Candidates: 2025 EDIS Member-At-Large Election

Standing for: Member-At-Large

• • Brunilda Kondi
  • Name: Brunilda Kondi
  • Candidate Statement:
    My name is Brunilda Kondi and I am an American Literature and American Culture instructor at the University of Tirana, Albania. Every year, I teach a course in 19th Century American Literature and one in American Culture to about 200 students at the English Department of the biggest and most reputable university we have here. I have been teaching Emily Dickinson’s poetry for twenty-five years. In addition to enjoying the linguistic and formal composition and the pleasure it provides, I have personally experienced the transformational power of Dickinson’s lyric poems. My teaching of her poetry focuses specifically on the latter, and every year I enjoy seeing students empowered by reciting or quoting highly relatable poems from the ED collection the world has inherited. I also feel that working with her poems provides room for creativity and innovation, so every year my students and I try new exercises with the poems selected for class discussions. I was introduced to the Emily Dickinson International Society when I did my Fulbright Scholar research in the United States and have been part of it for about ten years now. I have greatly benefited from attending two international conferences, and I have participated in the online events organized during these years – most recently with the Dickinson communities in Discord. I also volunteer with the Membership Committee. I highly appreciate the community of this society and I find the varied interests and explorations of Emily Dickinson’s poetry to be enriching and empowering. I would be humbled and honored to provide any kind of support and contribution to promoting the cause of this society as a Member-at-Large. Promoting interest in Emily Dickinson and her poetry is something I have been doing regularly in the academic and informal literary circles I am part of in my small country. I can imagine doing it on behalf of such a society can only expand the power to do so.
• • Yu-Hung Tien
  • Name: Yu-Hung Tien
  • Candidate Statement:
    I am a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and soon will become an early career researcher. My research focus lies in Dickinson’s transcultural engagement. Over the past years, I have shown my significant contributions to EDIS and my immense dedication to the promotion of Dickinson and her writing in various manners, which reflects my profound interest in Dickinson. For example, regarding my relationship with EDIS, I presented a paper at its 2023 Annual Meeting in Amherst. My work appears in some of the EDIS Bulletin’s most recent volumes. I am now also part of the EDIS 2025 International Conference’s graduate planning committee and making constant contributions to the society’s translation workshops. In addition to the more standard academic engagement with Dickinson, as a poet, I have a series of poems, titled “My Letters to Emily Dickinson,” published by the British Romantic Association for Romantic Studies’ Romantic Poets in the Wild blog post series. I am also one of the co-runners of the poetry writing workshop that will be held at the EDIS 2025 International Conference. The aforementioned experience has shown my capacity and eligibility to take on the key responsibilities of EDIS’s position of Member-at-Large. Being elected to the position of Member-at-Large of EDIS will enable me to foster more in-depth collaboration with other board members of the society, continuing their endeavor to promote the significance of Dickinson in different spheres through different committees. My current plan is to start a multilingual podcast, mapping Dickinson’s footprints across cultural, national, and disciplinary boundaries, for example, which would surely make significant contributions to some of society’s existing communities. My status as a graduate student/early career researcher, together with my experience of studying in Taiwan, China, the UK, and the US, further validates my eligibility to serve in this position. Over the past years, I have organized a range of graduate-student- and early-career-researcher-focused academic events, creating a more inclusive community for participants from different parts of the world to exchange their academic insights. With such experience, I am confident in promoting the visibility of Dickinson among graduate students and early career researchers by initiating more innovative events that will support and help increase EDIS’s membership.