Lingua Franca*

Newsletter
Department of Romance and Arabic Languages and Literatures (RALL)
University of Cincinnati
June 2019

*Lingua Franca: a common language consisting of Italian mixed with French, Spanish, Greek, and Arabic that was formerly spoken in Mediterranean ports; any of various languages used as common or commercial tongues among peoples of diverse speech (Merriam Webster Dictionary)

As incoming Head of RALL I have had the privilege to support and take part in many exciting projects in our department during this 2018-19 academic year. One of our highest points this year was the long-overdue change of our departmental name from Romance Languages and Literatures (RLL) to Romance and Arabic Languages and Literatures (RALL). This formally acknowledges the importance of our Arabic program, which has grown largely thanks to the dedication of our colleagues in Arabic Fred Cadora and Grace Thome. Grace Thome received a $87,533 STARTALK grant for this summer. The STARTALK Arabic summer program held at UC is a 4-week college immersion summer program designed to provide high school students with an introduction to Arabic language and culture and, upon completion of the program, five semester hours of college credit.

The number of majors, minors, and certificates conferred this year reflects the broad interdisciplinary range of our teaching and scholarly interests. Thirty-three students graduated from our department with BAs in Spanish, French, or Arabic, including three students with Honors and twenty with High Honors. Forty-six students received Minors in Spanish, French, or Arabic Language and Culture. Twenty-four students also received Certificates in Business French, Business Spanish, Spanish/English Translation, Spanish for Social Work and Health Care Services, and Italian Language and Culture. Nine students graduated with MAs in French or Spanish, and three students graduated with a PhD in Romance Languages.

Among our many areas of strength is the variety of study abroad programs that we continue to offer, allowing students to go to Madrid, Bordeaux, Guatemala, Morocco, Rome, and Naples. Our Emerita faculty member Anne-Marie Jézéquel will lead a new study abroad program in Brest, Brittany, this summer. Joyce Miller submitted a proposal for a new study abroad program with the College of Business, “Addressing social issues through cultural immersion and business strategy,” which will provide students an opportunity to study strategies for the growing waste management crisis in Rome and Naples, Italy, through language and cultural immersion. Ibrahim Amidou is exploring the creation of a new study abroad program in French-speaking Lomé, Togo.

New and ongoing initiatives in RALL illustrate its multifaceted interdisciplinarity and our faculty’s expertise in literary, film, and cultural studies, Second Language Acquisition, and Creative Writing. Michael Gott curated the Dynamic Paris Film series at the Cincinnati Art Museum, in conversation with the exhibition Paris 1900: City of Entertainment. Presented in partnership with the UC Center for Film and Media Studies, a selection of documentary and fiction films depicted the city and culture of Paris in 1900 and explored the dynamic nature of the City of Light’s urban fabric over the 20th century. Andrés Pérez-Símon has led the development of a collaborative relationship between RALL and CANS (Clifton Area Neighborhood School), a new neighborhood school. He and Tara Reilly, a graduate student in Spanish, volunteered teaching Spanish there during the year. We plan to develop this collaborative relationship more formally, to expand Spanish instruction to kindergarten and first-grade students while providing internship and training opportunities to our students. Jen Vojtko Rubí implemented the transition of all first-year Spanish language courses to “flipped” learning models, thereby allowing students to achieve fluency more effectively and positioning our Basic Language program as an innovative model of 21st century pedagogical best practices and methodologies. Kara Moranski lent her own expertise in Applied Linguistics and organized the RALL Pedagogy Journal Club, led by graduate students Abbie Finnegan and Ursula Atisme and allowing RALL graduate students to meet monthly, present, and discuss current research in language teaching and learning. We organized the first edition of our departmental “Food Week” in Fall 2018. Our 39th Cincinnati Conference on Romance and Arabic Languages and Literatures (CCRALL) also included a special session on Food and Culture with renowned French chef Jean-Robert de Cavel and was part of the events organized during the UC Bicentennial Community Day.

We continued developing our long-term collaboration with English, focused on multi-lingual projects in Creative Writing and translation involving faculty and students, with a series of workshops planned for next year and a co-taught class planned for the following year. Finally, our faculty members continue to be recognized for their outstanding work in Creative Writing: Maria Paz Moreno is the fifth faculty member in RALL, alongside Donald Bleznick, Pat O’Connor, Armando Romero, and Nicasio Urbina, to receive the George Rieveschl Jr. Award for Creative and/or Scholarly Works.

Maria Paz Moreno read her poem “The Stubbornness of Water” (part of a book in progress) at the 2019 All-University Faculty Award Ceremony.
2018-19 was an exciting and productive year for our department, and I look forward to the next academic year!

Thérèse Migraine-George

Fred Cadora spearheaded a proposal for a Certificate in Islamic Studies. His textbook Literary Arabic Grammar, Parts I-IV [about 500 pages], which was posted on Blackboard for use, continues to be revised. He gave a presentation “The Arabic Spice Road” at Langsam Library as part of the 2018 Fall RLL Food Week.

Mauricio Espinoza received a Taft Summer Research Fellowship, was asked to join the advisory board for the Ashland Poetry Press (Ashland University), and published several book chapters: “Drawing Up a ‘Post’-Latin America: The Possibilities and Limits of Gender Imagination in Post-Apocalyptic, Post-Human, and Post-Historical Graphic Narrative.” The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sex and Latin American Culture. Ed. Frederick Aldama. New York: Routledge, 2018; with Luis Estrada Orozco: “Hard Punches, Vulnerable Bodies: Latin

American Boxing Films and the Intersections of Gender, Class, and Nation.” The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sex and Latin American Culture, 2018; “Joysticks and Jaguars: Bribri-Inspired Games in Neoliberal Costa Rica.” Indigenous Interfaces: Spaces, Technology, and Social Networks in Mexico and Central America. Eds. Jennifer Gómez Menjívar and Gloria Elizabeth Chacón. University of Arizona Press, 2018.

Ligia Gomez received the award Excelencia en “Justicia Social” at the Latina Expo. Cincinnati, June 10, 2018, for her work with the Hispanic Community through UC & Apoyo Latino. She was invited to participate in a panel titled Developing the next generation of health care professionals to serve the Latino population at The Latino Health Summit in August 2018 at the School of Medicine, and she was invited to be part of a research group coordinated by Ohio State. The title of the project is “Engaging Language Professionals for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research with Latino Communities.”

Michael Gott published Cinema-monde: Decentred Perspectives on Global Filmmaking in French, edited by Michael Gott and Thibaut Schilt. Edinburgh University Press, 2018. It includes his essay “Lost at Sea or Charting a New Course? Mapping the Contours of cinéma-monde in Floating Francophone Films.” He also co-edited with Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp (University of Rhode Island) a special issue of the journal Contemporary French Civilization on the topic of “World Cinema and Television in French” and published several articles and book chapters, including “France after the Crisis: Work, Home and Flexible Solidarity in Les neiges du Kilimandjaro (2011) and Ma part du gâteau (2011)” in Contemporary European Cinema: Crisis Narratives and Narratives in Crisis (Routledge, 2018).

Carlos Gutiérrez ended his term as head of the department last year. As a result of interdisciplinary collaborations in art projects with DAAP, Cincinnati Art Museum and Google Arts & Culture, he was part of two online exhibits: https://cincinnatiartmuseum.org/art/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/frida/ https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/AQJSeywc0iFIIw
He received the 2019 Distinguished Teaching Award for outstanding dedication to teaching within the university community and beyond from the Latino Faculty Association at UC.

Fenfang Hwu gave two conference presentations: “Minimizing Transactional Distance: A Case Study of Web-Based Synchronous and Web-Based Asynchronous Grammar Courses” at the Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO) Annual Symposium, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and “A Study of Transactional Distance in Two Web-Based Spanish Grammar Courses: Synchronous and Asynchronous” at the CCRALL (Cincinnati Conference on Romance and Arabic Languages and Literatures).

Irene Ivantcheva-Merjanska received a letter of recognition and a pin “Next Lives Here” from President Pinto as a sign of appreciation for her service on the TAG committee for ODHE (Ohio Department of Higher Education). Her poems were published in the online poetry journal Tupelo Quarterly, in translation by the poet and English Professor Holly Karapetkova (Marymount University). She is invited at the prestigious 29th Medellin International Poetry Festival, Colombia this summer, as one of 80 invited poets from 35 countries. She will read her poems in 3 languages.

Anne-Marie Jézéquel retired at the end of last Fall as an Associate Professor Educator and is now an Emerita faculty member. She completed her PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures in 2006. In her long and productive career at UC Prof. Jézéquel taught a wide range of French classes including classes on food, fashion, and literature from French-speaking Canada. She has also led more than a dozen study abroad trips and has even been knighted by the French government for her commendable efforts to promote French culture in the US. Recently, Prof. Jézéquel purchased her family house in Brittany, France, and

announced plans to move back home half the year. She will lead a study abroad trip to Brittany for students this summer and continues to be actively involved in the life of RALL. Thanks to her persistence and connections the department was able to invite renowned Cincinnati French chef Jean-Robert de Cavel to come speak at UC as part of the UC Bicentennial Community Day. She was elected on the Emeriti Association Board.

Nuria López-Ortega served as Director of Curriculum and Assistant Head this year. She received the 2019 Award for Faculty Excellence from The Office of the Provost and The Office of Research.

Kathryn Lorenz, Professor emerita, was named the 2019 Loveland Valentine Lady for her service to the Loveland and greater Cincinnati community. She visited with over 1000 Loveland area school students and promoted Loveland’s Valentine history.

David McLaughlin teaches Portuguese and is organizing the Pragda Film Series, which will feature various Lusophone films next year.

Thérèse Migraine-George served as head. She published the entry “Woubi Chéri” in The Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, edited by Howard Chiang. Charles Scribner’s Son, 2019; with Ashley Currier she published “The Incommensurability of the ‘Transnational’ in Queer African Studies” in College Literature 45 (4), edited by Taiwo Adetunji Osinubi, 2018.

Kara Moranski received a Provost Group/Interdisciplinary Award for a proposal co-authored with T. Migraine-George and J. Vojtko Rubí. She co-authored and published with P.D. Toth “Why haven’t we solved instructed SLA? A sociocognitive account,” Foreign Language Annals, 51 (Special Issue) and co-organized, with N. Ziegler, a colloquium on “Multi-site studies in SLA research: Opportunities for increasing ecological validity” at the Second Language Research Forum (Montreal).

Maria Paz Moreno published two books: Madrid: A Culinary History. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2018 and From the Other Shore / De la otra orilla. Translation by Yunsuk Chae. Granada, Spain & Clayton, GA: Valparaíso Editions, 2018. In addition to publishing her poetry, giving multiple talks, book presentations, and poetry readings she received several awards including the 2019 George Rieveschl Jr. Award for Creative and/or Scholarly Works and the 2019 Distinguished Contributions to Spanish Literature Award from the Latino Faculty Association.

Pat O’Connor’s work, scholarship, and academic legacy were recognized and honored at our 39th Cincinnati Conference on RALL. She was also honored in Madrid during last summer at an homage organized by the Spanish Author’s Society (SGAE) for her contributions to contemporary Spanish theater. She presented “La puta de las mil noches: Una nueva Scherezade” at our 38th Cincinnati Conference; “La puta de las mil noches de Juana Escabias: Interaccion entre autora, personajes y parábolas atemporales” in Madrid at the V Congreso Internacional Estreno (June 2018); and “Paradise and Love in Ana Diosdado’s Unpublished Final Play: El cielo que me tienes prometido,” Cáceres, Spain, in June 2018. She also published the following articles: “Ana Diosdado.” London: The Literary Encyclopedia (available online), 2018; “Juana Escabias: Pasión y reflexión,” in a volume of articles on Juana Escabias entitled Juana Escabias: Estudios sobre su teatro, coordinated by Rossana de Fialdini. Sevilla: Benilde Ediciones, 2018: 21-41; “La puta de las mil noches de Juana Esabias: interacción entre autoría, personajes y parábolas de todos los tiempos,” Espacios de diálogo: autoría, dirección, interpretación. Madrid: Número especial de Estreno, 2019: 206-14; and “La realidad puede superar la fantasía,” Prologue to Firmado Lejárraga, by Vanessa Montfort. Madrid: Centro Dramático Nacional, 2019: 9-13.

Andrés Pérez-Simón published ‘Despistemes’: La teoría literaria y cultural de Emil Volek (antología de textos). Madrid: Verbum, 2018. In Fall 2018, he served as interim director of the Taft Research Center. With Arlene Johnson (UC Libraries), he continues leading the project of digitization of the Patricia O’Connor Papers. He was invited to deliver the lecture “The Playwright as Producer: Lorca and the Commercial Theater of the 1920s,” at Brown University in September and organized “The Prague School Today: Rethinking Performance in Contemporary Context” Conference, held at the University of Toronto, March 23-24. In this conference he also delivered the paper “Breaking the Illusion in the World of Disney: The Case of Moana (2016).” With Emil Volek, he recently published a translation, with a critical introduction, of Otakar Zich’s “The Theatrical Illusion,” a fragment of his Aesthetics of Dramatic Art, in PMLA 134.2 (March 2019): 351-8.

Armando Romero was honored by the International Poetry Festival of Bogotá, Colombia, 2018

Grace Thome received a STARTALK grant to support a Summer Arabic Program for high school students; the mission of STARTALK, a federally-funded program established by the National Security Initiative, is to expand foreign language education in under-taught critical languages. She also received a letter of recognition and a pin “Next Lives Here” from President Pinto as a sign of appreciation for service on the TAG committee for ODHE (Ohio Department of Higher Education), which is a state-wide panel.

Nicasio Urbina published “La obra ensayística de Sergio Ramírez.” Latin American Literature Today, 8, November 2018; “Epístola católica a Rafael Arévalo Martínez de Azarías H. Pallais.” Centroamericana, 27.2 (2018); “Francisco de Asís Fernández: El placer del texto.” En mis manos no se marchita la belleza. Homenaje múltiple al poeta Francisco de Asís Fernández. Managua: Academia Nicaragüense de la Lengua, 2018; a Selection of poems in Spanish and English. Free Verse 29, October 2018; “Intrebari,” “Despre abi.” Rumanian translation by Carmen Firan. Scrisul Romanescu 3.175 (March 2018): 16; “Poemas de China”. La Otra. 11.131, March 2018. He also published multiple newspaper articles in Confidencial, presented papers, and gave creative writing readings.

Patricia Valladares-Ruiz published Narrativas del descalabro: La novela venezolana en tiempos de revolución, Suffolk, UK, Tamesis Books, 2018. She also presented a research paper “Reordenamiento del campo literario venezolano del siglo XXI” at the 42nd Annual Conference of the International Institute of Latin American Literature in Bogotá, Colombia in June 2018.

Michèle Vialet received the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Advisor Award, Division of Experience-Based Learning and Career Education, UC, for her mentoring of student research projects (2018) and was nominated this past April for the 2019 Award. She is leading the 5th edition of a Study Tour focused on European Union Perspectives from Bordeaux and Southwest France.

Ursula Atisme presented a research paper titled “Una mirada al pasado desde el presente de Soldados de Salamina de Javier Cercas y La voz dormida de Dulce Chacón” at the 14th Annual Tierra Tinta Conference at the University of Oklahoma on October 2018, and another research paper at our 39th CCRALL earlier this month titled “Vestigios picarescos en Siberia Blues de Néstor Sánchez.”

Olivia Barrera taught at Anahuac University Theater critics and Theater Education and Society. She has been directing their final project Ajax, that will premiere on May 16th at El Telón de Asfalto. She is working on the redirecting of The Shakesperean Tour and it will premiere on June 22 at Teatro Benito Juarez. Lastly, she went to a conference at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) where she presented: “Translating Shakespeare and Elizabethan works to Spanish, main challenges.”

Andrea Beaudoin received the Dean’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship for the 2019-20 academic year, a Publication award, and a Taft Graduate Summer Fellowship.

Tiffanie Clark was a Yates Scholar from Fall 2016 to Spring 2019 and received the Taft Dissertation Fellowship for the 2019-20 academic year. She presented her paper “Disenchanted Nostalgia: Three Collections of Poetry by Ilka Oliva Corado” at MELUS (The Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature in the United States), 2019. She published the book review “Monster by Trade” in the Romance Review 2019 and was Board Member of The Arlitt Center for Education, Research and Sustainability.

Julia Escobar received a Publication Award. She published “La aventura demorada de Elisa Mújica.” Revista Universidad de Antioquia, no. 33, July-September 2018; “Cartografía de un viaje.” Revista Universidad de Antioquia, no. 34, October-December 2018; “Seis pies bajo tierra.” Líneas cruzadas, Medellín: Hilo de Plata Editores, 2018; “El performance (anti)académico de Ilan Stavans.” Revista Universidad de Antioquia, no. 35, January-March 2019, (upcoming). She gave the presentation: “Desideologización, viaje circular y errancia en Beltenebros de Antonio Muñoz Molina.” Tierra Tinta Conference: 14th Annual Conference on Latin American, Spanish, Francophone, and Luso-Brazilian Literatures, 25 October 2018, The University of Oklahoma.

María del Mar Gámez received a Publication Award. She published a peer-reviewed article, “La posible influencia del Romancero Gitano de Federico García Lorca en Cuentos de Barro de Salarrué” in Tropelías, Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada (University of Zaragoza, Spain) and “La posible influencia del Romancero Gitano de Federico García Lorca en Cuentos de Barro de Salarrué.” Tropelías. Revista de Teoría de la literatura y literatura comparada, Núm. 30 (2018); Espinola, M., James-Kangal, N., Gamez Garcia, M. Odisho, N., & Olivera-Figueroa, L. “Life as means of deception within art and truth within psyche: A comprehensive analysis of romantic deception portrayals in art and psychology.” In T. Docan-Morgan (Ed.), Handbook of Deceptive Communication. London: Palgrave McMillan. She gave an invited talk about her play La fauna del poder. Rutgers University (New Jersey), March 13th, 2019.

Ashley Johann gave an invited talk: “The Hybrid Course from a TA’s Perspective.” Online Language Teaching at UC: What’s Working at UC in October 2018 and the following presentations: “Lazarillo de Tormes: A incorporar el canon en las clases de nivel básico.” Cincinnati Conference on Romance and Arabic Languages and Literatures, 2019; “Active Learning: Going Beyond ‘Textbook + Lecture = Class.’” “Get Up and Go” Workshop. University of Cincinnati, January 2019, Cincinnati, OH; “Before the Class: Planning and Preparation.”; “Work-Life Balance.” “Get Up and Go” Workshop. University of Cincinnati, August 2018, Cincinnati, OH.

Rodrigo Mariño received a Taft Graduate Summer Fellowship. Revista Iberoamericana has accepted his article (“Las formas de la historia: narratividad, discurso y metaficción en La forma de las ruinas de Juan Gabriel Vásquez”) for publication.

Miriam Yvonn Márquez-Barragán received a Publication Award. She published two peer-reviewed articles: “Boleros entre las ruinas: Memoria íntima y memoria histórica en La isla de los amores infinitos de Daína Chaviano.” TROPOS Journal. Interdisciplinary approaches in the Romance Languages, Literatures and Cultures. (Michigan: Michigan State University, 2018) and “Baile como expresión de femineidad y erotismo en Federico García Lorca”, Raudem. Revista de estudios de las mujeres. (Almería: Universidad de Almería. 2018). She also published the article “Elena Garro. Itinerario teatral” and a book review “El huésped: la dualidad de Guadalupe Nettel” in the electronic journal Cambiavías. Letras Mexicanas Contemporáneas, (Fall 2018) where she was invited to join the editorial board on January 2019. She was accepted to present a paper about women in the Mexican Revolution in the work of Rafael F. Muñoz at Latin American Studies Association conference in Boston, Massachusetts.

Sheyanna Schnepper presented at three conferences: 2018 - Sigma Tau Delta International English Convention, Short story presentation, Cincinnati “Will-o-Wisps”; 2019 -Sigma Tau Delta International English Convention, Short Story Presentation, St. Louis, “The Hitchhiker”; 2019 - RALL Conference, “Les Doubles dans Kamouraska.

Víctor Vimos published an article in Antropología. Cuadernos de Investigación (“El rayo multiplicado: ritos, símbolos e ideología en el carnaval de Santa Cruz de Guamote [Ecuador] y el marcaje de ganado en Moya [Perú]. Una lectura comparada”). Spring 2019 was the inaugural semester for RALL Pedagogy Journal Club organized by Kara Moranski and led by graduate students Abbie Finnegan and Ursula Atisme. This semester’s presenters included Ursula Atisme, Abbie Finnegan, and Dani Granja. Journal Club will continue for the 2019-2020 academic year.

Andrea Ori, who graduated this spring with a double major in medical sciences and French, will continue her studies as a Fulbright Research Study/Grant Recipient at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. She is one of five UC students to receive a Fulbright Award this year. Two students in Arabic, Gordon Goodwin and Alexandra Pasqualone, have been selected for the highly competitive Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program for the study of Arabic in Morocco by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Andie Anderson and Alberta Negri, who received their BAs in Spanish with High Honors, and Divya Takkellapati, who received her BA in French with High Honors, were inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society this Spring.

Ph.D

  • Stephanie Alcantar (2018). Miami University (Visiting Assistant Professor)
  • Luis Miguel Estrada Orozco (2017), Brown University (Postdoctoral fellow)
  • Juan Camilo Galeano (2017), Miami University (Visiting Assistant Professor)
  • Aurelio Auseré (2017), Ursuline Academy (Teacher)
  • David Gómez-Cambronero Madrid (2016), University of Cincinnati-Clermont (Assistant Professor)
  • Manuel R. Montes (2016), U. of Toledo (Assistant Professor)
  • Paola Cadena (2016), College of the Holy Cross (Visiting Assistant Professor)
  • Mirela Butnaru (2015), Denison University (Visiting Assistant Professor)
  • Martín Cervetto (2015), Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, Perú (Professor)
  • Pascale Abadie (2014), Wright State University, Dayton, OH (Assistant Professor)
  • Eugenia Charoni (2013), Flager College (Assistant Professor and Director of the Language Program)
  • Étienne Achille (2013), Villanova University, PA (Assistant Professor)
  • Manuel Iris (2013), DePaul Cristo Rey High School and Cincinnati’s Poet Laureate (2018)*
  • Isabel Gómez Sobrino (2012), East Tennessee State U. (Assistant Professor)
  • María Clemencia Sánchez (2011), Universidad Bolivariana de Medellín, Colombia
  • Matthew Fehskens (2011), East Tennessee State U. (Associate Professor)

MA

  • Metycia Bengmo (2018), University of Wisconsin-Madison (Ph.D. student)
  • Roufia Dehmani (2018), Ohio State University (Ph.D. student)
  • Sammy Belhafian (2017), Carroll High School (Teacher)
  • Giovanni Bello (2017), Stony Brook University (Ph.D.student)
  • Amanda Smith (2016), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (PhD)**
  • Julia Camp (2013), Université d’Angers, France
  • María Carmen Hernández (2012), Miami University, OH (Lecturer)

* Manuel Iris, who received his PhD in Romance Languages from UC, was selected by Mayor John Cranley in 2018 to serve a two-year term as Cincinnati Poet Laureate. He is a writer, translator, and a teacher who has lived in Cincinnati since 2008. He received the National award of poetry Merida (Mexico, 2009) for his book Notebook of Dreams (Cuaderno de los sueños), and the Regional Award of Poetry Rodulfo Figueroa for his book The Disguises of Fire (Los disfraces del fuego) in 2015. His poetry has also been included in national and international anthologies. He has participated in poetry readings in various cultural venues in Cincinnati and is a member of the Greater Cincinnati Writers League.

** Amanda Smith received her Master’s in French Literature and Pedagogy from the University of Cincinnati in 2016. She was admitted into the French and Italian Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018 and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in French Literature and a graduate minor in African-American Studies there. Her research interests include 20th and 21st century French and Francophone literature, post-colonial literature, and migrant literature, as well as 20th and 21st century African-American literature from a comparative perspective. Her current research addresses current and historical communication between leaders and participants in social movements that fall under the umbrella term of the African diaspora, and conceptualizations of black France.

BA

  • Kris Caudell (2018) - Grad school RALL
  • Abbie Finnegan (2018) - Grad school RALL
  • Tim Hawk (2018) - Grad school, Barcelona, Spain
  • Corinne Dabran (2018) - year abroad in Spain, teacher’s assistant
  • Zoe Anderson (2017, minor) - grad school, UC, physiology
  • Alex Shelton (2018, minor) - Guatemala, Humanitarian program
  • Irini Sfyris (2016) - R&S Scientist at Procter & Gamble
  • Jonathan Hilton (2013) - lawyer, Columbus, Ohio
  • Allison Ng (2011) - Doctor, Family Practice, Cincinnati
  • Jesse Taylor (2011) - lawyer, Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky

Although many donors prefer to remain anonymous I would like to thank all those who have donated to the department for their tremendous generosity, which has had a powerful impact on our department, on both our undergraduate and graduate students, and on our faculty. Among other sources of funding, the Betty Jane Hull Scholarship, the Emily Frank Adler Award for Study Abroad, the Edward Coughlin Scholarship, the Pat O’Connor Grant for International Study, and the Dr. Karen L. Gould Scholarship in Foreign Language Studies Endowment Fund are allowing sixteen undergraduate students to go and study abroad this year. Additional donations are allowing us to give summer prizes to graduate students to support various projects connected to the promotion of foreign languages and cultures, to buy material and equipment for our department, and to support our many social, cultural, and scholarly events throughout the year. Donations allow us to grow and thrive and we are deeply grateful to all our donors for their generosity.

If you would like to give to our department please consult this webpage: https://www.artsci.uc.edu/departments/rall/giving.html

You can also email the head of the department, Thérèse Migraine-George, for more information on the various areas that you can support in our department.