Thank you to everyone who visited the MMLA’s 65th Annual Convention this morning at Hilton Chicago and attended Dr. Jonathan Gross‘ panel, featuring our English grad students Carmen Romero Lopez, Rebecca Hathaway, and Zach Cleir! See below for pictures from the event and a short bio on each of these students.

The Midwest Modern Language Association’s annual conference is a valuable event for students to attend; in addition to dozens of interesting panel discussions, there are book exhibits, book discounts, job opportunities, and the chance to meet many fellow students at late undergraduate and graduate levels. You can read more about MMLA here.

At 9:30 AM tomorrow (November 16), Jonathan Gross will discuss his own paper, “The Piano As Symbol in Romantic-Era Writing,” on an MMLA panel chaired by Kevin Swafford of Bradley University. For full details, view our Instagram post here and scroll to the second image.

Rebecca Hathaway

Originally from Athens, Georgia, Rebecca graduated from the University of Georgia with her Bachelors in English in 2022. She graduated with her Master’s degree in Literature and Publishing from DePaul University this past June. During her graduate studies, she focused much of her work on ecocritism, researching how the environment is portrayed in works by Aldo Leopold, Paula Gunn Allen, and Hayo Miyazaki. 

Rebecca currently lives in downtown Chicago, where, in her free time, she enjoys rescuing birds with her partner, Chase. Beyond its avian diversity, Rebecca loves Chicago for its rich cultural diversity, welcoming atmosphere, and endless opportunities.

Carmen Romero Lopez

Born and raised between Spain and France. Moved to Chicago at age 15 without knowing a bit of English. Graduated Loyola in 2022 with a BA in English literature and DePaul University in 2024 with an M.Ed in Secondary Education. Within literature, I have always found linguistics (use and choice of words) fascinating (speaking 5 languages allowed me to deep into words deeper) in the genre of poetry. During my formative years as an undergraduate, I also trained in a variety of artistic expressions (I.e., drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography) and developed a fascination with the connections between the arts (writing and visual) and the human psyche.

Zach Cleir

Zach Cleir is a graduate from DePaul University, originally from the Ozarks of southwest Missouri. He has a Bachelor’s in English Literary Studies and a minor in Classical Latin studies. His areas of interest include English Renaissance and Romantic poetry, epic tradition, ancient Roman poetry, and Russian literature of the 19th century. He is also a poet and translator of Latin and Russian verse, which includes Catullus, Propertius, and Alexander Pushkin.