Faculty Updates

Linda B. Bartlett’s fall 2016

sabbatical gave her the chance to work on two scholarly projects: the problem of work as vocation in the novels of Miguel de Unamuno, and the spatial representation of power in the Spanish TV program Cuéntame cómo pasó. Her article, “Cars, Space, and the Dynamics of Power in Cuéntame cómo pasó,” was published this spring by Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature. The sabbatical also allowed her to rest up a bit before returning in January 2017 to assume her new role as department chair.

Last April, Marianne Bessy received a South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (SCICU) Excellence in Teaching Award. Her piece “Vassilis Alexakis and Mother Tongue,” an afterword to Harlan R. Patton’s English translation of Alexakis’s novel Mother Tongue, was published this spring. Bessy delivered a paper titled “Vassilis Alexakis and Metafiction in La Clarinette: A Literary Treasure Hunt” during the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference at the University of Kentucky in April. She also presented “Shattering the Myth of Perfection: French Women in the American Classroom” during the Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference at James Madison University in October 2016.

Nathan Brown ’06 had a productive year. In the fall he gave a paper at the Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference at James Madison University on identity issues in the recent Québécois film Bon Cop Bad Cop. In the spring he gave a talk at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference on animal studies, specifically the image of the North American beaver by French writers of the time period. He also had two articles published - one appeared in Romanic Review and dealt with “cultural transvestism.” The second appeared in the MIFLC Review and investigated protofeminist overtones in Sidonie de la Houssaye’s short story “Cinq Sous.”

Jeremy Cass ’00 continues as editor of the MIFLC Review. In 2016-2017 he published an article, “Memory, Displacement, and Reintegration in Alberto Fuguet’s ‘Santiago,’” in the journal Hispanófila and presented papers at the Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference and at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference. Jeremy’s tenure as Spanish Coordinator came to a close at the conclusion of the 2016-2017 academic year. He was recently appointed as Furman’s Associate Academic Dean.

In addition to his work on Mexican poet Alberto Blanco, Ron Friis delivered a conference paper on teaching literature with the visual arts and published an article that viewed writing one’s own teaching materials in the context of the Slow Food movement.

Erik Grell presented a paper on Schiller’s nineteenthcentury literary reception at the German Studies Association (GSA) annual conference in San Diego. His talk was part of a book project, which explores nineteenthcentury prose fiction as a site for constituting German political formation. He also developed a course titled “The Natural Environment in German Literature and Thought, 1770-present.” The course explores how Germans invented nature amidst changing conceptions of the environment, while also investigating the appeal to natural discourse as a means of exploring gender and identity; advancing political ideologies and aesthetic programs; and negotiating the challenges of modernity.

Sofía Kearns presented the paper “Posturas contestatarias de género e identidad cultural en la poesía indígena de Liliana Ancalao y Rosa Chávez” at the XIX Congreso Internacional de Literatura y Estudios Hispánicos in Buenos Aires, Argentina on March 9, 2017. She also co-presented with Stephanie Knouse and Michael Robinson “Building Partnerships in the Community: An Interdisciplinary Research Project in Greenville, SC” at the Let’s Talk Symposium at University of Notre Dame on March 31, 2017. Her paper “La compaginación de identidades étnicas y femeninas en la poesía de Liliana Ancalao y Rosa Chávez” was published in July 2017 in Ciberletras (www.lehman.cuny. edu/ciberletras).

Stephanie M. Knouse and MLL colleague Sofía Kearns collaborated with a team of Furman researchers, students, and alumni on the United Way Grant Project in fall 2016 (see p. 5). Knouse and Kearns, with project team member Michael Robinson ’17, delivered a presentation at the Let’s Talk 2017 Conference at the University of Notre Dame about the interdisciplinary model utilized to carry out the endeavor. Knouse also presented a paper titled “Linguistics in the K-16 World Languages: Creating a Culture of Inquiry” at the Southern Conference on Language Teaching in March 2017. In June 2017, Knouse attended a four-day training on ACTFL’s Oral Proficiency Interview.

For the first time in many years, faculty members were asked to read the names of graduating seniors at Commencement 2017. Professors Angélica Lozano-Alonso, Cherie Maiden and Linda Bartlett did the honors for Furman’s 700 graduating seniors. Photo credit: Marianne Bessy