As autumn transitions into a chilly Chicago winter, EGSO is happy to reflect on this first quarter of the academic year and to acknowledge the efforts of those who worked to organize academic and social community-building events.
We started the year with a bustling and fun Fall Collation—the department congregated in Harris Hall to celebrate the start of the quarter, engage with student and faculty work, and catch up on summer excursions (language learning trips, camping on coasts, gratuitous amounts of iced coffee to get us through dense theory). Sam English (PhD candidate) and Ryan Nhu (3rd-year PhD) organized our peer mentor program—hosting a delightful morning peer mentor meet-up in the Hagstrum room with coffee, bagels, and conversation. As the students in the Litowitz MFA+MA program and the PhD students have worked on building stronger relationships between the creative and critical aspects of our department, it was a particularly nice way to get to know the new students across the department’s different programs. Elisa Ady and Mariam Hirsi (both 2nd-year MFA+MA students) hosted the first creative writing salon of the year in which the 1st-year MFA students shared works on the theme of “Bodies Bodies Bodies.” It was an enjoyable evening of lovely food from a local Evanston pizzeria and fantastic readings from our students.
Looking back to last winter quarter, Govind Narayan (PhD candidate) organized an advice session for second-year PhD students to hear from those in their third about constructing their reading lists, along with other advice on preparing for their qualifying exams. Surya Milner and Jackson McGrath (both 3rd-year MFA+MA students) hosted a second salon inviting writers to think on the subjects of “Love & Desire” in preparation for Valentine’s Day. The salon was well attended by students from both graduate programs, who shared poetry, fiction, and prose of all shapes and forms. In March, Elizabeth Winter and Smith Yarberry (both PhD candidates) worked with Nathan Mead to organize our first recruitment weekend since the shutdown in 2020…rumor has it that Nathan credits them, and the grad students at large, with his making it through the weekend with his already-strained mental faculties intact. The weekend consisted of tacos in the graduate office lounge, mingling in the Hagstrum room over coffee, dinners around-and-about Evanston, and was capped off with a tour of campus on the perfect spring day—with, of course, faculty meetings, lectures, and classes taking place between our socializing.
Last spring, Govind and Rio Bergh (PhD candidate) organized a colloquium featuring presentations by Chris Lombardo (MFA+MA 2023), George Abraham (3rd-year MFA+MA), Mariana Guiterrez-Lowe, and Allison Gibeily (both PhD candidates) on topics ranging from Helena Maria Viramontes’s Their Dogs Came with Them to the transnational Palestinian novel. EGSO also sponsored an event inviting some of the current Visiting Assistant Professors to speak about their experiences in the current job market—a particularly useful and informative talk complete with thoughtful answers to the many questions that current grad students brought to the table. The American Cultures Colloquium, Long Nineteenth Century Colloquium, Global Eighteenth Century Colloquium, Poetry & Poetics Colloquium, the Middle East and North African Studies Cluster, among other groups, brought brilliant scholars and writers from a variety of fields including folks like Teresa Goddu (ACC), Ronjaunee Chatterjee (LNCC), Ashley Cohen (GECC), Simone White (P&P), and Zeina Hashem Beck (MENA), just to name a few.
Fall 2023 has already been filled with exciting events for the department. English Graduate students have shown their solidarity with graduate students across departments by participating in Northwestern University Graduate Workers organizing efforts like Pack the Halls of TGS Commons during a November bargaining session, and showing up and showing out for the November 13th Pay, Power, Protections NOW! Union rally in Silverman Courtyard, where 500 students came together to demand a fair contract.
It is shaping up to be a wonderful school year and we are proud of the community we’ve been able to foster. Additionally, we are immensely grateful for the help and organizational genius of Kathy Daniels, David Kuzel, Nathan Mead, Colin Pope, and Ashley Woods. Thank you all!
Agam Balooni and Michaela Corning-Myers, Co-Chairs
Mariam Hirsi and Elisa Ady, MFA+MA Representatives
Samantha English, Students-in-Candidacy Representative
Ryan Nhu, Students-in-Coursework Representative
Phoebe Pan, Archivist
Emma Cohen and Eliza Feero, Representatives to the Graduate Policy and Placement Committee