Grad School Report: Emily McBryan (’11)

“Emily McBryan has always been intrigued by the ‘big questions.’”

So begins a profile of Miss McBryan, Class of 2011, on the website of The Catholic University of America, where she is now pursuing graduate studies in English literature. “During her undergraduate years,” the profile says, describing her time at Thomas Aquinas College, “she studied the heavyweights of philosophy and theology — Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Kierkegaard — eager to know whether the things she had been taught in high school would withstand scrutiny.”

In philosophy and theology tutorials, she found the intellectual substantiation she sought, but it was in her seminar classes — reading great works of literature — that she discovered her passion. “I found that literature encompasses all of those things philosophy and theology are talking about,” Miss McBryan says. “Literature offers an account of the human experience, of man trying to make sense of his being in the world.”

After graduating from the College, she taught three years of middle and high school English, before enrolling at The Catholic University, where she is concentrating on literature of the American South. There, she is joined by Sophia (Mason ’09) Feingold, who is completing a doctorate, and she will soon be joined by Jane Forsyth (’11), who will enter the literature program in August.