NOVEMBER 2021 | ISSUE NO. 2
RLL NEWSLETTER
2020-2021 DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES & LITERATURES UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
TABLE OF CONTENTS 03 Letter from the Chair 05 Welcome: New Faces 07 Faculty Achievements & Honors 09 Publications 13 Graduate Student Achievements & Honors 14 Undergraduate Student Honors & Prizes 15 Class of 2020-2021 17 Alumni News & Placement 18 Faculty Retirements & Departures 19 RLL Photo Contest Winners 21 Snapshots: A Selection of RLL Talks & Events
LETTER FROM THE CHAIR
As we pass the mid-point of our very busy first quarter of return to in-person teaching and activities at the University, I am delighted to share some of the extraordinary accomplishments from the 2020-21 academic year. The past pandemic year did not dampen the dynamism of RLL, and we are thrilled with the results of a very busy recruiting season that is bringing a burst of new talent and distinction to our department. While we fêted the accomplishments of our internationally renowned faculty members joining the emeriti ranks (Arnold Davidson [co-terminous appointment from Philosophy], Philippe Desan, and Thomas Pavel), we also looked to future renewal. In a tremendous step forward for our ongoing faculty growth in Hispanic and LusoBrazilian Studies (HLBS), Sergio Delgado Moya has accepted an appointment as tenured Associate Professor in Latin American/Latinx Studies; we look forward to welcoming him on
campus when his appointment begins this coming July! Meanwhile, this Fall’s return to campus has been enriched by a host of gifted new full-time Instructional Professors in Spanish (James Óscar León Weber and Celia Bravo Díaz), Basque and Spanish (Irati de Nicolás Saiz), Catalan and Spanish (Pau Cañigueral Batllosera), Portuguese and Spanish (Alan Parma), and, in a first for our program, in Haitian Kreyol and French (Gerdine Ulysse). As the following pages illustrate, the 2020-21 year saw our faculty awarded a stunning number of prestigious honors — including top awards for books and articles, prestigious fellowships/grants, and teaching awards — while also producing a cornucopia of publications in a range of languages from the leading presses and most prestigious venues in the US, Europe, and Latin America.
Letter from the Chair
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Turning to our graduate program, we are particularly proud of the department’s stunning successes in the placement of recent PhDs. Among our 2020 class of PhDs alone, our alumni garnered this year tenure-track faculty positions at top departments in their field at the University of Cambridge (Isaias Fanlo, HLBS), Florida International University (Medardo Rosario, HLBS), and LSU (Bastien Craipain, French & Francophone Studies), as well as prestigious multi-year post-doctoral appointments at Harvard (Michele Kenfack, French &Francophone Studies) and Brown (Cosette Bruhns, Italian Studies).
Finally, I urge you to enjoy the heart-warming images you’ll find here from the winners of the RLL photo contests. During a year of pandemicrelated stay-at-home work that prohibited our usual globetrotting, the department turned its gaze this year to some of the domestic scenes that enriched our lives during the Zoom year. With the return of our study-abroad programs this current year, we look forward to sending you in our next installment photographs that will once again illustrate the broad international range and cultural diversity that define the mission of our department! Happy reading!
In addition, our current graduate students were awarded important honors, including a recordbreaking five Dissertation Completion Fellowships. A cohort of four graduate students (3 in HLBS, and 1 in Italian Studies) completed and defended their doctoral dissertations. In view of these successes, we are excited to confirm that, after a one-year pause in graduate student admission due to the pandemic crisis, we are returning to robust graduate recruitment this Winter for a 2022 entering class. Starring in the vibrant undergraduate class of 2020 were 13 RLL majors (5 in French & Francophone Studies, 5 in HLBS, 1 in Italian Studies and 2 in combined Romance Languages & Literatures) along with 31 minors (10 in French, 16 in HLBS, and 5 Italian). Special congratulations go to our four graduating students awarded BA Honors (one each in French, HLBS, Italian, and RLL). Their BA Honor thesis projects ranged from a study of women activists in the Brazilian Amazon to the Italian-American diaspora, and their papers were awarded a dazzling host of prizes from within as well as from outside the University.
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Letter from the Chair
Larry Norman
Chair and Frank L. Sulzberger Distinguished Service Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures
WELCOME: NEW FACES New hires 2020-2021
Celia Bravo Díaz received her MA in Hispanic and Lusophone Literatures, Cultures, & Linguistics from the University of Minnesota, where she is currently a PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics (Second Language Acquisition). She has taught a variety of undergraduate Spanish courses both in the United States and in Spain. She also holds a BA in Legal Translation and Interpretation from the University of Grenada, Spain, and she is a Sworn Translator certified by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation. Celia Bravo Díaz Assistant Instructional Professor in Spanish
Pau Cañigueral Batllosera, a native Spanish and Catalan speaker from Girona, Spain, started teaching at the college level in 2013, when he began his PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Since his graduation, he has taught a wide array of subjects, from language to literature and from culture to translation, at the College of the Holy Cross and Boston College. His research focuses on the literary relationships among the Mediterranean literary traditions in the fifteenth century. He has published articles on the influence of Dante and Boccaccio in Catalan Medieval literature in La corónica and Modern Language Notes. As a translator, he has published Catalan translations of Oscar Wilde's The Decay of Lying and The Critic as Artist.
Pau Cañigueral Batllosera Assistant Instructional Professor in Catalan & Spanish
Irati de Nicolás Saiz earned her MA and PhD in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her dissertation and research focus on bilingualism and codeswitching within the Determiner Phrase. During her time at UIC, she taught a wide variety of courses both in the Spanish Basic Language Program and advanced topics for Spanish majors and minors. Irati de Nicolás Saiz Assistant Instructional Professor in Basque & Spanish
Welcome: New Faces
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James Óscar León Weber was born in Quito, Ecuador and raised in the United States. He has an MA in European Studies from Aarhus University, in Denmark, as well as a master's degree in Translation Studies from Pompeu Fabra University. James has taught Spanish at the University of Chicago since 2016 and was hired as full-time Assistant Instructional Professor in September 2021.
James Óscar León Weber Assistant Instructional Professor in Spanish
Alan Parma was born in a small town in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. He earned his PhD in Hispanic Linguistics from Florida State University in 2020. Alan studies Second Language Acquisition, and his other interests include volleyball, biking, performing and arts and crafts.
Alan Parma Assistant Instructional Professor in Portuguese & Spanish
Gerdine Ulysse was born in Haiti and taught Haitian Creole and French at various institutions in the United States. Her research focuses on language variation and factors influencing multilingualism and literacy development in Creolophone communities. She earned a PhD in Second language
Acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University. Gerdine Ulysse Assistant Instructional Professor in French & Haitian Kreyol
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Welcome: New Faces
FACULTY ACHIEVEMENTS & HONORS
Larissa Brewer-García received the Flora Tristán Award for the Best Book on Peru for Beyond Babel: Translations of Blackness in Colonial Peru and New Granada and the Award for the Best Article by Junior Faculty in Colonial Studies for “Hierarchy and Holiness in the Earliest Colonial Black Hagiographies: Alonso de Sandoval and his Sources.” Professor BrewerGarcía was also renewed for a second term at the rank of Assistant Professor. Larissa Brewer-García, Agnes Lugo-Ortiz and Danielle Roper (in collaboration with Allyson Nadia Field and Chris Taylor) were awarded a Neubauer Collegium Fellowship for their project on the "Visual Regimes of Enslavement and Their Afterlives."
Martha Feldman has been named the Ferdinand Schevill Distinguished Service Professor. Alison James was awarded a 2021-22 Franke Faculty Fellowship for her research project, "Fragile Fictions in Contemporary France" and a 2021-22 Neubauer Collegium Fellowship, with Françoise Lavocat (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, France) and Akihiro Kubo (Kwansei Gakuin University), for "Possible and Impossible Fictions." Professor James, along with Dan Bertsche (France Chicago Center), was also named Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Académique by the French Consul General.
Arnold I. Davidson received the rank of Commandeur in the Ordre des Palmes académiques for his exceptional contribution to teaching and promotion of French thought and culture. Frederick de Armas was named Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor. Daisy Delogu was elected to serve on the Council of the University Senate for a threeyear term. Hoda El Shakry won the Modern Language Association’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies for The Literary Qurʾan: Narrative Ethics in the Maghreb.
From left: Dan Bertsche, Alison James, and Guillaume Lacroix.
Faculty Achievements & Honors
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Françoise Lavocat received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Chicago. Céline Legrand and Rebecca Petrush were promoted to Associate Instructional Professor in French. Agnes Lugo-Ortiz was named a 2021-22 Franke Faculty Fellow for her research project, "The Plantation Gaze: Slavery and Visual Culture in Colonial Cuba (1727-1886)." Claudia Quevedo-Webb and Juliano Saccomani were awarded a grant from the College Curricular Innovation Fund to collect and develop virtual reality materials for two new advanced-level courses to be taught in 2023. Victoria Saramago received honorable mention for the Antonio Candido Prize by the Latin American Studies Association Brazil section for her book, Fictional Environments: Mimesis and Deforestation in Latin America. Veronica Vegna received the 2021 Janel M. Mueller Award for Excellence in Pedagogy. This award recognizes outstanding pedagogical contributions from Lecturers and Instructional Professors in the Division of the Humanities.
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Faculty Achievements & Honors
PUBLICATIONS
Ignoranza ed erudizione: L'Italia dei dogmi di fronte all'Europa scettica e critica (1500-1750)
The Necropolitical Theater: Race and Immigration on the Contemporary Spanish Stage
Paolo Cherchi. Libreriauniversitaria.it, 2020
Jeffrey K. Coleman (PhD'14). Northwestern University Press, 2020
Gli esercizi spirituali della musica: Improvvisazione e creazione Arnold I. Davidson. Mimesis, 2020
Cuba y Cataluña en la segunda mitad del Siglo XIX: Teatro popular e identidades (proto)nacionales Tànit Fernández de la Reguera (PhD'13). Madrid: Pliegos, 2021
Publications
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Rousseau et le matérialisme Clovis Gladstone (PhD'15). Liverpool University Press, 2020
The Documentary Imagination in Twentieth-Century French Literature Alison James. Oxford University Press, 2020
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Publications
Global Montaigne: Mélanges en l’honneur de Philippe Desan Amy Graves (PhD'04; co-editor with Jean Balsamo). Classiques Garnier, 2021
Abdelkébir Khatibi: Postcolonialism, Transnationalism, and Culture in the Maghreb and Beyond Khalid Lyamlahy (co-editor with Jane Hiddleston). Liverpool University Press, 2020
Catalina de Erauso: Vida y sucesos de la Monja Alférez
Comuneros: El rayo y la semilla (1520-1521)
Miguel Martínez, editor. Castalia Ediciones, 2021
Miguel Martínez. Hoja de Lata Editorial, 2021
La breve luz de nuestros días Pablo Ottonello. Neural, 2020
Fictional Environments: Mimesis, Deforestation, and Development in Latin America Victoria Saramago. Northwestern University Press, 2020
Publications
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Scrittura d’immagini: Pirandello e la visualità tra arte, filosofia e psicoanalisi Michael Subialka (PhD’12; co-editor with Carlo Di Lieto and Lisa Sarti). Rubbettino, 2021
Arcangela Tarabotti. Antisatire: In Defense of Women, against Francesco Buoninsegni Elissa B. Weaver, editor and translator. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Press, 2020
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Publications
GRADUATE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS & HONORS
Beatrice Fazio was awarded a 2020–21 Arts, Science + Culture Initiative Graduate Collaboration Grant for her project “Dante in the Lab” with Tanvi Gandhi, PhD Candidate in Physics. Isabela Fraga received a 2021-22 Franke Institute for the Humanities Residential Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Daniela Gutiérrez Flores received the Culinary Historians of New York 2020 Scholar's Grant, the 2020-21 Joseph Gulsoy Short-Term Dissertation Grant, a 2021-22 Humanities Division Travel Grant, a 2021-22 Mellon Foundation Dissertation Completion Fellowship, and a 2021-22 Stuart Tave Teaching Fellowship. Viviana Hong received tenure as Spanish faculty at Pasadena City College.
Enrique Macari was awarded a 2021-22 Mellon Foundation Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Juan Diego Mariátegui will be a 2021-22 Humanities Teaching Fellow in RLL and the College. Miriam Muccione received the 2020-21 Rebecca West Dissertation Grant. Maximilien Novak was awarded a 2021-22 Hanna Holborn Gray Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Filippo Petricca received a 2021-22 Mellon Humanities Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Benjamin Ransom received the 2020-21 Thomas Pavel Endowment Fund Award.
Thomaz Amâncio, Lizette Arellano, Darren Kusar, Loriane Lafont, Paulina León, Kirsten Lopez, Pablo Ottonello, Luis Madrigal, Norman Mora Quintero, Meriam Pacheco Salazar, Matías Spector, and Fara Taddei reached PhD candidacy. Loriane Lafont will be an Academic Visitor at Oxford’s University College and guest at Maison Française d’Oxford in 2021-22.
Graduate Student Achievements & Honors
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UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT HONORS & PRIZES
Noelani Bernal (Hispanic & Luso-Brazilian Studies major), Honors Thesis: "Mulheres que erguem barreiras: ativismo liderado por mulheres na Amazônia brasileira em reação ao desenvolvimento de barrage hidrelétrica" (Adviser: Victoria Saramago). Winner of the James L. Hevia Global Studies Thesis Prize and Fulbright U.S. Student Program award. Cowinner of the David L. Boren Undergraduate Scholarship for Study Abroad. Peter Bound (French & Francophone Studies major), co-winner of the David L. Boren Undergraduate Scholarship for Study Abroad. Victor Cui (French minor), co-winner of the Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prize. Genevieve De Gange (French & Francophone Studies major), Honors Thesis: "Sous un voile obscur (traduction d’un extrait de roman)" (Adviser: Khalid Lyamlahy). Winner of the Theodore Lee Neff Prize for Excellence in the Study of French Literature and Culture, and Winner of the Les River Fellowship for Young Novelists. Emily Harper (HLBS major), winner of the Millard Pierce Binyon Memorial Prize.
Abby Henkin (Spanish minor), winner of the Theater and Performance Studies Award and co-winner of the Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prize.
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Undergraduate Student Honors & Prizes
Veronica Karlin (French, Francophone & Italian Studies major), winner of the Charles M. Gray Scholarship for Fundamentals. Jake La Fronz (Italian minor), winner of the Ruth Murray Essay Prize.
Matteo Laspro (Romance Languages, Literatures & Cultures major, Italian and Portuguese), Honors Thesis: "O limbo matrimonial: Poder, gênero, e barganho na tradição oitocentista neolatina" (Adviser: Victoria Saramago). Winner of the award for Best Honors Thesis or Essay in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Studies. Kadia Lissit (French & Francophone Studies major), will be in Poitiers and Dominique Janvier (French & Francophone Studies minor), will be in Versailles as part of the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF). Benjamin Meyer (Italian minor), winner of the Samuel T. Fleck Prize in Italian for his paper, "La mia ricerca delle radici." Claire Shackleford (Spanish minor), winner of the College's Humanitarian Award. Donna Son (French minor), winner of a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship. Luna Splendori (Italian Studies major), Honors Thesis: "Italianità o italoamericanità: la cultura fraintesa di una comunità" (Adviser: Sara Dallavalle).
CLASS OF 2020-2021: GRADUATE STUDENTS
Madison Hendren, Dissertation: "Playing an Epic Game: Games and Genre in Boccaccio's Teseida delle nozze d'Emilia" (Director: Justin Steinberg). Viviana Hong, Dissertation: "Child’s Play and Foul Play: Childhood Narratives from the HIJOS Generation in Post-Dictatorial Argentina" (Director: Agnes Lugo-Ortiz). Hilda Larrazabal Cárdenas, Dissertation: "Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o la construcción de un ícono nacional (circa 1870-1970)" (Director: Mauricio Tenorio). Juan Diego Mariátegui, Dissertation: "To Reach the Isle: Poetics of the Island in Puerto Rican Literature of the Twentieth Century" (Director: Agnes Lugo-Ortiz).
Class of 2020-2021: Graduate Students
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CLASS OF 2020-2021: UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS Majors in Romance Languages, Literatures, & Cultures Veronica Karlin: French & Francophone Studies and Italian Studies Matteo Laspro: Italian Studies and Portuguese Studies (honors) French & Francophone Studies Majors Carla Abreu Genevieve De Gange (honors) Amaya Hill Kadia Lissit Elizabeth Ombrellaro
French & Francophone Studies Minors Annabelle Canestraight Victor Cui Zoë Cullison-Shimada Dominique Janvier Lia Jueng Louis Levin Paula Martinez Garcia Gaëlle Pinault Cameron Witbeck Ege Yalcindag
Hispanic & Luso-Brazilian Studies Majors Noelani Bernal (honors) Emily Harper Kiara Mieles Janko Stojadinovic Rosalie Wakely 16
Class of 2020-2021: Undergraduate Students
Italian Studies Majors Luna Splendori (honors)
Italian Studies Minors Josef Otavio Horwath Jake La Fronz Benjamin Meyer Andrea Ochoa Jade Yan Spanish Minors Jacob Benge Maryam Bolouri Daniel Ducic Audrey Fromson Abby Henkin Nina Levine Charlie Keys McKay Marcus McClendon Freddie Paulson Poppy Perez Reyes Sophia Ridgner Alexandra Salazar Rebecca Thompson Pamela Velazquez Alison White Samantha Zeglis
ALUMNI NEWS & PLACEMENT
Cosette Bruhns (PhD'20) was named Diversity in Digital Publishing Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University. Jeffrey Coleman (PhD'14) accepted a position as Associate Professor of Peninsular Studies in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at Northwestern University. Ebenezer Concepción (PhD‘19) accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Black Studies with a focus on the Black Atlantic at Cleveland State University. Bastien Craipain (PhD'20) accepted a position as Assistant Professor in French Studies at Louisiana State University. Isaias Fanlo (PhD'20) accepted an appointment as Lecturer in Modern Iberian Literary & Cultural Studies at the University of Cambridge. Michele Kenfack (PhD'20) was awarded a 2021 American Council of Learned Societies Emerging Voices Fellowship. She will be Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Humanities and Online Education at Harvard University.
Carmela Mattza (PhD'09), Associate Professor of Spanish at Louisiana State University, received a 2020 MLA Bibliography Honors Fellowship Award from the MLA International Bibliography. James Nemiroff (PhD'16) joined the Department of Spanish Language & Literature at Kalamazoo College as Visiting Assistant Professor. Medardo Rosario (PhD'20) accepted a position as Assistant Professor at Florida International University. Ewa (Sroka) Zeoli (AM'96) received a 2021 National Intelligence Professional Award Excellence in Intelligence Community Education and Training for "Intelligence Community Mobile Training Team of the Year." This award recognizes individuals and groups who support the education and training mission of the United States Intelligence Community.
Alumni News & Placement
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FACULTY RETIREMENTS & DEPARTURES
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Arnold I. Davidson, Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
Thomas Pavel, Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
Philippe Desan, Howard L. Willett Professor Emeritus
Elizabeth Porretto, Assistant Instructional Professor in Italian
Paula Motrico, Assistant Instructional Professor in Basque & Spanish
Katherine Thompson, Spanish Language Lecturer
Faculty Retirements & Departures
RLL PHOTO CONTEST WINNERS
Holiday Food
1st Place
Runner-Up
Mushroom Bûche de Noël
Gingerbread House
Isabela Fraga
Laura Colaneri
RLL Photo Contest Winners
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Animals: Pets & Wildlife
"Portrait of a Sheep"
"Shy"
Elizabeth Issert
Lizette Arellano
"Piloncillo"
Daniela Gutiérrez Flores
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RLL Photo Contest Winners
SNAPSHOTS: A SELECTION OF RLL TALKS & EVENTS
Humanities Day 2020 | Oct. 17 & 18 Veronica Vegna discussed "Women and the Mafia in Italian Cinema," while Larry Norman and Richard Neer presented "Arts and the Academy, Then and Now." Champs-Elysées Film Festival | Oct. 23 The virtual festival featured screenings of and conversations with directors of various short films and a masterclass with festival director Justine Lévêque. Pan de Muerto | Oct. 29 The Spanish Language Program teamed up with Panadería Nuevo León to teach students the cultural significance of Día de los Muertos bread. Women & the Mafia in Italian Cinema | Oct. 17
Beyond Babel Book Launch | Oct. 30 Michelle McKinley (University of Oregon), Cécile Fromont (Yale University) and Anna More (Universidade de Brasília) discussed Larissa Brewer-García's book, Beyond Babel: Translations of Blackness in Colonial Peru and New Granada. Música Brasileira & Política | Nov. 18 Elizabeth Issert and Juliano Saccomani presented different approaches Brazilian popular musicians have taken to discuss political issues at different points in the country's history.
Pan de Muerto | Oct. 29
Fictional Environments Book Launch | Nov. 20 This event celebrating the publication of Victoria Saramago’s book, Fictional Environments: Mimesis, Deforestation, and Development in Latin America, featured commentary from Gisela Heffes (Rice University), Héctor Hoyos (Stanford University) and Benjamin Morgan (Department of English). The Documentary Imagination Book Discussion | Nov. 20 Alison James discussed her recent publication, The Documentary Imagination in Twentieth-Century French Literature.
Música Brasileira & Política | Nov. 18
Snapshots: A Selection of RLL Talks & Events
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Sobre Los países invisibles | Dec. 3 Puerto Rican writer Eduardo Lalo, winner of the 2013 Rómulo Gallegos Prize in Literature, discussed his novel Los países invisibles. Chef Carlos Gaytán | Jan. 28 Carlos Gaytán spoke about his experiences as the first Mexican-born chef to earn a Michelin star. La afroespaña contemporánea | Feb. 4 RLL alumnus Jeffrey Coleman (PhD'14) spoke about his next book project, España Negra: The Consumption & Rejection of Blackness in Contemporary Spain. Conversation with Jaume Miró | Feb. 10 Mallorcan researcher and playwright discussed his play, Diari d'una miliciana.
Conversation with Jaume Miró | Feb. 10
Black Lives Matter in Italy & the Legacy of Colonialism | Feb. 11 Afro-Italian filmmaker, activist, and educator Fred Kudjo Kuwornu spoke about the structural and statistical differences between American and Italian racism and offered a cultural and semantic framework to interpret current racism in Italy within the context of past Italian colonialism. Portuguese Cooking Class | Feb. 11 Students and faculty members learned how to make bolinho de chuva, traditional Brazilian treats.
Black Lives Matter in Italy | Feb. 11
French Cook-Along | Feb. 14 Rebecca Petrush hosted a cook-along where participants learned how to make gâteau au yaourt. Cava's Place | Feb. 26 Robert Davidson, Professor of Spanish and Catalan at the University of Toronto and Director of the Northrop Frye Centre, gave a presentation on the most popular sparkling wine in Catalonia and Spain.
Cava's Place | Feb. 26 22
Snapshots: A Selection of RLL Talks & Events
Finding, Choosing & Writing Grants | March 1 In this workshop hosted by ACLS Fellow Jessica Marroquín, graduate students learned about platforms for finding grants and best practices for applying for funding in the humanities. Brazilian Street Art | March 4 Participants discussed the racial, economic, and social division within Brazil and how it manifests itself in street art. Brazilian Street Art | March 4
Bintou Dembélé | April 14
Abdelkébir Khatibi Book Launch | March 16 This event featured Khalid Lyamlahy, co-editor of Abdelkébir Khatibi: Postcolonialism, Transnationalism, and Culture in the Maghreb and Beyond, in conversation with Matt Brauer (University of Tennessee), yasser elhariry (Dartmouth College) and Nasrin Qader (Northwestern University). Bintou Dembélé | April 14 A speaker featured on Court Theatre's Black Baroque lecture series, hip hop dancer and choreographer Bintou Dembélé commented on her choreography for Opéra Bastille's landmark production of Les Indes Galantes and her work dismantling oppressive structures as a Queer Black artist in the world of opera. Conversation with Daylet Domínguez | April 27 Daylet Domínguez (University of California, Berkeley) discussed her new book, Ficciones etnográficas: Literatura, ciencias sociales y proyectos nacionales en el Caribe hispano del siglo XIX.
Daylet Domínguez | April 14
Snapshots: A Selection of RLL Talks & Events
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HLBS Literature and Capital Series Guest scholars and graduate students from RLL's Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian (HLBS) section discussed the speakers’ recent work, the state of their respective fields and interdisciplinary issues: April 16: Alejandro García Reidy (Universidad de Salamanca) in conversation with Lizette Arellano and Matías Spector; April 30: Allison Bigelow (University of Virginia) in conversation with Anna Donko and Paulina León; May 14: Denilson Lopes (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) in conversation with Miriam Borrero and Thomaz Amâncio; May 28: Jerome Branche (University of Pittsburgh) in conversation with Eduardo Leão and Isabela Fraga. Tim Parks | April 29 Tim Parks, author of Italian Life: A Modern Fable of Loyalty and Betrayal, joined the Italian Language Program in conversation.
HLBS Literature and Capital Series | April-May
Colombia in Crisis | May 14 This event moderated by Vianny Anaya Amado addressed the origins and nature of the problems surrounding the national strike in Colombia and featured a conversation about possible solutions. Panelists included María Angélica Bautista (Harris School of Public Policy), Carlos Andrés Manrique (Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá), and Erin McFee (Department of Anthropology). Marcel Proust: Contested Legacies | May 14 This online conference explored various aspects of Proust's legacies in 20th- and 21st-century literature, art and philosophy.
Tim Parks | April 29
Religion in Brazil | May 28 Students explored the diverse religions of Brazil and how religion has been used historically for both social and political purposes.
Marcel Proust | May 14
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Snapshots: A Selection of RLL Talks & Events
Colombia in Crisis | May 14
CIAO Family Risotto Dinner| Nov. 6
Quattro chiacchiere in compagnia di Andrea Ricci | Jan. 28
Fred Kuwornu: Black Lives Matter in Italy & the Legacy of Colonialism | Feb. 11
Snapshots: A Selection of RLL Talks & Events
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NOVEMBER 2021 | ISSUE NO. 2
RLL Newsletter 2020 - 2021