by Elaine Savory — Emeritus Professor of Literary Studies
Two former Literary Studies students—Alexa Roccanova and Chrisila Maida—contributed to Wide Sargasso Sea at 50 (Palgrave Macmillan 2020), a collection of essays assembled by Elaine Savory and Erica Johnson on Jean Rhys’s famous novel. To celebrate the novel’s half-century birthday, Lit Studies at Lang held a symposium in 2016 to celebrate, one of several around the world that year, involving major Rhys scholars and creative writers.
After studying the text in Professor Savory’s class, Alexa Roccanova chose the novel as inspiration for her Parsons fashion capstone. Impressed with the quality of her work, Elaine invited her to talk to the symposium about how she understood the novel and translated it into design. The resulting talk engaged visiting academics and the whole audience greatly, and resulted in an essay for the collection: “Infamous Daughters: A Capsule Collection Inspired by Wide Sargasso Sea”. In it, Roccanova sets out the steps by which she developed the designs. She says her work began with “a visual interpretation and evolved into a response to the perception of mental illness in women.” (2020: 29).
Uncannily, just as Erica and Elaine were beginning to plan the collection, developed out of the symposium, Chrisila Maida sent Elaine the present of a superb cover design for Wide Sargasso Sea, which had haunted her since they had studied it in class. It just seemed destined for the collection. In an interview on how the novel inspired her design, Chrisila tells Elaine: “I always feel a book designer is in service to the stories…I felt the book already chose this palette for me” and “The back cover is a fascinating platform to hide small secrets of the novel that will only be recognized once the novel has been closed.” (2020: 27).
Unfortunately, due to Covid, we were unable to host an in-person gathering to celebrate these two remarkable alumni and the book itself at The New School. But that should not stop us from being very proud of two remarkable women who studied in our own department and their very fine work.
October 10, 2019
Ann Snitow May 9, 1943-August 10, 2019 Ann Snitow, a founding faculty member of Lang College and the creator of the Gender Studies Program at the New School, passed away on August 10, 2019. She was a beloved member of the Literary Studies faculty. While indeed her books and essays are crucial texts in feminist studies and in the life of the mind, as Literary Studies colleagues our remembrances here are more personal, testaments not just to her work but to the power of her being.
April 5, 2017
Literary Studies is thrilled to announce that poet Simone White, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Literary Studies, and novelist Kaitlyn Greenidge, who will be joining our writing faculty this coming fall, have been selected as recipients of this year’s very prestigious Whiting Award, which “awards $50,000 to ten diverse emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry.” Simone White is the author of Of Being Dispersed (2016) of which Michael Andor Brodeur of the Boston Globe said, “[H]er voice (sonic, sensual, seismic) leads you through her poems’ shifting centers without holding your hand.” She is also the author of House Envy of All the World (2010) and the chapbooks Dolly (2008) and Unrest (2013). […]
by Elaine Savory — Emeritus Professor of Literary Studies
Two former Literary Studies students—Alexa Roccanova and Chrisila Maida—contributed to Wide Sargasso Sea at 50 (Palgrave Macmillan 2020), a collection of essays assembled by Elaine Savory and Erica Johnson on Jean Rhys’s famous novel. To celebrate the novel’s half-century birthday, Lit Studies at Lang held a symposium in 2016 to celebrate, one of several around the world that year, involving major Rhys scholars and creative writers.
After studying the text in Professor Savory’s class, Alexa Roccanova chose the novel as inspiration for her Parsons fashion capstone. Impressed with the quality of her work, Elaine invited her to talk to the symposium about how she understood the novel and translated it into design. The resulting talk engaged visiting academics and the whole audience greatly, and resulted in an essay for the collection: “Infamous Daughters: A Capsule Collection Inspired by Wide Sargasso Sea”. In it, Roccanova sets out the steps by which she developed the designs. She says her work began with “a visual interpretation and evolved into a response to the perception of mental illness in women.” (2020: 29).
Uncannily, just as Erica and Elaine were beginning to plan the collection, developed out of the symposium, Chrisila Maida sent Elaine the present of a superb cover design for Wide Sargasso Sea, which had haunted her since they had studied it in class. It just seemed destined for the collection. In an interview on how the novel inspired her design, Chrisila tells Elaine: “I always feel a book designer is in service to the stories…I felt the book already chose this palette for me” and “The back cover is a fascinating platform to hide small secrets of the novel that will only be recognized once the novel has been closed.” (2020: 27).
Unfortunately, due to Covid, we were unable to host an in-person gathering to celebrate these two remarkable alumni and the book itself at The New School. But that should not stop us from being very proud of two remarkable women who studied in our own department and their very fine work.
