Faith Drazga plans to return to University of St. Andrews for doctorate

Faith Drazga recently finished her Master of Literature in Shakespeare at Scotland's University of St. Andrews, where she met fellow Alumni and former Sophier Kerr prize winner Liam Daley. She wrote her dissertation on early modern manuscripts of Shakespeare's sonnets, which afforded her the opportunity to visit numerous extraordinary libraries here and in the U.K.

Although currently taking a year off, she has been accepted into St. Andrews for her doctorate and will be working under Dr. Andrew Murphy, an early modern readership specialist.

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Dean Christopher Ames published in Literature/Film Quarterly

Christopher Ames, Provost and Dean of Washington College, published an article, "The Hollywood Novel at the End of the Twentieth Century," in the Literature/Film Quarterly (Volume 36, number 3). You can order a copy and view the issues' other published articles here.

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Meredith Davies Hadaway authors numerous published articles

Meredith Davies Hadaway M'96 will be a featured author for Gunston Day School's annual "In Celebration of Books" festival in October. She has received a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for a residency there in November. Recent publications include poems in Gulf Stream, Zone 3 and Eclipse, as well as in the Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry.

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Johanna Schaeffer '06 has Samuel Beckett Centenary article published

Johanna Schaeffer's article on the Fall 'o6 Samuel Beckett Centenary Celebration has been published in the Spring '07 issue of the The Beckett Circle/Cercle de Beckett, the Beckett Society's official newsletter.

In celebration of the Irish writer's 100th birthday, Washington College played host to a series of Beckett events. Over the Fall '06 semester there were four speakers who either lectured or read to an enthusiastic audience.

In the picure: Johanna Schaeffer and the event's first speaker, Raymond Federman.

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Corey Olsen welcomes the birth of son Matthias

On March 29th this Spring, Professor Corey Olsen and his wife welcomed the birth of their second son, Matthias Tom Olsen. The couple's first son, Nicholas, is five years old.

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Jehanne Dubrow and Sean Meehan join Washington College faculty

This year Jehanne Dubrow and Sean Meehan have joined Washington College's faculty as Visiting Assistant Professors of English. This year Dubrow received her Ph.D., in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Meehan received his in 2002 from the University of Iowa. You can check out their faculty pages here for further information: Jehanne Dubrow and Sean Meehan.

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Will Grofic '06 enrolled in Bennington College's low-residency M.F.A. program in writing and literature

Will Grofic '06 is currently enrolled in Bennington College's low-residency M.F.A. program in writing and literature with a concentration in poetry. He is also an Editorial Intern for the Potomac Review, where he sifts through submissions and, last April, helped market the Conversations and Connections Writer's Conference held in D.C.

Will, who earned a degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing, received Departmental Honors for his Senior Thesis, which was a collection of poetry. He was also the Features Editor for the Collegian his senior year.

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Thomas Cousineau's new book introduces readers to the novels of a legendary writer

Thomas Cousineau, Professor of English at Washington College, has completed his fourth book of literary criticism, Three-Part Inventions: The Novels of Thomas Bernhard. Published in the United States by the University of Delaware Press and in England by Associated University Presses, this new book is designed to introduce English-speaking readers— among whom Bernhard is virtually unknown— to the pleasures of reading an author whom the Italian writer Italo Calvino once called “the greatest writer in the world.”

“Throughout Europe,” Cousineau points out, “Bernhard is revered as a modernist writer who has not only received the highest critical acclaim but whose work is also known and admired by the general public. When he died in the winter of 1989, one obituary writer in France declared that his death was a ‘catastrophe’ for literature, another regretted that he had not received the Nobel Prize that his achievement clearly merited, and a third affirmed that Bernhard was not only the greatest contemporary writer but also the only readable one. Fellow postmodern writer Walter Abish even went so far as to say that we are living in ‘the Age of Bernhard.’”

Such tributes have not yet, however, translated into significant popular recognition of Bernhard’s greatness in the English-speaking world. The critic Donald G. Daviau concluded his overview of the American reception of the Austrian writer’s work by commenting that "a good beginning has been made over the past twenty years, but a great deal still remains to be accomplished before this ‘major author of Western literature' will actually be widely read in the United States and not just appreciated by a select audience.” Cousineau hopes that Three-Part Inventions will be a small but effective step in this direction. His general overview of Bernhard’s life and work, originally written for The Review of Contemporary Fiction, is available online at www.thomasbernhard.org.

Three-Part Inventions is available from the Washington College Bookstore by calling 410-778-7749, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, or online via the website http://bookstore.washcoll.edu.

Advance Praise for Three-Part Inventions

“The novels of Thomas Bernhard, one of the most brilliant and provocative writers of the post-World War II era, have long been underground classics in the United States, but discussion of what these sardonic, cruel, and elliptical novels really mean is still in its infancy. Thomas Cousineau here gives us one of the first book-length readings of Bernhard’s novels, adapting René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire to understand the triangular relationships between protagonist, adversary, and scapegoat that are at the heart of Bernhard’s intricately patterned fictions. This excellent, closely argued study will be indispensable to Bernhard’s growing audience, as well as to readers of postmodern fiction in general.”
—Majorie Perloff, Sadie D. Patek Professor Emerita
of Humanities at Stanford University

“Long hailed as a master of prose by America’s foremost stylists like William Gaddis and Gary Indiana, Thomas Bernhard has nevertheless suffered from a relative neglect in English-speaking countries. This omission has been repaired by Cousineau’s informed critical reading of the Austrian writer; in a series of astute readings of Bernhard’s major novels, Cousineau shows that the master of incantatory rant and relentless vituperation is the only rightful heir of Samuel Beckett. Bernhard’s musical denunciation of social and ethical ills offers an indispensable vaccination against our age’s weak follies and facile despair.”
—Jean-Michel Rabaté, Vartan Gregorian Professor
in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania

Official Press Release

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Meredith Collier '07 accepted into Boston College's M.A. program

As of April, Meredith Collier '07 has been accepted into the M.A. program of Boston College's English Department. They have offered her a full-tuition merit scholarship for the first year and the prospect of a teaching assistantship for the second.

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Sophie Kerr recepient Emma Sovich '08 garners media attention

Emma Sovich '08, this year's Sophie Kerr prize winner, was featured in a wonderful segment on WJZTV news. You can view the video by clicking here.

Emma's win has received coverage far and wide in the print media courtesy of the Associated Press. In addition, Emma was profiled in the Washington Post, on the front page of the Baltimore Sun, and even in a New Zealand publication. You can find the articles here, here, and here, respectively.

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Dr. Kathryn Moncrief is co-editor of newly published book on English drama

Dr. Kathryn M. Moncrief, Chair of the Department of English at Washington College, is the co-editor and a contributing author of Performing Maternity in Early Modern England, newly released by the England-based Ashgate Publishing Company.

The book is a collection of essays that explore the literary, cultural and historical aspects of maternity from 1540 to 1690 in plays and other texts—including midwifery manuals, medical guides and diaries from the period. It features writings by several top scholars in the field, including Dr. Moncrief and her co-editor, Dr. Kathryn R. McPherson of Utah Valley State College.

Performing Maternity in Early Modern England isn't the only collaborative effort of Drs. Moncrief and McPherson; they also are currently leading a Shakespeare Association research seminar, "Gender and Instruction in Early Modern England," and have begun work on a book on the same topic

Dr. Moncrief received her B.A. from Doane College, her M.A. from the University of Nebraska, and her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. She became Chair of the Washington College Department of English in the summer of 2007.

The original Press Release can be viewed here.

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Molly E. Weeks '07 works as Calvert County Librarian

Molly E. Weeks '07 has been putting her English major and Creative Writing minor to good use lately. She has accepted a position as a full-time Public Services Librarian in Calvert County, MD; and she and many other WAC alums are published every month in an online literary magazine called Crunchable (http://www.crunchable.net).


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