Filar Wins First ALS-Arms Outstanding Graduate Student Essay

Diana Filar’s essay, “Palms: Poetry, Little Magazines, and the ‘Making it New’ of Modernist American Literature,” has been selected by a committee of ALS faculty as the first ALS-Arms Outstanding Graduate Student Essay. The award is $500.00 from the Elizabeth and George Arms Endowment Fund in recognition of research in American Literature. Ms. Filar graduated with her MA in Literature in Spring 2015.

The selection committee agreed that the essay “is a cogent and thorough analysis of the little magazine published in Guadalajara, Mexico, that traces the history of the publication and the significance of its mission, visual art, and poetic selections in relation to modernist studies, the literature of the American West, and transnational networks of cultural exchange. The essay is detailed and precise in its focus with lucid writing and excellent supporting images. The project draws on the resources of the CSWR archives in creative and significant ways . . . that not only addresses the region, but also that is tied specifically to UNM and its resources.”

Ms. Filar will be presenting a version of her award-winning essay, which she penned in a course offered by Dr. Daniel Worden, at the upcoming Modernist Studies Association Conference, and now that she’s earned her MA at UNM, she is heading to the PhD program in English and American Literature at Brandies University on a graduate fellowship. Congratulations on all counts to Diana Filar.