Fall Graduate Symposium

Thanks to all who attended our annual Fall Graduate Symposium, which took place November 2–3 this year and whose theme was "Archives and Institutions." Our keynote event, featuring Professor John Guillory of NYU, was well attended. After giving his talk on the history of close reading and what future the practice might have in literary studies, Professor Guillory fielded questions and engaged in a spirited back-and-forth with our faculty and students. Friday’s conference was an equally lively affair. It was a joy and a pleasure to hear about the wide array of research projects being pursued by our graduate students. From literary analyses of classic texts like "Bartleby, the Scrivener” and The Handmaid’s Tale, to archival projects on the Russian Booker Prize and John Ashbery’s personal library, to more personal reflections on the creation of Widener library and the elusive archiving of American dance, to reflections on book history and race (Du Bois, Amelia Newsham), to a talk on medieval monsters and Jorge Borges—our student presentations ran the gamut. They were united by an abiding interest in the stories we tell about the archive and how they are informed and structured by literary institutions. We are especially grateful to our graduate student presenters—Emily Sun, Jeffrey Careyva, Sunbinn Lee, Robin Singh Arya, Aditya Banerjee, Elinor Hitt, Jack Rodgers, Jocelyn Sears, and Wyatt Sarafin—and to our faculty respondents, Professors Kelly Mee Rich and Derek Miller, as well as all faculty who were able to attend in part or in whole. We look forward to seeing everyone at next year’s symposium, and in the meantime at our colloquium events, which can be viewed on the Department’s colloquium website. 

-Andy Koenig, Lead Coordinator of the Graduate Colloquia