Undergraduate Program Newsletter Department of English
Spring 2013 Volume 13 Issue 1
Inside this Issue 2
Congratulations to the Class of 2013
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Wonder What They’ll Be Up To?
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Alumni Perspectives
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Future Plans
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Career Path
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Advising Fortnight
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2013 Boylston Prizes for Elocution
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Faculty Spotlight
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A Walking Tour Through Time
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A Journey to India
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Final Words to Our Graduates
Congratulations to the Class of
2013
Stephanie Herwatt
Benjamin Moss
Sarah Hopkinson
Stephanie Newman
Adam Horn
Michelle Nguyen
Lily Karlin
Alexander Nunnelly
Andrew Katzenstein
Samara Oster
Nina Khosrowsalafi
Georgina Parfitt
Pureunsaem Kim
MaryGabrielle Prezioso
Robert Knoll
Julia Ryan
Maya Anderson
Valentina Domeq
Min Hyung Lee
Scott Sansovich
Hana Bajramovic
Patrick Duffy
Alice Li
Antonia Silver
Amelia Barros
Madeleine Frank
Natalie Li
April Sperry
Owen Bates
Kathleen French
Charlotte Lieberman
Steven Strickland
William Bergstrom
Joshua Garcia
Emma Limon
Adam Swiatlowski
Nicole Bowman
Daniel Giles
Mary Maginnis
Sezen Unluonen
Yi Jean Chow
Philip Gillen
Elizabeth Malkin
Shiya Wang
Kema Christian-Taylor
Philip Gingerich
Rebecca Margolies
Matthew Warner
Daniel Claridge
Madison Greer
Joseph Masterman
Joshua Wilson
Nicholas Cuse
Daniel Gross
Anne McGrath
JeanWon Yang
Philip de Sa e Silva
Keith Grubb
Hannah Milem
Julie Zauzmer
Anna Dennis
Layla Hazemi
Nicole Morreale
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. -William Butler Yeats
Wonder What They’ll Be Up To? Hana Bajramovic: She will be going to Yale Law
“Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure, Sighed to think I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me;…” -William Wordsworth
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School in the fall, hoping to study issues of women and gender!
Owen Bates: He will be travelling in Europe this summer and ending up in New York City.
Valentina Domeq: She will be moving to San Francisco to work for Dropbox as a Business Associate.
Daniel Gross: He will be doing some narrative nonfiction writing and public radio production, both of which he started doing in college. He’ll be starting out as a journalist-in-residence at the Max Planck Institute of History of Science in Berlin, supported by a DAAD fellowship.
5 Concentrators Receive Hoopes Prize Great news! Harvard University honors five of our graduating concentrators with the 2013 Hoopes Prize: Hana Bajramovic for her submission entitled “But I Was Going to Say When Truth Broke In: The Cognitive Effects of the Unreliable Narrator Based on Moments of Realization” -nominated by Professor Amanda Claybaugh Yi Jean Chow for her submission entitled “’Rerepeated with Error’: Scientific Temperament and the Reader in Ulysses” -nominated by Professor James Engell and Mr. Daniel Williams Layla Hazemi for her submission entitled “Juliet’s Boyfriends: Japan, Pop Culture, and the Takarazuka Revue” -nominated by Professor Gordon Teskey (also winner of the George B. Sohier Prize, awarded to the best undergraduate thesis in English or another modern literature). MaryGabrielle Prezioso for her submission entitled “There and Back Again: Edwardian Children’s Literature and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings“ -nominated by Professor Daniel Donoghue and Ms. Christina Phillips Sezen Unluonen for her submission entitled “Manners, Power and Ethics in Medieval Romance” -nominated by Professor James Simpson
Congratulations to them all!
Stephanie Herwatt: She will be interning for Disney in Orlando, Florida, and doing marketing strategy for Walt Disney World tourists.
Natalie Li: She will be with Teach For America
in Chicago! Working at the Chicago International Charter School, teaching elementary. Emma Limon: At Harvard, she discovered her love for Art History. Next year will be her first of two years at the Williams College Graduate Program in Art History.
campus as she starts the next phase of her life. Nicole Morreale: Next year, she’ll be going to Syracuse University to pursue their 2-year MBA program in Marketing. Stephanie Newman: She is moving to Berlin, Germany, to work full-time at Sponsorpay, a rapidly growing tech and advertising start-up.
Mary Maginnis: This June, she will be starting at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom LLP as a Legal Assistant in New York City.
Samara Oster: Starting in September, she’ll be working as an Account Executive at Digitas (which is an international branding agency). She will be based out of Boston.
Elizabeth Malkin: She will be working in Boston next year at a start-up called Wayfair doing Category Management and Business Analysis. She is really excited to be remaining in Boston and staying close to
Julie Zauzmer: She will be reporting on the metro desk as an intern for The Washington Post.
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Alumni Perspectives Future Plans Alicia Lee Class of 2012 Last May, I graduated from Harvard with an English degree, and I will be returning to Cambridge this fall to attend Harvard Law School. I absolutely loved being a student at Harvard, and I owe much of my college experience to the wonderful English department. Originally a premed student, I was initially concerned that majoring in English would conflict with my goals to attend medical school. I soon learned, however, that English is one of the—if not the—most accommodating majors for students with a wide variety of interests.
“The study of English is so much more than reading and analyzing texts—it involves an examination of other cultures, a familiarity with social and political trends, and an understanding of individual struggles.”
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After the first semester of junior year, I realized that I no longer wished to study medicine, and I suddenly found myself confronted by the terrifying question, “What do I want to do with my life?” During this period of uncertainty, I gained comfort from knowing that the English curriculum would prepare me for whatever career path I would eventually choose. The study of English is so much more than reading and analyzing texts—it involves an examination of other cultures, a familiarity with social and political trends, and an understanding of individual struggles. Being an English major helped me develop the skills not only to read and absorb quickly but also to approach complex topics from multiple perspectives. While I learned to make connections among the disparate authors, subjects and genres in English and American
“My study in the English department at Harvard has prepared me incredibly well for the different types of work I have engaged in since graduating, which have in turn provided me with many options for future work…” literature, I simultaneously trained my brain to approach other subjects with a more expansive point of view. This led me to identify and understand the nexus between medicine and other disciplines. In law school, I plan to take a multidisciplinary approach by focusing on health care law and policy. As I brace myself for the infamous 1L year, I am grateful for the preparation I received as an English major. Law school entails a massive amount of reading; fortunately, taking multiple novel classes in one semester has taught me to become a fast and efficient reader. Through weekly response papers and close-reading exercises, I developed textual analysis and critical reading skills—tools that are indispensible to the study and practice of the law. I may never again find myself having to apply Aristotle’s definition of tragedy to the plays of Eugene O’Neill, but I will have to apply theories to concrete situations. With each paper I wrote, I practiced developing and defending an argument in a coherent and powerful manner. My capstone project, my senior thesis on Beowulf, gave me the opportunity to spend ten months researching for and preparing a multidimensional argument. This experience and the hours I spent reading academic journals, weighing the varied opinions of critics, and organizing my thoughts will certainly help me in law school. Looking back on my college years, I can say with conviction that choosing to major in English is the best decision I made at Harvard. Not only did it allow me to take intellectually stimulating courses that I actually enjoyed, but it also led me to my current position—that of a future law school student with a specific plan to study health law. Some people often dismiss the English degree as “non‑practical,” but in reality, it equips students with much-valued analytic, writing, and communication skills. For this reason, whenever someone asks the (often rhetorical) question, “What can you do with an English major?” My answer is always the same: “Anything and everything!”
Career Path Megan O’Keefe Class of 2011 I had always assumed I would move to New York after graduating to pursue my interest in theater, but beyond that, I had very little idea what I would be doing. During the summer after my senior year, I applied to various internships in the performing arts, and found a perfect fit in the full-time literary internship at the Public Theater. In my four months as an intern, I saw more than fifty productions, including the Public’s subscription season, their Public Lab productions (featuring shows at different stages of development) and their New Work Now! Series, two weeks of readings of new works, as well as readings and productions at other theaters and venues that I attended on behalf of the theater and literary office. I evaluated these works, as well as various script submissions, for plays and writers of potential interest to the Public. I was lucky enough to remain at the Public, and am currently the Assistant to the Production Executives. As such, I provide support to the production offices, which in turn oversees all of the Public’s shows, including acting as a liaison to designers and their agents. Outside of my work at the Public, I have worked as a dramaturge, offering contextual research and thoughts to other nonprofit and commercial theatrical works. My study in the English department at Harvard has prepared me incredibly well for the different types of work I have engaged in since graduating, which have in turn provided me with many options for future work: whether I continue to pursue work in theatrical production and producing or return to school to study entertainment law, I feel strongly that my background in reading, writing, and research will continue to serve me well.
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Advising Fortnight Cupcakes and Sound Bites “Why would you not concentrate in English? Maybe because you don’t love reading? Wrong! You love reading literary books.…Deep immersion in books carries us to higher levels of understanding.” -Prof. James Simpso n “English is…transferable,…you learn how to write,…communicate,…argue, and structure your thoughts and your points really effectively.” -MG Prezioso
“I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can, / Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon me and sting me, / Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.” -Walt Whitman 6
9 Presenters 2 Minutes 12 Dozen cupcakes As part of Advising Fortnight, the Department of English hosted its second annual “Cupcakes and Sound Bites” event on April 17th in the Thompson Room. Nine presenters from faculty to undergraduates, each with a two minute time limit, gave a presentation on what it means to be immersed in English. The presenters included: Prof. James Simpson; MG Prezioso ‘13; Matt Warner, ‘13; Prof. David Alworth; Lauren Bimmler; John Radway; Stephanie Newman, ‘13; Hana Bajramovic, ‘13; Tarina Quraishi, ‘14; and Stephen Tardif.
2013 Boylston Prizes for Elocution Congratulations to senior, Joshua Wilson for winning first place in the 2013 Boylston Prizes for Elocution for his recitation of “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life” by Walt Whitman. The Boylston Prizes for Elocution, which were established in 1817 by Ward Nicholas Boylston, is a quintessential Harvard tradition. The award is given to the best “delivery of memorized selections from English, Greek, or Latin literature.” Each contestant must perform their entry within 5 minutes.
“The bulk of…courses…are capped for size,…you really get to know the faculty.” -Matt Warner, ‘13 “Writing a creative thesis helped me develop as a writer, as a scholar, and generally as a person.” -Stephanie Newman, ‘13 “How I grew during this (critical thesis) process:…learning to think in larger structures,…the worth of engaging with one topic for a year,…the value of self directed study.” -Hana Bajramovic, ‘13
“We care a lot about advising…teaching… personal connections with our students.” -Prof. David Alworth “Every time you open this book (Hamlet) and read, you are reading a book that in a sense nobody on the planet has ever read before.” -John Radway
“…A good balanced workload,…that way you develop a diverse range of critical thinking skills which helps you grow as a person.” -Tarina Quraishi, ‘14 “Our graduates tell us that these (Junior Tutorials) are some of the best experiences they have in the concentration.” -Stephen Tardif
Thanks to all the participants Olivia Ball, Excerpt from Richard III, Act I, Scene 1 by Shakespeare William Dingee, The Death of Priam, Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 2 (excerpt) Phil Gillen, Excerpt from Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 1 by Shakespeare Srteeja Kalapurakkel, Excerpt from Medea, L 465–500 by Euripides
2 Margaret Kerr, Excerpt from King Henry VI Part 3, Act I, Scene 4 by Shakespeare Rob Knoll, “Bright Star” and “When I Have Fears” by Keats; “Keats” by Longfellow Ben Marek, Excerpt from Beowulf, Lines 1518-1569 Guy Pawson, Excerpt Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2, L 508-567 by Shakespeare
1 JoshuaWilson, “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life” by Walt Whitman Victoria Zhuang, Excerpt from Ulysses by James Joyce
Boylston
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Faculty Spotlight David J. Alworth Assistant Professor of English 1. What is your hometown?
I was raised in Huntington, New York, but I now live in Boston’s South End. I went to graduate school in Chicago. I’m still trying to pick my favorite type of pizza: New York thin crust; Chicago deep dish; or the amazing creations emerging from Otto in Harvard Square.
2. What is your favorite sports team?
I probably shouldn’t admit that I’m a fan of the Yankees, and I’m not really, but I did grow up watching them. I enjoy the rivalry between New York and Boston. I went to Fenway once in the middle of winter, and it was freezing. I hope to go back in warmer weather.
3. What is your favorite Harvard Square restaurant?
As I mentioned, I like the pizza at Otto. Petsi Pies is great, too. Also, from PinkBerry, I love to get a small frozen yogurt covered in heaps of mochi.
“…Writing a thesis was the best part of my college curriculum…”
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4. What is the most interesting place you’ve visited?
The most interesting place I’ve visited is Malta. It’s a very small archipelago that lies just south of Sicily, but it’s very densely populated, and it has an incredible history. If you go, you can visit World War II bomb shelters cut right into limestone; mysterious megalith temples from 3600–3200 BCE; and other fascinating sites. Plus, Malta is only a short (if turbulent) boat ride to Italy.
5. What was you favorite course in college?
Wow, that’s a tough question. I took a handful of amazing courses with brilliant teachers who taught me so much. A required course called “Conversations of the West,” which began with Homer and ended with Milton, was really eye-opening. A small seminar on the poets and painters of the New York School was really important to my education, as well, because it challenged me to explore connections between literature and other arts. But I think writing a thesis was the best part of my college curriculum. I wrote about two poets, Robert Creeley and Charles Olson, who wrote fascinating poems as well as intricate and intimate letters to each other during the 1950s. I loved reading these letters and thinking about their correspondence as a kind of literary workshop.
7 Members of the Department of English Nominated for Star Family Prize for Excellence in Advising The Advising Programs Office has been awarding the Star Family Prizes for Excellence in Advising since 1983. The award is given in recognition of those “…who contribute to the College through their exemplary intellectual and personal guidance of undergraduate students…” in the following categories:
Freshman advisers Sophomore advisers Concentration advisers
Publications
The nominees are:
Pynchon’s Malta (2012) Post 45: Peer Reviewed http://post45.research.yale.edu/archives/2659/
Stephen Burt, Professor of English, Director of Undergraduate Studies
Supermarket Sociology (2010) New Literary History http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/alworth/files/ supermarket_sociology_nlh_.pdf
Forthcoming: Melville in the Asylum: Literature, Sociology, Reading http://scholar.harvard.edu/alworth/publications/ melville-asylum-literature-sociology-reading
Seth Herbst, graduate student Jacob Risinger, graduate student Kathryn Roberts, graduate student Adam Scheffler, graduate student Helen Vendler, Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor
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A Walking Tour Through Time Visiting the Landmarks of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest Over the first five meetings of the David Foster Wallace and his Generation seminar course, students read Wallace’s 1996 novel Infinite Jest. This 1,079-page novel is set in and around Cambridge and Boston, and an important part of appreciating the novel lies in exploring its setting and visiting the landmarks that appear throughout. At each point of the journey, they staged readings of parts of the novel and of related documents concerning Wallace’s life. Adam Kelly organized the themed tour with William Lattanzi, a science documentary maker who is currently teaching at MIT. *Here are some of the stops: Granada/Ennet House #6 Real life basis for the Ennet Marine Hospital, where Wallace lived December 1989–July 1990.
Emerson Hall
Where Wallace did not thrive in the philosophy PhD. program.
Carpenter Ctr./Hvd Film Archives This is likely where Wallace took class from film scholar/ philosopher Stanley Cavell, and almost certainly saw many art films.
* location stops courtesy of Adam Kelly via Google maps: http://tinyurl.com/bvzpc8m
“To be, in a word, unborable.…It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.” -David Foster Wallace 10
Cambridge Rindge & Latin School
Comes in for undue sarcasm, where Mario made an ashtray.
Cambridge Health Alliance
Where Poor Tony goes to detox, knowing they will release him, as he has no health plan.
Ryles Jazz Club
Where Marathe tells Kate Gompert “just three streets away” is a place that can take all her troubles away.
The Back of Antitoi’s?
Though the book locates Antitoi’s Entetainment 3 blocks north, the physical inspiration may have been a store on this block. The back of these building more neatly match the description than does the alternate address.
35 Houghton St. Somerville, MA 02143
Where Wallace lived with novelist/lawyer Mark Costello, April-November 1989. Three streets away from Ryles Jazz Club.
Central Square Station
Central Square Station, home to CVS and, once, Cheapo Records, both mentioned in the novel.
Park St. Station
Shaw’s Monument, spot of Antitoi picking up used
cartridges. Boston Common Parking Garage stash spot of Mike Pemulis’s truck.
Emerson College
Where Wallace got a teaching gig out of rehab on the strength of Mary Karr’s recommendation, and promise she’d take over his class if he couldn’t do it.
Boston Public Library
Where C came to harm.
Citgo Sign
“A star to guide by,” another of the many triangles that appear one way or another in Infinite Jest.
View of ETA
ETA “lung” visible from corner of Brighton and Commonwealth.
Brighton Marine Health Center AKA the “Dead Planet” around which orbited 7 moons.
Enfield Tennis Academy
Looms over Ennet House; a View of Boston; atop a hill, somewhat shaved flat, though not nearly of the dimension suggested by the book. Whose emergency room and beds come into play in the plot.
A Journey to India Joshua Wilson Class of 2013 This past January, two of our senior concentrators, Sezen Unluonen and Joshua Wilson, had an extraordinary travel and study opportunity, sponsored by the English Department. Sezen and Joshua were chosen from a number of very impressive applicants, earning a fully funded three-week trip to Kolkata, India to experience Jadavpur University. Below is Joshua Wilson’s account of his time there: Having never been out of the United States before, it was with great excitement, pulses of apprehension, and almost inexpressible gratitude that I visited Kolkata during this January past, to study at Jadavpur University. During my first week in the city, I felt as though I were dreaming, maybe because the city so relentlessly arrived at my yet-jet-lagged senses: the air was smoggy, heavy in the lungs, and smeared with headlights which seemed to encroach out of smoggy nowhere like the eyes of obscure wild cats betrayed by a camera-flash, cats which seem to advance all the more furiously, even proleptically skidding their afterimages on the eye before they’ve passed, for having been so betrayed (the drivers there, of cabs, autos, rickshaws, are untouched by law, seemingly indifferent to safety, and profit by reckless speed); the
air smelt of burnt cardamom from street vendors’ open flames and statically crackled with merely rhythmic carhonking by day and sleep‑murdering crow‑calls at dawn; big palm fronds spiked their amazing greenness into the grey (Wallace Stevens’s phrase “green vine angering for life” recited itself to me at least once a day). And all this: observable from the lobby of the guesthouse where my travel companion and I stayed! Most of my time in Kolkata, however, was spent on the campus of Jadavpur University, where infrastructural lack—I saw, my first day on campus, a woman picking through garbage in an otherwise desolate lot, and later would see maimed dogs walking the corridors of the English department, graffiti on the English department walls, cobwebs a quarterinch thick with grime—was, astonishingly, less impressive than the supreme hospitality and academic attainments of our hosts, as well as by the world-class quality of instruction I received at Jadavpur. One professor in particular, Supriya Chaudhuri, lectured with deepest learning and subtlety on the novel, comprehensively synthesizing philosophical, historical, and literary materials. Our hosts escorted us to and from our guesthouse daily, invited us on day-long outings, from the Victoria Memorial to the botanical gardens, were most candid in answering questions about their history and culture, and I became quick friends with several Jadavpur students, my memories of whom are the fondest I have of India. I’m so grateful to the English Department for funding this trip; it would have been impossible for me to experience Kolkata at all otherwise, or, without the amazing kindness of our hosts at Jadavpur, as deeply.
Opportunity THE NOMA-REISCHAUER PRIZES IN JAPANESE STUDIES (for 2013) The prizes will be awarded for the best essays on Japan related topics written by Harvard University students during the academic year: • one prize of $1,500. for the best essay by a graduate student, and • one prize of $1,000. for the best undergraduate essay
Paper must be received by June 17, 2013, 5:00 p.m.
For further information: contact the Reischauer Institute, (617) 496-4812, Attn: Catherine Glover cglover@fas.harvard.edu
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Final Words to Our Graduates Dear Harvard Class of ’13 English Concentrators, The period between the Senior Thesis Reception and Commencement makes our love more strong, to love that well which we must leave ere long. We have been aware both of how accomplished and how delightful you are for a long time—ever since you become concentrators, in fact—but now that we see the limit of your time with us, our admiration becomes poignant. So diminish the poignancy of our plight! Come to the At Home for graduating English Concentrators and their parents on Tuesday 28 May, 1-3 p.m., and, above all, stay in touch. Each faculty and staff member of the English Department thanks you for the gift of your presence with us over the past four years. All good wishes, James Simpson
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
~Aristotle