English-Literature, Media, and Culture major Lila Rush values her award-winning, enriching undergraduate experiences at FSU

The summer before Lila Rush started high school, she was assigned to read Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. The story left her with chills.

Since then, literature has become a major passion of Rush’s, and she reads as much as she possibly can.

Now, Rush’s own writing is attracting recognition. She won the Department of English’s Cody Harris Allen Award for the 2023-24 academic year. This year, Rush earned two awards at the April 11 awards ceremony: the Sassaman Award in Critical Writing and the Mart P. Hill Award for Outstanding Honors Thesis.

Rush was one of 36 winners who the department honored at the ceremony, which celebrates undergraduate and graduate students for their writing and other work.

In her scholarship, Rush explores feminist theory and the relationships of queer women. Her Mart P. Hill Award-winning thesis is on Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, in which Rush writes about how the femme lesbian subject is often portrayed as illegitimate, both in queer spaces and in society in general.

“Femme is legitimate and can exist in queer spaces, but it seems like the heteronormative way of thinking can infiltrate such that lesbian femininity does not signify queer desire but heterosexual availability,” says Rush, who on May 2 graduated from FSU with her bachelor’s degree in English-Literature, Media, and Culture and summa cum laude with honors.

Rush says the scholarship of Judith Butler, who also explores gender and desire in their writing, inspired her work. She adds that Butler is an important voice because of their work on “the signifying space of lesbianism.”

Rush describes her own thesis research as “an intense but really exciting process.” Rush’s enjoyment of her work is evident, as she lights up when discussing what she learned.

Distinguished Research Professor of English Robin Goodman, one of Rush’s academic mentors, says her thesis was excellent.

“She combined scholarly rigor with a close reading of the text and tied the analysis to issues of social concern,” Goodman says. “She was able to reread a hundred-year-old text to show its relevance to an interpretation of our contemporary situation, giving new life to both the old text and present politics.”

I enjoyed having Lila in my classes...she was well-prepared with thoughts, insights, and provocative questions for class discussions.”

— Professor Robin Goodman

In a junior year literature class, Rush was assigned a research project, a book trace that led to an exploration of sapphic love in her Cody Harris Allen Award-winning paper. When preparing for her project at Strozier Library, she happened upon Legends and Lyrics, a book by A.A. Procter. The dedication to Matilda Hayes intrigued Rush.

“Anything regarding woman-to-woman friendship or romance, I’m always curious about,” Rush explains. “A lot of queer women’s relationships are basically lost to time because they didn't have the language, really, to talk about their relationships,” she adds, elaborating on her interest in Procter’s work.

As she paged through the book, Rush was thrilled with what she found inside: an old flower.

“We have these artifacts, these different clues. Let’s put them together and see what kind of story we can make,” Rush says, recalling the moment she found the floral keepsake.

As shown in her research, Rush pushes herself to be better while learning new things. By the time she got to the end of her paper on Procter and Hayes, Rush felt like she was improved as a thinker and researcher, qualities that showed in her thesis on Orlando.

Another way in which Rush challenged herself at FSU is through taking theory-focused courses in the English department. Rush credits Goodman, whose research interests include critical and cultural theory, feminism, and cultural studies, as being key to her academic success.

Rush says she has been a fan of Goodman since their initial conversation, which revolved around the movie Barbie.

“She thought it was a big commercial, and I did too,” Rush says.

Goodman first taught Rush in an Understanding Theory course required for her major. Despite being a mandatory class, Goodman’s teaching of the subject captivated Rush. In fact, Rush liked the course so much that she challenged herself by asking to be placed in Goodman’s graduate-level feminist theory course the following semester.

Goodman was kind enough to believe in Rush and give her that opportunity, which Rush says she will always be grateful for.

“I enjoyed having Lila in my classes because she always turned in well-researched work for her essays,” Goodman says. “In addition, she was well-prepared with thoughts, insights, and provocative questions for class discussions.”

Goodman has continued to play a large part in Rush’s undergraduate journey, serving on Rush’s thesis committee and, poignantly, presented Rush with her three department awards at the past two ceremonies.

Rush says the mentorship she has experienced in the English department is remarkable to her, and she says she has learned so much from all her professors. During the Spring 2025 semester, Rush did research for and created a poster project titled “Oblivion: Theorizing The Abject-Sublime in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive,” which was presented at the April 1 Undergraduate Research Symposium.

English Associate Professor Christina Parker-Flynn, whose academic concentrations include film theory and criticism, mentored Rush through the process.

“I really just admire people who are just not only so brilliant, but are willing to share their brilliance,” Rush says.

Rush has been a well-rounded student at FSU but away from the Williams Building, she pursued and enhanced her other interests as well. She was a student engagement assistant for FSU Libraries from February 2023 to January 2024 and in fall of 2023, she began volunteering weekly as a disc jockey at WVFS, the student-run radio station.

When she was not writing, learning, or DJing, Rush spent much of her free time playing soccer. She also took a French Composition class at FSU, while teaching French outside of school once a week.

The French language, Rush says, alters her way of thinking. As a student who values theoretical concepts, Rush loves to find new strategies for thinking in different ways. Learning a new language has provided her with those opportunities.

“It’s funny how it’s almost like the rhythm of your thinking changes,” Rush says, when discussing what it is like studying French. “To my understanding, in French, you can’t say that someone is fluent; you have to say that they ‘speak fluently’—couramment. This saying derives from the word courant, which means habitual, commonplace, ordinary.”

Now as an English alumna, winning awards and expanding queer scholarship through her thesis, Rush says she is grateful for the experiences she had in the English department. The next journey she looks forward to will take her to France.

Through TAPIF, a teaching initiative sponsored by the French government, she will work as an assistante de langue near the French Riviera, teaching English at a local lycée, or high school.

“The chance to learn how to speak couramment, fluently, by encountering courant life and language, the day-to-day, culturally-inflected use of French is exactly what I’m seeking in France,” she says. “This is a rare opportunity to experience a culture on a quotidian level—to uncover cultural differences between the U.S. and France in everything from a conversation with my neighbors to a visit to the doctor.”

Rush deeply values cross-cultural exchange, and the experience of being immersed in a largely non-English-speaking community is one reason she chose to be placed outside of the Paris region.

“Living in another country will help me develop the humility and curiosity necessary to connect with and learn from people who come from very different religious, racial, political, social contexts,” she adds. “I love hearing other peoples’ stories—perhaps that’s why I majored in literature. Hearing their stories will enrich my worldview— and I think this kind of mutual understanding is a tiny, but important step toward a better world.”

Ellie Johnson, a double major in English-Editing, Writing, and Media and in psychology, contributed considerably to the reporting and the writing of this article.

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