engaging works by: Harriett Jacobs; Frederick Douglass; Harriet Beecher Stowe; Frances Harper; Sojourner Truth; Margaret Fuller; Sara Willis (Fanny Fern); as well as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and Melville.  Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or works as an elective.

  • ENGL 560 Tilting at Windmills: Riding with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza though 16th century Spain2 (Dr. Reissig-Vasile) [Note: if you use the Mercy schedule-planning tool, the title for 560 will show as “Topics in American Literature.” Ignore that title, it’s just a generic place-holder title in the planning tool. The real title is the one in Mercy Connect, Tilting at Windows]

It is often said that the long and tangled history of the modern novel begins in Europe, and it begins with Cervantes.  Through a close reading and analysis of Cervantes’ literary masterpiece, Don Quixote de la Mancha (which many readers, including many authors, consider to be among the greatest works ever written), we will explore this issue and many others.  The course will focus on questions of literary, linguistic, cultural, and historical heterogeneity in Don Quixote. We will seek to understand why so many celebrate Cervantes for teaching us “to comprehend the world as a question.”  We will explore the polemics of 16th century Spain and how Cervantes used Don Quixote to raise ethical issues relevant to his time. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or works as an elective.

And for those nearing the end of the program, note that ENGL 599 Master’s Thesis is a one-on-one tutorial that needs to be taken during your final semester. You don’t enroll in 599 as you do a normal class. Check out this page on the blog for more about 599 and how you enroll in it.

The two summer 2024 course offerings are:

  • 509 Perspectives on the Essay (Dr. Keckler)

[Updated description 2/26] The course will study of the essay as a distinct literary genre; its characteristics, types, and structures; its history; and its role in reflecting authorial consciousness. This course will focus in particular on the personal essay and sub-genres such as nature writing, cultural criticism, travel writing, and academic-personal essay hybrid forms. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms requirement or an elective; can work in other ways, as needed, for the degree, by request.

  • 540 Monsters2 (Dr. Dugan)

In this course we will read classic and contemporary literary works to explore notions of monsters and monstrosities from the perspectives of the monster and the creator. Historical, societal, political, and cultural issues will be explored and addressed. Types of monsters and monstrosities will also be considered: e.g. human, beast, and scientific. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 field requirement or an elective by default; can work in other ways, as needed, for the degree, by request.

1 ENGL 500 runs once a year, in the fall, and because it’s a requirement for the MA degree seats are locked and reserved for students who are on track to graduate prior to fall 2025. Students who have not taken it already, and are on track to graduate prior to fall 2025, can get a seat by contacting the program director at cloots@mercy.edu. Students who are on track to graduate in fall 2025 or later can still contact the program director requesting a seat in the fall 2024 instance, but will be prioritized behind students who must have the course this fall to graduate on time.

2 ENGL 540 and 560 are numbers by which we run a variety of new or experimental coursework. Students can take multiple instances of ENGL 540 and 560, as long as they’re not taking the same course with the same title twice. So for example a student who took 540 Fairy Tales last summer can take 540 Monsters this summer because those are different courses, even though they both use the 540 number; likewise, students who took 560 African and Caribbean Lit last fall can take 560 Tilting at Windmills this fall.

Annual Grad Student Symposium, Student News

Year-End Events and Honors: Symposium, Student Awards, and Commencement

We’ve reached the end of another academic year, which means it’s symposium season, awards season, and commencement season!

For our annual Graduate Student Symposium this past April, a good number of students, faculty, friends, family, and others in the graduate English community gathered on zoom to hear scholarly presentations from Abigail Collopy, Rayne Dolton, and Adrianne Gunter. Interpretations and insights were expressed; ideas were discussed; and much camaraderie and collegiality was had. Presenters earned a valuable line-item to list in the scholarship section of their curriculum vitae. The graduate faculty encourage all of our students to share some of your writing and ideas at next year’s symposium, which will likely be in late April 2024. Ask any of your professors or the Program Director about doing so, if you have any questions or need some guidance.

Three students were recognized recently for program year-end honors. The first of these honors is the Graduate English Christie Bowl, named for the late Joannes Christie who established and long chaired Mercy College’s English Program. The award, determined by the collective graduate faculty, recognizes one graduating student for their consistent academic excellence and classroom performance throughout their time in the graduate program, their other contributions to the program’s scholarly learning community, and their relevant accomplishments beyond the program’s coursework.

  • The winner of the 2023 Graduate English Christie Bowl is Tim Brosnan 

Next is the Howard Canaan Thesis Award for Innovation. This award honors the late Dr. Canaan, a long-time and highly-esteemed professor of English at Mercy College who (among many other things) taught Shakespeare and Science Fiction, and advocated that the latter could be as meaningful an area of study, could be as “literary” and as significant, as the former. This award recognizes a thesis that does one or some of the following: approaches literary analysis in a unique, unexpected, or unusual way; reconsiders and otherwise treats with dignity genre fiction; or involves interdisciplinary studies.

  • The winner of the 2023 Howard Canaan Thesis Award for Innovation is Casi Kapadia for her study “Fashion Statements: Fashion in Literature as a Social Mechanism in the Formation of Identity”

Finally, we have the Thesis of the Year Award. Selecting one study for this award, as much as for any of the other awards, is always extraordinarily difficult, as thesis students across the program regularly create excellent studies that are each worthy in their own right. The paper receiving this distinction stood out in all respects.

  • The winner of the 2023 Thesis of the Year Award is Selana Scott for her study “Ulysses’ Bloom; The Embodiment of the Mechanisms and Benefits of an Internal Locus Of Control Mindset”

It is always a strange thing to announce such distinctions as when doing so one can’t help but think of the marvelous students and studies that are not the ones named. Again, it is extraordinarily difficult for faculty judges to locate any single person to honor for any of these awards out of the many exceptional students graduating each year from our program and the college overall. So as we recognize these honorees let us please also recognize all members of the graduating MA class of 2022-23 for their hard work and dedication that has gotten them to this moment of completing their MA degree in English Literature.

One last program-relevant thing to mention here is that for Mercy College’s School of Liberal Arts commencement ceremony, held last week on the western athletic field of the Dobbs Ferry campus (the 100-yard event tent is pictured below), the college selected one of our own to deliver the graduate-student commencement address: Tim Brosnan. Tim gave a wonderful speech in which he expressed many of things that he cherished most about his time in the graduate program, as well as his appreciation for many of the individual faculty with whom he studied during his time in the program. It was a heartening and laudable finish to the year.

Cheers to everyone in the MA English Literature program, to our alumni, and to all of your family and friends. Congratulations to our graduating class of 2022-23. Onward we go!

Annual Grad Student Symposium

Reminder: 2023 Symposium is live-online, April 29; RSVP and CFP deadline extended to Friday 4/14

In hopes of gathering more attendance for this year’s Graduate English Symposium, which will be online/on zoom on Saturday 4/29 starting at noon eastern, we’ve extended the deadline for declaring as a presenter or audience member to this coming Friday 4/14. If anyone has any questions, or would like to present, or attend, please write to cloots@mercy.edu by the end of Friday 4/29. Thank you.

Annual Grad Student Symposium

2023 GRADUATE ENGLISH SYMPOSIUM; LIVE ONLINE SATURDAY APRIL 29; CFP DEADLINE APRIL 8

On Saturday April 29 the MA program will be hosting its annual “Writing Image Text” or “W.I.T.” Graduate English Symposium. The event will be held live online through Zoom. We will begin at noon, eastern time. The event will likely run for three hours, or so, but the end-time will only come into focus once we know how many MA students will be presenting.

This call for papers (CFP) is limited to current students in the program. Active students who want to attend but not present, as well as alumni, prospective students, faculty, family, guests, etc., are all very welcome and encouraged to attend as audience members. The deadline for responding to this CFP and declaring as a presenter is the end of Saturday, April 8.

The symposium is a casual mini-conference at which active MA English students can read aloud a scholarly or creative work. A paper that you’ve written for any of your MA courses would do just fine. Full instructions and guidance for presenting will be shared with presenters after April 8. The symposium is also a community event at which you might see/meet fellow grad students, program professors, alumni, and others in the MA community.

Graduate students and professional scholars often attend and read at local, regional, national, and international conferences, so this symposium provides a friendly small-scale introduction to the conference experience. And for anyone who reads a paper, it becomes a line-item that you can list under the scholarship section on your CV (click here to read more about the CV).

Anyone planning to attend this year’s WIT symposium, as presenter or audience member, please let me know by sending an email no later than the end of Saturday, April 8, to cloots@mercy.edu. For all emails please use the subject line: WIT Symposium 2023. Presenters please also, in your email, let me know the title of the work you will present. I need this info in order to appropriately organize the event and create the program. I need non-presenters to RSVP as well so that I know everyone to whom I will need to send Zoom login info before 4/29.

You can read about some of our previous symposiums on the blog here, and here, and here, and here. On behalf of the MA faculty: we hope to see you all there! Please contact cloots@mercy.edu if you have any questions about any of this.

Annual Grad Student Symposium, Student News

Year-End Events and Honors: Symposium, Student Awards, and Commencement

It’s the end of the academic year, which means it’s time to celebrate! One way we celebrate, as a graduate community, is with the annual graduate student symposium, which this year was held live-online at the end of April. Eight grad students presented a variety of scholarly and creative work. Four graduate faculty members moderated the different sessions. Other program faculty, and an Associate Provost of the college, were in attendance, as were a number of other active MA students and alumni. It was an interesting, idea-filled, and collegial event. Click the banner below to see the program for the event, and to get a look at the topics on which students presented:

Another way we celebrate the end of the academic year is by awarding four different program distinctions. The first of these is the Graduate English Christie Bowl, named for the late Joannes Christie who established and long chaired Mercy College’s English Program. The award, determined by the collective graduate faculty, recognizes one graduating student for their consistent academic excellence and classroom performance throughout their time in the graduate program, their other contributions to the program’s scholarly learning community, and their relevant accomplishments beyond the program.

  • The winner of the 2022 Graduate English Christie Bowl is Cera Bryant Fornataro 

Next is the Howard Canaan Thesis Award for Innovation. This award honors the late Dr. Canaan, a long-time and highly-esteemed professor of English at Mercy College who (among many other things) taught Shakespeare and Science Fiction, and advocated that the latter could be as meaningful an area of study, could be as “literary” and as significant, as the former. This award recognizes a thesis that does one or some of the following: approaches literary analysis in a unique, unexpected, or unusual way; reconsiders and otherwise treats with dignity genre fiction; or involves interdisciplinary studies.

  • The winner of the 2022 Howard Canaan Thesis Award for Innovation is John Alleman for his study “Revision and Women in a Selection of Alan Moore’s Comics”

Next we have the Thesis Award for English Studies. “English Studies” is an encompassing term that includes literary study and traditional literary pursuits but also enfolds wider practices in the field of English such as: theory, linguistics, writing, and rhetoric; inquiring into research practices, into English curriculum and canon, and into the teaching of English; exploring aspects of digital literacy; and more. This thesis award therefore recognizes an exceptional thesis that tends to the intra-disciplinary thresholds within the field of English.

  • The winner of the 2022 Thesis Award for English Studies is Melissa Lizotte for her study “Empowering Student Writers: A Genre Approach to Teaching the College Admissions Essay”

Lastly we have the overall Thesis of the Year Award. Selecting one study for this award, as much as for any of the thesis awards, is always extraordinarily difficult, as thesis students across the program regularly create excellent studies that are each worthy in their own right. The paper receiving this distinction stood out in all respects.

  • The winner of the 2022 Thesis of the Year Award is Cera Bryant Fornataro for her study “Intersectional Mysticism: Tarot, Hoodoo, Folk Magic, and the Working Conjure Woman in Select Works by Sandra Cisneros and Zora Neale Hurston.”

It is always a strange thing to announce such distinctions as when doing so one can’t help but think of the marvelous students and studies that are not the ones named. Again, it is extraordinarily difficult for faculty judges to locate any single person to honor for any of these awards out of the many exceptional students graduating each year from our program and the college overall. So as we recognize these honorees let us please also recognize all members of the graduating MA class of 2021-22 for their hard work and dedication that has gotten them to this moment of completing their MA degree in English Literature.

One final way we celebrate the end of the academic year is with commencement. Mercy College held five different commencements over the course of the past week, one for each of Mercy’s five schools (Liberal Arts, Health & Natural Sciences, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Education, and Business). The School of Liberal Arts, in which our MA program is housed, held commencement this past Wednesday. A good number of graduate English students were in attendance and walked in the procession. Below is a shot of the 100-yard tent on the western athletic field under which the event was held, this taken a few hours prior to the ceremony.

Cheers to everyone in the MA English Literature program, to our alumni, and to all of your family and friends. Congratulations to our graduating class of 2021-22. I hope that everyone will do something special, something nice for yourselves, to celebrate in your own way the end of the academic year, and the start of the summer. Onward!