Student Bios

Avni Sejpal received a BA in English from St. Xavier’s College in Bombay, India. Before coming to Villanova, she spent several years in New York working in scholarly and independent publishing as well as nonprofit media production. Most recently, she was an editor at  Boston Review , where she commissioned and edited critical essays on literature, race, and global feminisms. Her academic interests lie at the intersections of colonial and postcolonial literature, feminist and queer theory, and histories of South Asia. Beyond her academic pursuits, Avni is interested in food cultures, South Asian music, film, and popular genres of fiction. She is looking forward to calling Philly home for a while.

Daniella graduated  cum laude from Gettysburg College in 2018 with a Bachelors degree in English and Art History. During her time at Gettysburg, she served as the editor-in-chief of the award-winning student run newspaper, The Gettysburgian . Daniella also worked for the Women's & LGBTQA Resource Center, as well as the on-campus art gallery, Schmucker Art Gallery, where she assisted with curation, installation, and giving tours. Her love for both visual art and literature guided her academic pursuits throughout her undergraduate career.  Daniella's senior thesis focused on the poetry of Frank O'Hara and the ways in which his poetry works in conversation with the contemporary art movements of that moment: Abstract Expressionism, The New York School, and Pop Art. Working at the intersection between the two disciplines inspired her pursuit for graduate research, as she hopes to continue to study the ways literary and visual analysis work together. Daniella's liter