tag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:/news-events/newsDepartment of Romance Languages and Literatures | News2024-03-11T15:25:00-04:00tag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1604922024-03-11T15:25:00-04:002024-03-11T15:25:04-04:00"The Practice of Debate in French Literature before Machaut" and "Bernier de Chartres' 'Vraie Medecine d'amours' and His Lady's Response (Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2609)"<p>These two coordinated articles by Johannes Junge Ruhland offer new elements for the study of debate literature in medieval French. "The Practice of Debate" (French Studies 78.1) offers a synthesis and reappraisal of debate literature in French before ca. 1350 and argues for the need to include manuscripts as evidence of the corpus. "Bernier de Chartres' 'Vraie medecine d'amours'" (Romania 141.3-4) makes available for the first time an important but understudied primary source that combines love poetry, debate literature, animal lore and medical imagery. The introduction makes the case for why Bernier's text and the anonymous response should be considered as parts of a larger literary debate staged in a manuscript and provides overlooked codicological data.…</p><p>These two coordinated articles by Johannes Junge Ruhland offer new elements for the study of debate literature in medieval French. "The Practice of Debate" (French Studies 78.1) offers a synthesis and reappraisal of debate literature in French before ca. 1350 and argues for the need to include manuscripts as evidence of the corpus. "Bernier de Chartres' 'Vraie medecine d'amours'" (Romania 141.3-4) makes available for the first time an important but understudied primary source that combines love poetry, debate literature, animal lore and medical imagery. The introduction makes the case for why Bernier's text and the anonymous response should be considered as parts of a larger literary debate staged in a manuscript and provides overlooked codicological data.</p>Stafftag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1603242024-03-01T10:33:00-05:002024-03-01T10:34:37-05:00"Ruinas Modernas: Untimely Spaces and Multiple Temporalities in Modern and Contemporary Spanish Culture"<p>Prof. Pedro Aguilera-Mellado coedited together with his colleagues Prof. Antonio Córdoba and Prof. Jacqueline Sheehan a special Issue in the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies (25:1), titled "Ruinas Modernas: Untimely Spaces and Multiple Temporalities in Modern and Contemporary Spanish Culture. The Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies is a prominent journal in the field of Iberian Studies. Full access to the special issue is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjsc20/current">here.</a>…</p><p>Prof. Pedro Aguilera-Mellado coedited together with his colleagues Prof. Antonio Córdoba and Prof. Jacqueline Sheehan a special Issue in the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies (25:1), titled "Ruinas Modernas: Untimely Spaces and Multiple Temporalities in Modern and Contemporary Spanish Culture. The Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies is a prominent journal in the field of Iberian Studies. Full access to the special issue is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjsc20/current">here.</a></p>Stafftag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1603422024-02-28T10:31:00-05:002024-03-04T10:31:31-05:00FLTA Spotlight: Isadora Teles de Oliveira Gouveia<p>Campina Grande is renowned for its vibrant São João parties, a cherished tradition in the Northeast of Brazil, and is a place where the warmth of the sun is matched only by the warmth of its people. For our Portuguese FLTA Isadora Teles de Oliveira Gouveia, South Bend, Indiana, was a departure from her previous lifestyle that brought a longing for the familiar sights, sounds, and flavors of her homeland. Despite this, Isadora has found a multitude of ways to engage with the campus community, and with the worst of winter behind us, she has been revitalized with excitement for the remainder of the semester.…</p><p>Campina Grande is renowned for its vibrant São João parties, a cherished tradition in the Northeast of Brazil, and is a place where the warmth of the sun is matched only by the warmth of its people. For our Portuguese FLTA Isadora Teles de Oliveira Gouveia, South Bend, Indiana, was a departure from her previous lifestyle that brought a longing for the familiar sights, sounds, and flavors of her homeland. Despite this, Isadora has found a multitude of ways to engage with the campus community, and with the worst of winter behind us, she has been revitalized with excitement for the remainder of the semester.</p>
<p>Isadora's passion for language and education began during her formative years in Teresina, a neighboring city to Campina Grande in Northeast Brazil. Surrounded by a family of educators, including parents who met while teaching English at the same language school, Isadora and her twin sister were immersed in a culture that valued learning and linguistic diversity from an early age. At just seven years old, they embarked on their journey to master English.</p>
<p>After completing her secondary education, Isadora pursued her passion for languages at university, majoring in English language, literature, and teaching. She used the concepts and pedagogies learned in her classroom and applied them to a variety of teaching experiences in her community, including a program that prepared students for exchange programs abroad. It was during this time that Isadora's interest in language education deepened, leading her to explore innovative teaching methods and strategies.</p>
<p>In the Spring of 2020, Isadora was accepted into a study abroad program in Portugal to teach her native tongue. However, after a few short weeks, the Covid-19 pandemic caused her program to shut down and she returned to Brazil, where she practiced teaching Portuguese. During this time, she worked as an interpreter for her university and city hall, meeting many people interested in learning Portuguese. This experience came with many new challenges as it forced Isadora to critically think about her native language, rather than relying on what is natural.</p>
<p>These experiences of teaching Portuguese played a pivotal role in Isadora's Fulbright application, as she had known of the program from previous coworkers and had targeted the program as a long term goal. Now at Notre Dame, Isadora assists in Portuguese language classes, helping design lessons, grade student work, and act as an extra resource to authentically teach Brazilian culture. She has also tailored her schedule to improve her teaching abilities, as she has enrolled in Second Language Teaching, English Academic Writing, and Digital Literacy courses. Isadora is also currently enrolled in an intensive Italian course with the goal of becoming fluent.</p>
<p>While Isadora understands the difficulties of learning a language, she emphasizes the significance of establishing a personal connection with the language as a crucial factor in successful language acquisition. Motivation, rather than inherent talent, is the primary determinant of someone's proficiency. Isadora sees that many individuals initially feel daunted by the prospect of learning a language, but their perspective shifts once they discover personal incentives. Finding motivation through media such as songs, movies, and TV shows in the target language can be extremely effective in helping you discover proper motivation. Additionally, she encourages seeking out opportunities for live practice through interactions with friends, attending events, and engaging in conversation.</p>
<p><em>About the CSLC</em></p>
<p><em>The Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures (CSLC) aims to support language learners at ND by facilitating meaningful experiences with linguistic acquisition and exchange - both in our campus community and abroad. We believe that access to the world's languages and cultures allows us to seek out new perspectives, to value the diversity of the world's cultures, and to embody global citizenship.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Luke Van de Walle</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://cslc.nd.edu/news-and-events/news/flta-spotlight-isadora-teles-de-oliveira-gouveia/">cslc.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 27, 2024</span>.</p>Luke Van de Walletag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1601072024-02-22T12:24:00-05:002024-02-22T12:24:37-05:00Tomorrow / Mañana<p>Elena Mangione-Lora's poem "Tomorrow" / "Mañana" accompanies Sandra Fernánedez's work Separated Minor #2,739 (Detenido), 2019, [Photopolymer gravure and silkscreen | Grabado en Fotopolímero y Serigrafía, 22 x 30 in | 56 x 76 cm] as part of the exhibit Geografías Paralelas (Parallel Geographies), which explores the multicultural and bilingual experiences of three artists who migrated to the USA as young adults from Latin America and the Caribbean. Artists René Arceo (Mexican), Pepe Coronado (Dominican), and Sandra C. Fernández (Ecuadorian) present a diverse array of cultural influences and personal interests, allowing for rich interactions on the interconnectedness of geographies both real and imagined.…</p><p>Elena Mangione-Lora's poem "Tomorrow" / "Mañana" accompanies Sandra Fernánedez's work Separated Minor #2,739 (Detenido), 2019, [Photopolymer gravure and silkscreen | Grabado en Fotopolímero y Serigrafía, 22 x 30 in | 56 x 76 cm] as part of the exhibit Geografías Paralelas (Parallel Geographies), which explores the multicultural and bilingual experiences of three artists who migrated to the USA as young adults from Latin America and the Caribbean. Artists René Arceo (Mexican), Pepe Coronado (Dominican), and Sandra C. Fernández (Ecuadorian) present a diverse array of cultural influences and personal interests, allowing for rich interactions on the interconnectedness of geographies both real and imagined.</p>
<p><a href="https://geografias.stqry.app/en/list/24886/item/264903">Poem here.</a></p>Maurcia Marschketag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1600932024-02-22T10:52:00-05:002024-02-22T10:52:49-05:00Visit to UPAEP<p>Tatiana Botero and Elena Mangione-Lora visited Rachel Parroquín (visiting professor at UPAEP SP24) in Puebla, Mexico, last week to continue developing the successful faculty exchange program between UPAEP and the University of Notre Dame, and to discuss a joint project. (ND_UPAEP) to develop Open Educational Resources (OER) to make quality Spanish language instruction materials and resources free and available to anyone who wishes to use them.…</p><p>Tatiana Botero and Elena Mangione-Lora visited Rachel Parroquín (visiting professor at UPAEP SP24) in Puebla, Mexico, last week to continue developing the successful faculty exchange program between UPAEP and the University of Notre Dame, and to discuss a joint project. (ND_UPAEP) to develop Open Educational Resources (OER) to make quality Spanish language instruction materials and resources free and available to anyone who wishes to use them.</p>Maurcia Marschketag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1598162024-02-09T13:46:00-05:002024-02-09T13:46:23-05:00Learning language and culture beyond the classroom: CSLC hosts Language & Culture Week beginning Feb. 11<p>The <a href="https://cslc.nd.edu/">Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures</a> (CSLC) at the University of Notre Dame will host its third annual <a href="https://cslc.nd.edu/news-and-events/events/lcw/">Language & Culture Week</a>. Events will begin Sunday, Feb. 11, with activities lasting through the following Sunday, Feb. 18. The week will feature <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q5rdvNUfAn0R_3yLHQg7B0M_TX1Ic0SB1RthZ5GuvKg/edit">60 events</a>…</p><p>The <a href="https://cslc.nd.edu/">Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures</a> (CSLC) at the University of Notre Dame will host its third annual <a href="https://cslc.nd.edu/news-and-events/events/lcw/">Language & Culture Week</a>. Events will begin Sunday, Feb. 11, with activities lasting through the following Sunday, Feb. 18. The week will feature <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q5rdvNUfAn0R_3yLHQg7B0M_TX1Ic0SB1RthZ5GuvKg/edit">60 events</a> hosted by more than 15 departments and student groups across campus, including all global language programs. It is open to the public.</p>
<figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/557694/language_culture_week_poster_400x.jpg" alt="Language Culture Week Poster 400x" width="401" height="600">
<figcaption>Language and Culture Week will feature 60 events hosted by more than 15 departments and campus groups across campus, including all global language programs.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The idea for a weeklong celebration of culture originated from National Foreign Language Week, which was created in the 1950s by the national sorority Alpha Gamma Mu and was formally supported by President Dwight Eisenhower a few years later. Much like the national celebration, the CSLC’s Language & Culture Week (LCW) — formerly known as Foreign Language Week — was initiated to help students expand their interest in languages and respective cultures outside of the classroom.</p>
<p>The week’s events are organized by faculty from various language departments and programs, with the CSLC providing planning support. LCW inspires professors and students to go beyond what they usually experience in the classroom by creating events they believe will best bring attention to the language, celebrate the variety of cultures on campus, and give attendees the opportunity to share their learning and explore new languages.</p>
<p><a href="https://cslc.nd.edu/people/eva-hoeckner/">Eva Hoeckner</a>, the CSLC program manager for language initiatives, said the programs seek to “showcase what you can do with language and the work that students and faculty do.” An assistant teaching professor of <a href="https://germanandrussian.nd.edu/">German</a>, Hoeckner also emphasized the importance of reaching beyond the classroom and “motivating students to engage with language in a fashion they feel would be interesting to them.”</p>
<p>During Language & Culture Week, there will be two signature events — the Culture Fair held from 4 to 6 p.m. on Feb. 13 in the Hesburgh Library Scholars Lounge and the World Music and Dance Fest held from 4 to 6 p.m. on Feb. 15 in LaBar Performance Hall in O’Neill Hall of Music.</p>
<p>Activities presented at the Culture Fair by professors, students, and visiting artists will reflect languages taught at Notre Dame. This year, participants can engage in hands-on activities, like Carneval mask-making or traditional Chinese or Korean painting workshops. They can also explore Indigenous languages and cultures, like Potowatomi and Navajo.</p>
<p>At the World Music & Dance Fest, students will be able to experience language and culture through various musical performances and workshops. The event will be hosted by ethnomusicology professor<a href="https://music.nd.edu/people/jon-bullock/"> Jon Bullock,</a> who will play Kurdish instruments and teach Kurdish dance. In addition, the audience will be able to watch and participate in a mix of performances and workshops that will take them across the globe with Latin, Irish, African, Chinese, and Bollywood dance and song.</p>
<p>Students and faculty are invited to attend similarly themed events over the course of the whole week. These range from Masses in a variety of different languages, such as Swahili, German, Arabic, or Italian, to cultural presentations on Quechua (an indigenous language of Peru) embroidered bookmarks or Brazilian Carnaval.</p>
<p>Hoeckner describes her experience coordinating the events as “sheer joy” as participating departments come together for the common goal of providing opportunities for students to find enrichment in exploring languages and cultures.</p>
<p>Language & Culture Week is open to the public, and a detailed list of events can be found on the <a href="https://cslc.nd.edu/news-and-events/events/lcw/">CSLC’s website</a> or through the ND Mobile app.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Sierra Weaver</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/learning-language-and-culture-beyond-the-classroom-cslc-hosts-language-culture-week-beginning-feb-11/">al.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 09, 2024</span>.</p>Sierra Weavertag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1600442024-02-09T12:40:00-05:002024-02-20T10:36:51-05:00Recent professional activities by JoAnn DellaNeva, Professor Emerita, Romance Languages & Literatures<p><strong>Publications:</strong></p>
<p>“‘Adioustant quelque chose du sien’”: L’histoire de deux amants infortunés de Bandello à Belleforest.” In <em>Éloge du singulier. Lire la littérature de la Renaissance avec Ullrich Langer</em>, ed. Virginia Krause and Jan Miernowski (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2023) 171-195.</p>
<p><a href="https://linguaromana.byu.edu/">“Desportes, Di Costanzo, and the Disproportionate Simile,” in <em>Renovatio, Recettes, Renaissances: Essays in Honor of Jean-Claude Carron</em></a>…</p><p><strong>Publications:</strong></p>
<p>“‘Adioustant quelque chose du sien’”: L’histoire de deux amants infortunés de Bandello à Belleforest.” In <em>Éloge du singulier. Lire la littérature de la Renaissance avec Ullrich Langer</em>, ed. Virginia Krause and Jan Miernowski (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2023) 171-195.</p>
<p><a href="https://linguaromana.byu.edu/">“Desportes, Di Costanzo, and the Disproportionate Simile,” in <em>Renovatio, Recettes, Renaissances: Essays in Honor of Jean-Claude Carron</em>, <em>Lingua Romana: A Journal of French, Italian, and Romanian Culture</em>, ed. Robert Hudson and Christopher M. Flood, 17.1 (Spring 2023): 22-33.</a></p>
<p><strong>Academic Lectures and Conference Presentations:</strong></p>
<p>“A Wily and Wicked Widow? Brantôme’s Portrayal of Mary Tudor, Queen of France,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Baltimore (October 2023).</p>
<p>“Anne Boleyn’s Youth in France: Imaginative Representations in Early Modern French Literature,” Renaissance Society of America, Puerto Rico (March 2023).</p>
<p><strong>Awards and Honors:</strong></p>
<p>Awarded a travel grant for research on my book in progress at the British Library from the Nanovic Institute.</p>
<p><a href="https://retirees-emeriti.nd.edu/members/joann-dellaneva-2022-12-31/">Member Profile</a></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Kelli Brown</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://retirees-emeriti.nd.edu/retiree-news/recent-professional-activities-by-joanne-dellaneva-professor-emerita-romance-languages-literatures/">retirees-emeriti.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 09, 2024</span>.</p>Kelli Browntag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1587722023-12-14T10:11:00-05:002023-12-14T10:11:06-05:00Vanesa Miseres' research about food and feminism and women’s accounts of war earns accolades<p>Women contributed to Paraguay’s economy and military during the war, said Miseres, an affiliated faculty member in the Gender Studies Program. And they were vital to reconstruction after the war, during which 70% of Paraguay’s males — adults and children — were killed.</p><p><a href="https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/people/faculty/vanesa-miseres/">Vanesa Miseres</a>, associate professor of Spanish in the <a href="https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/">Department of Romance Languages and Literatures</a>, has won awards for her articles that <a href="https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/2209/3559">analyze</a> women’s roles in the Paraguayan War, and that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07409710.2022.2089827">explore</a> how food and language in recipes communicate feminist ideas in Argentine literature.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aegs-agss.com/estatutosbylaws.html">Association of Gender and Sexualities Studies</a> (AGSS) presented Miseres with the 2023 Victoria Urbano Prize for Best Academic Article for “La Guerra del Paraguay y sus otras alianzas: las memorias de Dorothéa Duprat y el Libro de Oro” (“The Paraguayan War and its Other Alliances: Dorothéa Duprat’s Memoirs and the Libro de Oro”).</p>
<p>Miseres appreciates the recognition by AGSS, as more than 15 years ago her first printed article was also published in one of its journals.</p>
<p>She wrote her more-recent award-winning article because of her fascination with the complexities of Paraguay’s war with Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil in the 1860s, including the important role that women played before and after the war.</p>
<p>Women contributed to Paraguay’s economy and military during the war, said Miseres, an affiliated faculty member in the <a href="https://genderstudies.nd.edu/">Gender Studies Program</a>. And they were vital to reconstruction after the war, during which 70% of Paraguay’s males — adults and children — were killed.</p>
<p>Miseres discovered that women’s written accounts revealed that residentas (women who followed the national army) and destinadas (female prisoners of the Paraguayan militia) — who have been represented as antagonists — actually faced comparable challenges to survive, provide for their children, and resist military abuses.</p>
<p>Last spring, the same piece earned an honorable mention for Best Article from the 19th-Century Section of the <a href="https://lasaweb.org/en/">Latin American Studies Association</a>.</p>
<p>And, most recently, <a href="http://feministas-unidas.org/">Feministas Unidas Inc</a>. selected Miseres’ “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07409710.2022.2089827">Cooking and feminism through Argentine Literature</a>” for the 2023 Adela Zamudio Award for Best Academic Article.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“From collective cookbooks to short stories and novels, the language of cooking is recurrent among women writers for the expression of feminist thinking.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Miseres said she was particularly honored to be selected for the award that’s named after the Bolivian poet and women’s rights activist and comes from an organization central to Latin American feminist studies in the U.S.</p>
<p>Traditionally, Miseres said, cooking and feminism have been perceived to be at odds.</p>
<p>“The space of the kitchen represented insurmountable walls for generations of women,” said Miseres, who teaches an honors seminar, Food and Foodways in the Americas, and co-edited the <a href="https://www.uapress.com/product/food-studies-in-latin-american-literature/"><em>Food Studies in Latin American Literature: Perspectives on the Gastronarrative</em></a> essay collection.</p>
<p>But while conducting research, she found that cooking and food also have been channels to express political and aesthetic ideas through time.</p>
<p>“From collective cookbooks to short stories and novels, the language of cooking is recurrent among women writers for the expression of feminist thinking,” she said.</p>
<p>Miseres, a fellow with the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a> and <a href="https://kellogg.nd.edu/">Kellogg Institute for International Studies</a>, has also garnered support and recognition for other recent academic pursuits.</p>
<p>Last year, she and professor of anthropology <a href="https://anthropology.nd.edu/people/faculty/vania-smith-oka/">Vania Smith-Oka</a> received a three-year grant from <a href="https://www.humanitieswithoutwalls.illinois.edu/">Humanities Without Walls</a> for a project that encourages Latinx women who have incurred violence during pregnancy and childbirth to share their experiences through art and literature.</p>
<p>Miseres also earned an <a href="https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/">Alexander von Humboldt Foundation</a> <a href="https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/apply/sponsorship-programmes/humboldt-research-fellowship">Humboldt Research Fellowship</a> that enabled her to work on her book, <em>Gender Battles. Latin American Women, War, and Feminism</em>, at Freie Universität Berlin in 2022.</p>
<p>Her first book, <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469635804/mujeres-en-transito/">Mujeres e<em>n tránsito: viaje, identidad y escritura en Sudamérica (1830-1910</em>)</a>, won the 2018 Alfredo Roggiano Prize for Latin American Literary Criticism and was an honorable mention for the Victoria Urbano Critical Monograph Prize.</p>
<p> </p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Beth Staples</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/spanish-professor-vanesa-miseres-research-about-womens-accounts-of-war-and-feminist-recipes-earns-accolades/">al.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">December 14, 2023</span>.</p>Beth Staplestag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1584732023-12-04T11:19:00-05:002023-12-04T11:23:24-05:00Anthropocene Infrapolitics<p>Professor Pedro Aguilera-Mellado co-edited together with his colleagues Peter Baker (University of Stirling, UK) and Gabriela Méndez Cota (Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico) the special issue titled "Anthropocene infrapolitics" in the journal Culture Machine. </p>
<p>Since Paul Crutzen suggested the term in 2000, ‘the Anthropocene’ has become established as a narrative frame for the convergence of numerous discourses and collections of data exploring the reach, as well as the limits, of human agency within inherently dynamic Earth processes. This volume of Culture Machine arrives in the wake of a decade-long acceleration of Humanities discourse on the Anthropocene, the radical implications of which remain, in our view, unthought. <br>Already in 2016, Cohen, Colebrook and Hillis Miller thought of the Anthropocene as a twilight concept: ‘a form of half-recognition that can only occur in the moment of waning’. They noted that even if the idea of the Anthropocene had fully exposed the fictions of Cartesian Man, its paradoxical effect had been to stir, almost immediately, a production of counter-narratives, most of which failed to question narrative as such. In other words, the boom of the post-human and the non-human, alongside so many political challenges to the universalizing claims of the Anthropocene, most often provided a way of sustaining the human as a problem. By contrast, Cohen, Colebrook and Hillis Miller called on us to ask about the ways in which technical modes of inscription produced ‘the Anthropocene’ as a masculinist delusion of self-erasure and anthropo-political narrativizing.<br>Almost a decade later, the unrelenting chaos associated with the Anthropocene still calls for intellectual responsibility, but structural difficulty persists in (and beyond) university discourse. If the latter is characterized, in our time, by a political saturation, the structural difficulty concerns finitude as such, the experience of which increasingly converges with technological acceleration and the threat of human extinction. The question insists: is the Anthropocene above all a political question, a question of narrative? Broadly conceived as the absolute difference between life and politics, between being and subjectivity, between writing and narrativizing, infrapolitics gives way to the task of thinking existence in the ‘epoch without epoch’ that is now framed as the Anthropocene.…</p><p>Professor Pedro Aguilera-Mellado co-edited together with his colleagues Peter Baker (University of Stirling, UK) and Gabriela Méndez Cota (Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico) the special issue titled "Anthropocene infrapolitics" in the journal Culture Machine. </p>
<p>Since Paul Crutzen suggested the term in 2000, ‘the Anthropocene’ has become established as a narrative frame for the convergence of numerous discourses and collections of data exploring the reach, as well as the limits, of human agency within inherently dynamic Earth processes. This volume of Culture Machine arrives in the wake of a decade-long acceleration of Humanities discourse on the Anthropocene, the radical implications of which remain, in our view, unthought. <br>Already in 2016, Cohen, Colebrook and Hillis Miller thought of the Anthropocene as a twilight concept: ‘a form of half-recognition that can only occur in the moment of waning’. They noted that even if the idea of the Anthropocene had fully exposed the fictions of Cartesian Man, its paradoxical effect had been to stir, almost immediately, a production of counter-narratives, most of which failed to question narrative as such. In other words, the boom of the post-human and the non-human, alongside so many political challenges to the universalizing claims of the Anthropocene, most often provided a way of sustaining the human as a problem. By contrast, Cohen, Colebrook and Hillis Miller called on us to ask about the ways in which technical modes of inscription produced ‘the Anthropocene’ as a masculinist delusion of self-erasure and anthropo-political narrativizing.<br>Almost a decade later, the unrelenting chaos associated with the Anthropocene still calls for intellectual responsibility, but structural difficulty persists in (and beyond) university discourse. If the latter is characterized, in our time, by a political saturation, the structural difficulty concerns finitude as such, the experience of which increasingly converges with technological acceleration and the threat of human extinction. The question insists: is the Anthropocene above all a political question, a question of narrative? Broadly conceived as the absolute difference between life and politics, between being and subjectivity, between writing and narrativizing, infrapolitics gives way to the task of thinking existence in the ‘epoch without epoch’ that is now framed as the Anthropocene.</p>Maurcia Marschketag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1581462023-11-20T08:02:22-05:002023-11-20T08:03:21-05:00Mundos Íntimos<p>Professor Juan Vitulli published a new article in the section “Mundos Intimos” from Diario Clarín which is the largest newspaper in Argentina and the second most circulated in the Spanish-speaking world. This newspaper prints and distributes around 300,000 copies throughout the country, and accounted for nearly 21 percent of Argentine newspaper market. In this opportunity, Vitulli wrote about memory, exile, rupture, and the reconstruction of the family archive.…</p><p>Professor Juan Vitulli published a new article in the section “Mundos Intimos” from Diario Clarín which is the largest newspaper in Argentina and the second most circulated in the Spanish-speaking world. This newspaper prints and distributes around 300,000 copies throughout the country, and accounted for nearly 21 percent of Argentine newspaper market. In this opportunity, Vitulli wrote about memory, exile, rupture, and the reconstruction of the family archive.</p>
<p>The full article can be read <a href="https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/assets/548639/mundos_intimos_vitulli_juan_vitulli.pdf">here</a>.</p>Maurcia Marschketag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1580752023-11-16T11:17:00-05:002023-11-16T11:17:33-05:00Prof. Charles Leavitt Wins Prize for Best Article<p>The Society for Italian Studies has announced that the 2022 Italian Studies Article Prize has been awarded to Charles Leavitt for his article "Deicide and the Drama of the Holocaust: Gian Paolo Callegari’s Cristo ha ucciso (1948)." (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00751634.2022.2070348) The readers summarized their reasons for selecting Prof. Leavitt's article as follows: “This is a powerful and pithy article of considerable originality which explores an overlooked play and author but also investigates the whole context of Italy pre- and post-Fascism with reference to anti-semitism and the Holocaust. The quality of the reconstruction of both Callegari as author and surrounding texts and contexts is very high, and equally strong is the critical reviewing of categories and of related production. Through a detailed analysis of Callegari’s play, the article makes an original, novel and topical contribution to the much broader debate on anti-Semitism in postwar Italy. For both readers, an outstanding essay in historical, literary and critical terms.”…</p><p>The Society for Italian Studies has announced that the 2022 Italian Studies Article Prize has been awarded to Charles Leavitt for his article "Deicide and the Drama of the Holocaust: Gian Paolo Callegari’s Cristo ha ucciso (1948)." (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00751634.2022.2070348) The readers summarized their reasons for selecting Prof. Leavitt's article as follows: “This is a powerful and pithy article of considerable originality which explores an overlooked play and author but also investigates the whole context of Italy pre- and post-Fascism with reference to anti-semitism and the Holocaust. The quality of the reconstruction of both Callegari as author and surrounding texts and contexts is very high, and equally strong is the critical reviewing of categories and of related production. Through a detailed analysis of Callegari’s play, the article makes an original, novel and topical contribution to the much broader debate on anti-Semitism in postwar Italy. For both readers, an outstanding essay in historical, literary and critical terms.”</p>Maurcia Marschketag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1575932023-10-30T10:20:00-04:002023-11-09T06:47:54-05:00Interview Miami Herald about Vitulli's new book Interiores (Beatriz Viterbo, 2023)<p>On October 29, Professor Vitulli was interviewed by the Miami Herald. He talked about his new fiction book Interiores (Beatriz Viterbo, 2023) as well as the Spanish speaking literature written in the United States. Here is the link to the article<a href="https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/assets/547350/io_2_dc3c1l2.pdf"> here</a>. …</p><p>On October 29, Professor Vitulli was interviewed by the Miami Herald. He talked about his new fiction book Interiores (Beatriz Viterbo, 2023) as well as the Spanish speaking literature written in the United States. Here is the link to the article<a href="https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/assets/547350/io_2_dc3c1l2.pdf"> here</a>. </p>Maurcia Marschketag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1575912023-10-30T10:13:00-04:002023-10-30T10:13:33-04:00Prof. Vanesa Miseres Wins Prize for Best Article<p>Professor Vanesa Miseres has received the 2023 Victoria Urbano Prize for best academic article awarded by the Association of Gender & Sexualities Studies. According to the selection committee, her work “La Guerra del Paraguay y sus otras alianzas: las memorias de Dorothéa Duprat y el Libro de Oro” [The Paraguayan War and its Other Alliances: Dorothéa Duprat’s memoirs and the Libro de Oro] was selected for its contribution to the understanding of the Paraguayan War (1864-1870) from a gendered perspective, highlighting women’s divergent perceptions of the conflict. The article analyzes the account of the Paraguayan War (fought between Paraguay and the alliance of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil) by the French educator Dorothéa Duprat, who was a war captive by the Paraguayan military, vis-á-vis the Libro de Oro, a collective book that registers the testimony and donations of Paraguayan women in support of the national troops. The book was appropriated by the Brazilian army after the defeat of Paraguay in 1870 and was among the jewels of the Imperial Crown in the National Historical Museum of Rio de Janeiro for more than a century, until it was recovered by the Paraguayan government in 1975. It was not until a few years ago that it became available to researchers. The Victoria Urbano Prize was created in honor of the Costa Rican author, poet and university professor Victoria Urbano, winner of the León Felipe Prize and founder of the International Association of Hispanic Women’s Literature and Culture in 1974. The association was established for the purpose of advancing the study of women- and gender-related topics in Hispanic literature and promoting the work of Hispanic women writers. This is the second recognition that Prof. Miseres receives for this article, which was recently awarded an Honorable Mention for Best Article by the 19th Century Section of the Latin American Studies Association. You can read Professor Miseres’s article <a href="https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/2209">here</a>…</p><p>Professor Vanesa Miseres has received the 2023 Victoria Urbano Prize for best academic article awarded by the Association of Gender & Sexualities Studies. According to the selection committee, her work “La Guerra del Paraguay y sus otras alianzas: las memorias de Dorothéa Duprat y el Libro de Oro” [The Paraguayan War and its Other Alliances: Dorothéa Duprat’s memoirs and the Libro de Oro] was selected for its contribution to the understanding of the Paraguayan War (1864-1870) from a gendered perspective, highlighting women’s divergent perceptions of the conflict. The article analyzes the account of the Paraguayan War (fought between Paraguay and the alliance of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil) by the French educator Dorothéa Duprat, who was a war captive by the Paraguayan military, vis-á-vis the Libro de Oro, a collective book that registers the testimony and donations of Paraguayan women in support of the national troops. The book was appropriated by the Brazilian army after the defeat of Paraguay in 1870 and was among the jewels of the Imperial Crown in the National Historical Museum of Rio de Janeiro for more than a century, until it was recovered by the Paraguayan government in 1975. It was not until a few years ago that it became available to researchers. The Victoria Urbano Prize was created in honor of the Costa Rican author, poet and university professor Victoria Urbano, winner of the León Felipe Prize and founder of the International Association of Hispanic Women’s Literature and Culture in 1974. The association was established for the purpose of advancing the study of women- and gender-related topics in Hispanic literature and promoting the work of Hispanic women writers. This is the second recognition that Prof. Miseres receives for this article, which was recently awarded an Honorable Mention for Best Article by the 19th Century Section of the Latin American Studies Association. You can read Professor Miseres’s article <a href="https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/2209">here</a>.</p>Maurcia Marschketag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1571332023-10-10T13:10:00-04:002023-10-10T13:12:19-04:00In memoriam: Alain Toumayan, Emeritus Professor of French and Francophone Studies<p>It is with profound sadness that we communicate the passing of our dear friend and colleague, Alain Toumayan.</p>
<p>Alain faithfully served the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Notre Dame for over 34 years, arriving in 1989 and retiring in 2023. Alain was an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania and earned his Ph.D. from Yale University. Before coming to Notre Dame, Alain served at Princeton University for seven years and at Johns Hopkins University for one. Alain was a specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, with a heavy interest in philosophy, even serving as the director of Notre Dame’s program in philosophy and literature. His first monograph, La littérature et la hantise du mal (French Forum, 1987), explored the problem of evil in Barbey D’Aurevilly, Huysmans, and Baudelaire, and his second, Encountering the Other: the Artwork and the Problem of Difference in Blanchot and Levinas (Duquesne, 2004), provided a sustained analysis of the intersections of structure and content in Blanchot and Levinas's most representative and complex works. This is of course not to mention his many articles and book reviews that made a substantive and meaningful contribution to the study of French literature and philosophy.…</p><p>It is with profound sadness that we communicate the passing of our dear friend and colleague, Alain Toumayan.</p>
<p>Alain faithfully served the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Notre Dame for over 34 years, arriving in 1989 and retiring in 2023. Alain was an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania and earned his Ph.D. from Yale University. Before coming to Notre Dame, Alain served at Princeton University for seven years and at Johns Hopkins University for one. Alain was a specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, with a heavy interest in philosophy, even serving as the director of Notre Dame’s program in philosophy and literature. His first monograph, La littérature et la hantise du mal (French Forum, 1987), explored the problem of evil in Barbey D’Aurevilly, Huysmans, and Baudelaire, and his second, Encountering the Other: the Artwork and the Problem of Difference in Blanchot and Levinas (Duquesne, 2004), provided a sustained analysis of the intersections of structure and content in Blanchot and Levinas's most representative and complex works. This is of course not to mention his many articles and book reviews that made a substantive and meaningful contribution to the study of French literature and philosophy.</p>
<p>Alain was deeply committed to teaching, and taught a wide range of graduate and undergraduate courses at Notre Dame, both inside and outside the department of Romance Languages and Literatures. His students benefited from his wide knowledge which he eagerly imparted with humility and brilliance, a rare combination. His gentle manner and subtle passion for literature and music engendered great loyalty to him among his students, increasing their desire to study French language, literature, and culture. In his multiple terms as graduate liaison for French, he advocated tirelessly for the needs, both academic and personal, of our graduate students.</p>
<p>Beyond his teaching and research, Alain was an exemplary colleague, mentor, and friend. Absolutely selfless in his willingness to give of his time and talent, he served on numerous important committees throughout his career at Notre Dame. He constantly showed his care and concern for all of us, stopping by our office doors, ready to give us an encouraging word, or just to ask us about our day. Never a self-promoter, he instead generously sought to promote others. His boundless patience and wisdom made him an outstanding mentor to both faculty and students who continually sought his essential advice, whether in teaching and reading Balzac or in navigating the next faculty hire.</p>
<p>We express our heartfelt condolences to his wife, Vicki, and to his sons, Georges-Philippe and Nicolas, and to his entire family. We will miss his music; we will miss his kindness; we will miss his friendship.</p>
<p> </p>Stafftag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1571212023-10-09T12:30:00-04:002023-10-10T10:10:55-04:00In Memoriam, Alain P. Toumayan, Emeritus Professor of French and Francophone Studies<p class="obitnameV3"><strong>Alain P. Toumayan</strong></p>
<p class="obitdates">September 1, 1954 ~ October 5, 2023 (age 69)</p>
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<p>We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of Alain Paul Toumayan, age 69 on Wednesday, October 4, 2023.</p>
<p>Alain grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. He attended the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate and earned his Ph.D. in French Literature at Yale University. Soon after graduation in 1982, he married Vicki Douillet.</p>…</div><p class="obitnameV3"><strong>Alain P. Toumayan</strong></p>
<p class="obitdates">September 1, 1954 ~ October 5, 2023 (age 69)</p>
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<p>We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of Alain Paul Toumayan, age 69 on Wednesday, October 4, 2023.</p>
<p>Alain grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. He attended the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate and earned his Ph.D. in French Literature at Yale University. Soon after graduation in 1982, he married Vicki Douillet.</p>
<p>Alain’s academic career started at Johns Hopkins where he taught for a year before joining the faculty at Princeton University for seven years. In 1989 he accepted a position at the University of Notre Dame in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and remained there for the next 34 years. He held many administrative positions and authored numerous publications of literary criticism which often drew from the fields of Philosophy and Art History. But his true gift was for teaching and mentoring students, which he did wholeheartedly both on the South Bend campus and during his directorship of the study abroad program in Angers, France.</p>
<p>He loved the outdoors, nurturing his woodland property, and enjoyed visits to Lake Michigan and kayaking on the Saint Joseph River. He also was an accomplished guitarist, especially in Blue Grass and increasingly in Classical music. For several years he organized the student choir and played accompaniment for the mass in French at Notre Dame.</p>
<p>Alain is survived by his spouse Vicki, their two sons Nicolas (Momoko) of Tokyo and Georges-Philippe of South Bend, as well as his father Alec of Bethesda and two brothers Eric (Trini Rodriguez) of Maryland and Paul (Meredith) of Maine. He will also be missed by numerous family members, including mother-in-law, Eva Douillet, brothers-in-law Duke and Laurin Douillet, sister-in-law Julie Ponticello, cousins, nieces, and nephews in the U.S. and in France.</p>
<p>Alain was blessed with many good friends and colleagues. The family wishes to thank them for all their help and support.</p>
<p>Alain was a kind, generous, entirely selfless person until his last breath.</p>
<p>A visitation will be held at Kaniewski Funeral Home, 3545 N. Bendix Drive, South Bend, IN on Thursday, October 12, 2023 from 4:00 - 7:00 p.m., followed by a Vigil Service at 7:00 p.m. A Mass of Christian Burial will be said at Holy Cross Church, 1050 Wilber Street, South Bend, IN on Friday, October 13, 2023 at 11:00 a.m..</p>
<p>In lieu of flowers, contributions could be made to Catholic Relief Services, 228 W. Lexington St., Baltimore, Maryland 21201-3443 or the National Wildlife Federation, PO Box 1583, Merrifield VA 22116-1583 .</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">Condolences may be sent to: <br>Vicki Tormayan<br>21590 Auten Road<br>South Bend, IN 46628</p>
<p>To send online condolences, please visit <a href="https://www.kaniewski.com/obituary/AlainP-Toumayan">www.kaniewski.com</a>.</p>
<p>To <a href="https://www.kaniewski.com/obituary/AlainP-Toumayan/sympathy-landing" class="send-flower-link link-send-flower" data-tag="send-flower-promo">send flowers</a> to the family or <a href="https://www.kaniewski.com/obituary/AlainP-Toumayan/1076523/memorial-tree" data-tag="plant-a-tree-promo">plant a tree</a> in memory of Alain P. Toumayan, please <a class="visit-flower-link link-send-flower" href="https://www.kaniewski.com/obituary/AlainP-Toumayan/sympathy-landing" data-tag="visit-floral-store-promo">visit our floral store.</a></p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Kelli Brown</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://retirees-emeriti.nd.edu/retiree-news/in-memoriam-alain-p-toumayan-emeritus-professor-of-french-and-francophone-studies/">retirees-emeriti.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">October 09, 2023</span>.</p>Kelli Browntag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1570602023-10-06T15:45:00-04:002023-10-06T15:45:40-04:00Applications open for 2024 Rome Summer Program<div class="article-content entry-content">
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This seminar is designed to introduce Ph.D. students from across the humanities to the unique primary sources available in Rome. Working hands-on with materials in the city’s archives and libraries, students will be exposed to the rich potential of a wide range of sources produced from the Middle Ages to the present. Seminar meetings will be held at the <a href="https://www.vaticanlibrary.va/">Vatican Apostolic Library</a>
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This seminar is designed to introduce Ph.D. students from across the humanities to the unique primary sources available in Rome. Working hands-on with materials in the city’s archives and libraries, students will be exposed to the rich potential of a wide range of sources produced from the Middle Ages to the present. Seminar meetings will be held at the <a href="https://www.vaticanlibrary.va/">Vatican Apostolic Library</a>, the <a href="http://www.bncrm.beniculturali.it/">Biblioteca Nazionale</a>, and the <a href="http://www.archiviodistatoroma.beniculturali.it/">Archivio di Stato</a>, and elsewhere. The seminar will also include a series of presentations by senior scholars who will discuss how they have collected and interpreted Roman primary sources in their own research.
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<p>The dates for the 2024 Seminar are<strong> June 3 to June 28</strong>.</p>
<p>There are extraordinary and understudied materials in libraries and archives in the city for archeologists and classicists, art historians and historians, musicologists and students of theater and performance, historians of late antiquity, the Middle Ages, the early modern period and the world, specialists in the Near East and East Asia. The holdings of the Vatican Library alone include priceless manuscripts and documents from East Asia, the near East, and North Africa – as well as a vast collection of ancient, medieval and early modern texts in Greek and Latin, a unique resource for the history and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, of Christianity from its origins until recent times, of relations between Christians and Jews from antiquity onwards, and other subjects without number.</p>
<p>Previous seminar participants include students of art history, history, literature, political science, medieval studies, film studies, and musicology. Their areas of intellectual interest ranged from Byzantine art, papal humanism, hospitals, charity and pilgrimage, Persian embassies and the Chinese missions to art and science, fascist textile production, the history of sexuality, and politics and church in the postwar era. They have taken up primary sources like Anglo-Latin manuscripts, a Hebrew Arthurian legend, socioeconomic records of daily life, institutional records of church and state, art and material culture, films, and twentieth-century letters. Participants have come from Catholic University, Harvard, Northwestern, Princeton, Stanford, Syracuse, University of Chicago, University of Melbourne, University of Minnesota, University of Notre Dame, University of Toronto, and others.</p>
<p>The professors in charge of the seminar this year are <a href="https://history.stanford.edu/people/paula-findlen">Paula Findlen </a>(Stanford) and <a href="https://artdept.nd.edu/faculty/faculty-by-alpha/heather-minor/">Heather Minor</a> (Notre Dame). Please direct any questions about the seminar to Prof. Minor at <a href="http://hhydemin@nd.edu/">hhydemin@nd.edu</a>.</p>
<p>This seminar is made possible by generous support from<a href="https://www.stanford.edu/"> Stanford University</a>, the <a href="https://humanities.princeton.edu/">Princeton University Humanities Council</a>, and from <a href="https://al.nd.edu/">Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters</a>, the<a href="https://cushwa.nd.edu/"> Charles and Margaret Hall Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism</a>, and the<a href="https://italianstudies.nd.edu/"> Center for Italian Studies</a>.</p>
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<p>We welcome applications from students from any discipline at any stage in their graduate education who have not done extensive research in Rome prior to the seminar. To be eligible to apply, you must be enrolled full-time in a Ph.D. program. The focus of your research need not be Rome but you should have an interest in developing that research through the use of primary sources located in the city. Each successful applicant will receive a stipend of up to $3,500 to defray travel costs, housing, and meals in Rome.</p>
<p>The COVID-19 vaccine and booster are required of all students participating in the Rome Seminar.</p>
<p>The selection committee will notify applicants about the status of applications in December.</p>
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<p>Please submit: a CV, a statement of interest, the name of one referee and the email address of the referee to <strong><a href="https://apply.interfolio.com/131124">Interfolio</a></strong>. Please confirm with your referee directly that an Interfolio link arrives to upload your letter of reference. The selection committee will meet in early December to consider all complete applications.</p>
<p>For questions about the seminar, please contact Prof. Heather Minor at:<a href="http://hhydemin@nd.edu"> hhydemin@nd.edu</a>.</p>
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<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Staff</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://italianstudies.nd.edu/news-events/news/rome-archive-seminar-june-3-28-2023/">italianstudies.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">October 05, 2023</span>.</p>Stafftag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1568152023-09-28T10:31:00-04:002023-09-28T10:31:28-04:00Prof. Vanesa Miseres Co-Directs Award Winning Project<p>Professor Vanesa Miseres and Professor Ainaí Morales Pino (PUCP) have been awarded a research grant in the Annual Research Projects Competition of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP). Their one-year project, “Construction of a Latin American Feminist Archive at the Turn-of-the-Century,” focuses on feminist texts written by Latin American women writers and journalists from 1880 to 1920 and it includes authors like Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera, María Jesús Alvarado, Zoila Aurora Cáceres, Bertha Lutz, Adela Zamudio, Emma de la Barra, and Elvira Rawson, among other less-known intellectuals from the period.…</p><p>Professor Vanesa Miseres and Professor Ainaí Morales Pino (PUCP) have been awarded a research grant in the Annual Research Projects Competition of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP). Their one-year project, “Construction of a Latin American Feminist Archive at the Turn-of-the-Century,” focuses on feminist texts written by Latin American women writers and journalists from 1880 to 1920 and it includes authors like Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera, María Jesús Alvarado, Zoila Aurora Cáceres, Bertha Lutz, Adela Zamudio, Emma de la Barra, and Elvira Rawson, among other less-known intellectuals from the period.</p>
<p>During the tenure of the grant, Professor Miseres and Professor Morales Pino will complete archival research at the newspapers collection of the PUCP, the National Library of Peru, and Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Library Special Collections. Digital repositories such as those of the National Library of Chile, and the cultural magazines collections of both the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin and CeDInCI (Argentina) will also be central to their study. This is a work of applied research that will combine a vast theoretical and critical corpus on feminisms and Latin American intellectual history with archival work for the recovery and re-evaluation of women thinkers and activists in the history of the continent. Within the current academic year, Prof. Miseres and Prof. Morales Pino will complete 2 academic articles for publication and will design an anthology of feminist texts in Spanish for future publication in Latin America.</p>
<p>Prof. Miseres will complete a short research stay in Lima this Fall 2023 and Prof. Morales Pino will visit Notre Dame in the Spring 2024. These collaborative projects with faculty members of foreign institutions contribute to Notre Dame’s internationalization efforts and expands the department of Romance Languages’ visibility in Latin America.</p>Stafftag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1566412023-09-22T11:25:00-04:002023-09-28T12:55:53-04:00In memoriam: Tiziana Serafini, 62, teaching professor of Italian<p><a href="https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/people/faculty/tiziana-serafini/">Tiziana Serafini</a>, an Italian teaching professor in the Department of Romantic Languages and Literature known for her warmth and desire to help others through language, died in Rome last month from stomach cancer. She was 62. </p><p><a href="https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/people/faculty/tiziana-serafini/">Tiziana Serafini</a>, an Italian teaching professor in the Department of Romantic Languages and Literature, died in Rome last month from stomach cancer. She was 62.</p>
<p>An Italian native, Serafini received her master’s degree in American, English, and German Literature and Languages at Sapienza Università di Roma in Rome before completing her master’s and doctoral degrees in Italian Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. She then received her master's in language pedagogy, or teaching and promoting Italian as a foreign language, from Università Ca’ Foscari in Venice in 2015.</p>
<p>She came to the University of Notre Dame in 2016, after she served as the director of the Italian language program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and taught Italian language and literature courses at UCLA, the University of Southern California, Santa Monica College, and Los Angeles City College.</p>
<p>Once at Notre Dame, Serafini dedicated her time to teaching students her native Italian language and was known for her warmth and availability.</p>
<p>“Freshman year I had her as my first Italian professor ever,” Adele Bonomi, a senior who worked closely with Serafini, told <a href="https://ndsmcobserver.com/2023/09/students-remember-italian-professor-tiziana-serafini-for-passion-service/"><em>The Observer</em>.</a> “I had never taken it before. It was online. She was the one who made me super passionate about Italian.”</p>
<p>In addition to bonding with students, Serafini also connected with her colleagues in the <a href="https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/">Department of Romance Languages and Literature.</a> <a href="https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/people/faculty/alison-rice/">Alison Rice</a>, chair of the department and a professor of French, said they crossed paths frequently during the 2022 fall semester and she looked forward to the quick but warm interactions they shared, bonding over their love for reading, European chocolate, and dedication to their work.</p>
<p>“I admired many of Tiziana’s qualities, including what appeared to be boundless energy and a true desire to make a difference, in whatever way she could,” Rice said. “She was genuinely devoted to her students, never missing a chance to engage with them and never hesitating to spend meaningful hours in her office with them, going over course materials but also getting to know each of them. She took the time to establish personal relationships with students and colleagues alike, in the most professional manner.”</p>
<p>Her care for others extended beyond the classroom. In 2022, <a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/through-new-online-class-and-un-partnership-notre-dame-students-teach-italian-to-african-refugees/">she partnered</a> with the <a href="https://learning.nd.edu/who-we-are/office-of-digital-learning/">Office of Digital Learning</a> to offer an online course called Learning and Teaching Beyond the Classroom, which empowered students to become educators themselves by teaching basic Italian to African refugees as they relocated to Italy. Serafini co-taught the course with Suzanne Shanahan, Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director of the <a href="https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/">Center for Social Concerns</a>, and sought to make language learning all the more meaningful for students.</p>
<p>“We really need to rethink the teaching of foreign languages,” Serafini said of the project. “We need to be thinking in terms of the social needs that we see arising in societies every day, more and more with all the wars and tumultuous situations we see in the world.”</p>
<p>This passion for connecting and helping others through language is what made her so memorable, and what made her passing so difficult, Rice said.</p>
<p>“I miss Tiziana. My colleagues do as well,” Rice said. “We are grateful for her countless contributions to our department and will not soon forget her dedication to sharing the beauty of Romance languages and literature with others.”</p>
<p>Serafini is survived by two children. Following her death, a funeral service was held in Rome and a memorial service was held Sept. 1 at Malloy Hall Chapel on Notre Dame’s campus.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Mary Kinney</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/in-memoriam-tiziana-serafini-62-teaching-professor-of-italian/">al.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">September 19, 2023</span>.</p>Mary Kinneytag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1565312023-09-18T16:26:00-04:002023-09-18T16:26:48-04:00Professor Carlos Jauregui’s Book Wins Prestigious International Latino Book Award<p>The book "Emiliano Zapata 100 años, 100 fotos / Emiliano Zapata: 100 Years, 100 Photographs," co-authored and co-edited by Professor Carlos Jauregui, David Solodkow, and Karina Herazo, has won 'The Dolores Huerta Best Cultural & Community Themed Book Award' at the XXV International Latino Book Awards (ILBA 2023). Published in 2022 by Casasola-México and Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, the work will be formally recognized at an award ceremony scheduled for late October in Los Angeles.<br>Congratulations!…</p><p>The book "Emiliano Zapata 100 años, 100 fotos / Emiliano Zapata: 100 Years, 100 Photographs," co-authored and co-edited by Professor Carlos Jauregui, David Solodkow, and Karina Herazo, has won 'The Dolores Huerta Best Cultural & Community Themed Book Award' at the XXV International Latino Book Awards (ILBA 2023). Published in 2022 by Casasola-México and Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, the work will be formally recognized at an award ceremony scheduled for late October in Los Angeles.<br>Congratulations!</p>Maurcia Marschketag:romancelanguages.nd.edu,2005:News/1558972023-09-05T08:10:00-04:002023-09-05T08:10:49-04:00Romance languages professor wins NEH grant for analysis and preservation of poet Rubén Darío’s influential work<p>María Rosa Olivera-Williams is leading a team of scholars from the U.S., England, and Argentina to analyze four volumes of Nicaraguan writer Rubén Darío lesser-known journalistic essays. She recently won an NEH <a href="https://www.neh.gov/sites/default/files/inline-files/NEH%20grant%20awards%20August%202023.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery">Scholarly Editions and Translations grant, </a>which will allow her to continue compiling, analyzing, and publicizing Darío’s work.</p><p>When <a href="https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/people/faculty/maria-rosa-olivera-williams/">María Rosa Olivera-Williams</a> was 4 years old, she would memorize the poems she had heard her mother read aloud.</p>
<p>This early love of literature blossomed Olivera-William’s career in Latin American literature and cultural studies and, ultimately, her research on Nicaraguan writer Rubén Darío which has now received significant support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.</p>
<p>“Of course, I didn't understand what the words meant, but the whole thing, it was beautiful so I remember knowing them by heart,” said Olivera-Williams, a professor in Notre Dame’s <a href="http://romancelanguages.nd.edu/">Department of Romance Languages and Literatures</a>. “Then I discovered how impossible that a little kid or high school-aged kid would know all of the depths. So my love of literature started with Darío.”</p>
<p>Hailed by some scholars as the “father of <em>modernismo</em>,” Darío transformed poetry in the Spanish-speaking world that became relevant across Latin American and Spanish societies. Its literary impact is comparable to one of America’s most beloved stories.</p>
<p>“In American literature, Mark Twain's <em>Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</em> is held up as a kind of novel to which all other American fiction can be traced,” Olivera-Williams said. “In Spanish-language poetry, that same considerable distinction is held by Darío.”</p>
<p>A defender of Latin American spiritualism, Darío spoke out against America’s materialism that many U.S.-based Latino citizens resonate with to this day. His lesser-known journalistic essays were published in hundreds of newspapers and journals throughout the world and helped shape leaders’ attitudes on many topics.</p>
<p>But, over time, some of his work became lost in translation.</p>
<p>“His journalistic work has often been overlooked, mischaracterized, or poorly and incompletely edited,” Olivera-Williams said.</p>
<p>Olivera-Williams is remedying erroneous adaptations of Darío’s journalistic work by dissecting four volumes of his essays — specifically<em> Los Raros</em> (The Strange Ones, 1896 and 1905),<em> España contemporánea </em>(Contemporary Spain, 1901),<em> Opiniones</em> (Opinions, 1906), and<em> Parisiana </em>(Parisian 1907) — with her research effort,<em> </em>“Rubén Darío: Critical Editions Project.”</p>
<figure class="image-left"><img src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/529382/1908_rojas_chiappori.jpg" alt="Nicaraguan writer Rubén Darío" width="600" height="387">
<figcaption>Nicaraguan writer Rubén Darío pictured here with other important writers and personalities of his time.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The project, led by Olivera-Williams along with a team of scholars from the U.S., England, and Argentina, recently won an NEH <a href="https://www.neh.gov/sites/default/files/inline-files/NEH%20grant%20awards%20August%202023.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery">Scholarly Editions and Translations grant</a>. The money will allow her to continue compiling, analyzing, and publicizing Darío’s work.</p>
<p>“I am super happy that Notre Dame is going to be associated with Darío forever,” said Olivera-Williams, a faculty fellow of the <a href="https://kellogg.nd.edu/">Kellogg Institute for International Studies</a> and <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a>. “In a way, this project was born many years ago without me being conscious that it was going to flourish into this wonderful project.”</p>
<p>The project relies on the <a href="https://rarebooks.library.nd.edu/collections/latin_american/dario.shtml">Alfonso Vijil Private Collection on Rubén Darío</a>, a collection of over 1,700 pieces acquired by the University in 2008 and housed in the <a href="https://www.library.nd.edu/">Hesburgh Library</a>. The collection is considered the “most complete private collection of Darío-related documents in the world,” Olivera-Williams said.</p>
<p>The endeavor previously <a href="https://isla.nd.edu/news-and-events/news/prof-maria-rosa-olivera-williams-interdisciplinary-research-seed-grants-21-organizes-conference-on-influential-nicaraguan-writer-ruben-dario/">received support</a> from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts’<a href="https://isla.nd.edu/for-faculty/funding-opportunities/interdisciplinary-research-seed-grants/"> Interdisciplinary Research Seed Grant</a> to host a 2021 virtual workshop called “<a href="https://latinostudies.nd.edu/news-events/events/2021/11/09/workshop-ruben-dario-in-the-us-translation-challenges/">Rubén Darío in the U.S.: Translation Challenges</a>,” in which scholars discussed recovering Darío’s widespread work and the challenges translating it into English entails.</p>
<p>It has also earned a grant from the <a href="https://research.nd.edu/our-services/funding-opportunities/faculty/internal-grants-programs/rsp-rg/">Research and Scholarship Program</a> to hold a symposium of experts in Latin American literary studies, comparative literature, popular culture, and translation studies to discuss research on Darío’s poetry and prose. The discussions will be held on November 2 and 3 at Notre Dame.</p>
<p>With the NEH grant, Olivera-Williams’ team will continue to highlight any misattributions and misprints, add insightful annotations, and provide critical analysis of previously archived versions of Darío’s work that continue to have influential cultural effects.</p>
<p>The breakdown of his work will also make Darío’s essays more accessible not only to Latin American scholars, but to the general American public as well.</p>
<p>For Olivera-Williams, receiving the grant is about more than support for her research — it reflects the NEH’s commitment to preserving important creative works from diverse voices.</p>
<p>“The NEH is fostering the value of diversity upon which the U.S. was founded by helping recognize and preserve the cultural heritage of a major constituency that has been sidelined from the way the story of America has been told,” she said. “The lingering influence of Darío's <em>oeuvre </em>among the non-academic U.S.-based Latinx community today cannot be overstated.”</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Mary Kinney</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/romance-languages-professor-wins-neh-grant-for-analysis-and-preservation-of-poet-ruben-darios-influential-work/">al.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">August 31, 2023</span>.</p>Mary Kinney