The Honors Program in Literatures in English continues to grow, as our students increasingly value this opportunity for in-depth research, extended reflection, and independent, original exploration. This year, thirteen of our majors in Literatures in English completed senior theses, on topics that ranged from Victorian novels to contemporary fan fiction to the politics of representation in Caribbean carnival. In recognition of this accomplishment and of their success throughout their time in the major, all thirteen students will be graduating with Honors in English. 2025-26 will be the last academic year that Latin honors (cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude) are determined within the department; in future years, following a university-wide policy change, Latin honors will be determined by the College on the basis of grade point average, and authors of senior theses will graduate with Distinction in English. It is fitting, then, that this year saw an especially robust pool of thesis writers and thesis topics, reflecting a diversity of literary genres, historical contexts, and critical approaches. The co-winners of the M.H. Abrams Prize exemplify this range, across a 600-year span: Christina Bonarti’s thesis, “Desire on the Menu: The Paradox of Appetite in the Middle Ages,” explores the meanings of bodily appetite in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and in medieval culture, while America Casanova’s “Si Yo Pudiera, Yo Lo Hiciera: Co-Illegality and Mother-Daughter Bonds in Their Dogs Came with Them” joins perspectives from sociology, law, and literary form in a revelatory reading of Department member and Distinguished Professor Helena María Viramontes’ 2007 novel. The co-winners of the newer Guilford Prize, which recognizes achievement in English prose, were both exquisitely crafted: Sarah Mittleman’s “The Dark and Doubtful Way of the Law: Prosecuting Women’s Oppression through Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White,” in its canny use of legal reasoning, including motions and an opening statement, to make its case through the structure of the thesis itself; and Olivia Weeldreyer’s “The Childhood Sublime: Architecture, Memory, and the Uncanny in Shirley Jackson's Haunted Houses,” in its delicately wrought and persuasive reading of Jackson’s unusual gothic fiction. Congratulations to all of our senior thesis writers!
2026 English Honors Theses:
Christina Bonarti, “Desire on the Menu: The Paradox of Appetite in the Middle Ages”
America Casanova, “Si Yo Pudiera, Yo Lo Hiciera: Co-Illegality and Mother-Daughter Bonds in ‘Their Dogs Came with Them’”
Mairead Clas, “Theorizing Literary Fan Fiction: Developing a Concept of Character Ephemerality Alongside the Convergence of Fan Fiction and Literature”
Ellie Devine, “Contemporary Romance: A Contradictory Portrayal of Love Promoted in the Digital Age”
Thej Khanna, “Carnival as Performance Technology: Encryption, Opacity, and Time in Earl Lovelace’s ‘Dragon Can’t Dance’ and ‘Is Just a Movie’”
Katie Lin, “Space-Time Entanglement: The Pacific Ocean and Memory in Ruth Ozeki’s ‘A Tale for the Time Being’”
Anna Loy, “Making Sense of the Totality: Fiction and the Limits of Explanation in Jennifer Egan’s ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’ and ‘The Candy House’”
Isabel Mina, “‘Para Rescatar la Memoria del Pasado’: Magical Realism, Solitude, and Historical Memory in Isabel Allende’s ‘La casa de los espíritus’ And Gabriel García Márquez’s ‘El otoño del patriarca’”
Sarah Mittleman, “The Dark and Doubtful Way of the Law: Prosecuting Women’s Oppression through Wilkie Collins’s ‘The Woman in White’”
Stacey Na, “Space-Time Eco-Synthesis: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry into Nabokov’s Narrative Niches”
Max Nam, “The Rugpull Format: A Comparative Reading of Laurence Sterne and Jane Austen”
Emily Rossman, “Remaking the Language of Literature: Kinship and Ink in Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’”
Olivia Weeldreyer, “The Childhood Sublime: Architecture, Memory, and the Uncanny in Shirley Jackson's Haunted Houses”
Award winners for this and other department writing prize competitions can be found on the Department Awards for Students page.
