Congratulations to graduates!

We managed to gather a number of our happy English graduates last Thursday, May 19th, along with English faculty in their colourful finery for this group photo.

Congratulations to all English graduates!

Bachelor of Arts (Honours)

Jennifer MacKinnon

Jason McKenna

Colton Sherman
(with first-class honours)

Hailey Stapleton
(Internship Option)
(with first-class honours)

Honours Certificate in Arts

Charlotte Kiddell (Valedictorian)

Bachelor of Arts

Jillian Cull
(with distinction)

Michael Isenor

Courtney MacFarlane

Mikella McNulty
(with distinction)

Alexandra Parsons

Nicole Wagner

Bachelor of Arts (Combined Major)

Taylor Smith (English and Family Studies)

Spot the English students!

Valedictorian Charlotte Kiddell

One of the Convocation highlights was English student Charlotte Kiddell’s address as Valedictorian.  You can read a profile of Charlotte here.

 

Dr. Susan Drain, recipient of the Senate Award for Service in University Governance

Another special moment was Dr. Susan Drain’s Senate Award for Service in University Governance. This award is given to “recognize faculty members for extensive, consistent, and valuable contributions to the academic governance of the University.”

Congratulations to all!

 

 

 

Meet our honours students 2015-2016

Our honours students have been immersed in their thesis research for months now. We’ll get to hear more about their work at the departmental honours colloquium in February, but for now, here is a glimpse of our students and what they’re working on.

Charlotte Kiddell

My thesis is on representations of diasporic and familial trauma in Hiromi Goto‘s The Kappa Child and Chorus of Mushrooms. Both novels tell multigenerational stories of Japanese-Canadian families. The Kappa Child and Chorus of Mushrooms depict personal family trauma experienced by the protagonist of each novel – childhood physical and emotional abuse, maternal illness, a grandmother’s disappearance – as well as the ancestral trauma of diasporic displacement. I’m interested in how Goto tells the experience of intergenerational diasporic trauma through modes of liminality to communicate her characters’ experiences of destabilization and displacement. Goto plays with childhood perspective, adaptations of folklore and magic realism to communicate the liminality of traumatic and diasporic experience.
P.S. The protagonist of The Kappa Child exclusively wears pyjamas.  I thought I’d follow her lead for this photo!

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Joseph Legere

I will be looking at the works of Nawal El Saadawi, who is an Egyptian psychiatrist. Using postcolonial and feminist theories, I will be examining the way Saadawi depicts violence and trauma in these works.

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Jenny MacKinnon

“So if she weighs the same as a duck…she’s made of wood…. And therefore…. She’s a witch!” (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

There is something of an ongoing witch-hunt in Arthurian scholarship, largely arguing over the nuances in the labels “enchantress”, “sorceress”, and “witch” and why some characters can be considered magic users and others who never actually use magic are still described in this way. My research examines various Arthurian women, focusing on Morgan le Fay and Guinevere, in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur and in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Using a feminist approach to study women’s agency and power in Arthurian literature, I am also researching historical perspectives on late medieval women and witchcraft.

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Jason McKenna

I am looking at stream of consciousness literature spanning from the modernist period all the way up to the 2000s (how it’s been done, consistencies, differences). The specific novels I’m focusing on are To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker, and Umbrella by Will Self.

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Colton Sherman

With a central focus on urban spaces, my thesis explores the intricacies of content and form featured in psychogeographic texts—narratives in which the protagonist explores and engages with the city, such as Iain Sinclair’s Lights Out for the Territory and Paul Auster’s City of Glass. Cities are inherently textual spaces capable of being read (as well as written in) and it is this metaphor of the city as text which centers my analysis. Furthermore, I postulate that this metaphor is reversible, with the texts themselves exhibiting structures—forms—that mirror the urban landscape.

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Hailey Stapleton

I am writing about feminist poetic adaptations of Helen of Troy from the modern to contemporary period. I will be working with H.D.’s “Helen,” Anne Carson’s “Helen,” and Margaret Atwood’s “Helen of Troy Does Counter Top Dancing.”

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Sarah Vallis

My thesis explores the racial politics of the Harry Potter novels. I will be looking at four major categories: Rowling’s questioning/problematizing of authority and institutions (Hogwarts, the Daily Prophet, and the Ministry of Magic); the sentient creatures of the novels, such as the house-elves, the goblins, and the centaurs, and their identity; the politics of the “real-world” races and ethnicities present in the novel; and the pure-blood politics and Voldemort’s rise to power through the already-existing systems of authority.

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English honours students at the Mount take a full-year credit course in which they do independent research under the supervision of a faculty member and write a substantial thesis on a topic of their choice. You can find more information about our honours program here.

 

‘SNO(W) JOKE: The Atlantic Universities Undergraduate English Conference March 2015

Our stalwart students and their fearless faculty ventured to Cape Breton University for the 2015 Undergraduate English Conference. As is their custom, our students took the conference by storm,  greeted with a flurry of enthusiasm and receiving a blizzard of congratulations after each paper and performance.

Unfortunately, the weather meant that the program was collapsed into one day, so that audiences were smaller in each session — but it meant that our travellers slept in their own beds on Saturday night. Other participants were not so lucky, or so wise — but they did all dig themselves out eventually and returned safely to their own universities.

Congratulations to our young scholars and writers:

• Charlotte Kiddell, “Tradition and the Individual Tyrant: The Historical Sense in Titus Andronicus and Richard III.”
• Rebecca Power,  “Breaking Down the Civilized/Uncivilized Binary: The Representation of Oucanasta in Wacousta.”
• Colton Sherman,  “Breaching Boundaries and Taking Back the Pen: An Analysis of Parkour.”
• Hailey Stapleton, “Stripping the Scripts: An Analysis of Script Decay in Medieval Writing.”

• Monica Albert and Alexandrina Hanam, “Let’s make Our Lives Amazing.”
• Alexandrina Hanam, “Into the Deep.”

Thanks to Dr. Macfarlane and Dr. Green, chief cheerleaders.

The Atlantic Undergraduate English Conference

This year’s conference takes place Cape Breton University March 13th -15th, and two of our intrepid faculty and six of our magnificent students will be there. The Mount’s participants include four academic papers and two works of creative writing:

• Charlotte Kiddell, “Tradition and the Individual Tyrant: The Historical Sense in Titus Andronicus and Richard III.”
• Rebecca Power,  “Breaking Down the Civilized/Uncivilized Binary: The Representation of Oucanasta in Wacousta.”
• Colton Sherman,  “Breaching Boundaries and Taking Back the Pen: An Analysis of Parkour.”
• Hailey Stapleton, “Stripping the Scripts: An Analysis of Script Decay in Medieval Writing.”

Creative writers:

• Monica Albert and Alexandrina Hanam, “Let’s make Our Lives Amazing.”
• Alexandrina Hanam, “Into the Deep.

Tales of Mirth and Morality: Readings from Medieval Literature

Hailey Stapleton as the Wife of Bath

The Studies in Medieval Literature class (ENGL 3376) recently held an evening of recitations from the Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This “Tales of Mirth and Morality” assignment allows students to practice their oral presentation skills while showcasing their abilities to read Middle English expressively – and what better way to appreciate the sounds of medieval poetry than by hearing it spoken aloud.

Joseph Legere as the drunken Miller

Students selected and rehearsed up to a five-minute passage, some reciting alone and some in pairs. This year, tales of mirth definitely predominated, with the Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, the Miller, and the Merchant the focus of multiple readings, but Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the absurd lovers in the Knight’s Tale also got their share of attention.

Andrew Potter as the Pardoner and Grace Shaw as a “riotour”

The evening ended with the Pardoner’s attempt to sell us insurance for our journey along with the Host’s and Knight’s responses, spoken by Colton Sherman in the voices of William Shatner, Matthew McConaughey, and Sean Connery  – apparently for no other reason than general mirth and joy in storytelling, an apt conclusion to the event.

For those of you who know the Miller’s Tale, we leave you with highlights from the window scene:

Scenes from the Miller’s Tale. Thomas Jared Whitman

— Anna Smol

Krista Hill’s photographs on English Department webpages

Krista Hill, who graduated this spring from the English Honours program, is also a photographer. She generously donated her time and talents recently by conducting a photo shoot for the English Department.  Starting with the Mount’s MacDonald Collection of rare books, Krista photographed some beautiful volumes chosen by librarian Terry Paris.

She then did a series of photos on campus with our student volunteer models.

From left to right: Natalie Giovanetti, who graduated this spring from the English program; Colton Sherman, a second-year English student who is now on the English Society executive; and Jazzy Chater, who graduated in 2012 and is now in the B.Ed program.

We recently asked Krista about her training as a photographer and her experience as an English Honours student.

How did you get started as a photographer?

I received my first DSLR camera for Christmas in 2009. After about a year and a half of playing around with it I booked my first paid jobs with MSVU’s Student Union. I spent the next few years constantly reinvesting in my equipment and learning new techniques. I am self-taught because a respected local photographer once told me that the best investment for a future in photography is equipment, literature, and seminars.

Do you have a photography business? Do you specialize in certain kinds of photos?

Photography is a hobby for me that tends to pay well at certain times.  I, of course, have a “business” because branding is necessary for word-of-mouth marketing to be a success. I have experience in all kinds of photography: portraiture, wedding, fashion, grad, prom, maternity, newborn, family, pet, and events. I don’t specialize in a specific discipline because I have yet to find my photographic niche.

Do you see any connection between your work as a photographer and your English Honours thesis research on the television and graphic novel versions of The Walking Dead?

I do. I’ve been increasingly drawn to the visual arts throughout my life, especially when I learned that it is possible to combine this passion with my passion for literature. In essence, I believe I have been privileged enough to combine several facets of my life and anybody who knows me can see the influence of art, photography, English, and cultural studies in my Honours thesis. I also believe that my art and photography would not be what they are without my literary influences and vice versa. The cover for my thesis is a great example. I took an image by a professional medical photographer discussed in my paper, and I applied a “zombie filter” created by the makers of The Walking Dead. I then cropped the image into strips to highlight the details of the fetal image over a gradient background.

Cover page of Krista Hill’s Honours thesis on The Walking Dead

I believe that without my experience in visual arts I would not see television, film, and graphic novels in the way I do.

You graduated a few years ago with a B.A. in English, but then you returned to do the Honours certificate. What made you come back for more?

I took time off to decide what I wanted to do, but for me nothing, not even pursuing photography in greater depth, compares to the knowledge gained from books and an intellectual discussion of their contents.

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You can find Krista’s photographs sprinkled throughout the English Department website.* Which one is your favourite?

Our thanks to Krista Hill as well as  Jazzy Chater, Natalie Giovanetti, and Colton Sherman. Hope the photographer wasn’t too rough on you.

Krista Hill Photography

* If you want shortcuts, you’ll currently find Krista Hill photographs on the English homepage; Course Guide 2013-14; Summer Sessions; 1000-level courses; 2000-level courses; Honours; Concentration; Writing Minor; Plagiarism; Faculty Profiles; Recent Research; Useful Links. And at the top of this page, obviously, as our new blog banner.