Lingua Franca*

Dear Friends of RALL,

We had a very productive year as a department with many outstanding achievements to celebrate.

Among our many successes this past year, we were able to hire two new faculty members who will join us in Fall 2022: Dr. Siham Bouamer will start as Assistant Professor of Global French and Dr. Pavel Andrade as Visiting Assistant Professor of Mexican/Latinx Literature. Welcome, Siham and Pavel! Dr. Muhammad Faruque will also be (re)starting in the Fall in his new endowed position of Inayat and Ishrat Malik Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies. Ligia Gómez retired at the end of this year but, fortunately for us, will come back as Adjunct professor in the Fall.

Despite the persistent challenges created by the pandemic we were able to have on-campus events again during this past 2021-22 academic year. Our French, Arabic, and Italian Day and our Spanish and Portuguese Day, as well as our RALL Undergraduate Student Forum, our 2022 Cincinnati Conference on Romance and Arabic Languages and Literatures (CCRALL), and our end-of-the-year RALL Ceremony were held in a hybrid format and were all resounding successes. The 2022 CCRALL, directed by Prof. Nicasio Urbina and co-chaired by graduate students Dani Granja and Lucas Proper with the help of Head GA Camila Valdebenito, featured Katelyn Knox (University of Central Kansa) as our Keynote Speaker for French and Naomi Quiñonez (San Francisco State University) as our Keynote Speaker for Spanish. Among many other achievements this past year, volume 52 of our Cincinnati Romance Review, edited by Prof. Patricia Valladares-Ruiz with the help of assistant editor Olga Sanz Casasnovas, was published. Coordinated by Professor Carlos Nogueira (Universidade de Vigo), this special issue is dedicated to Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago, whose 100^th anniversary of his birth we celebrate in 2022. You can read and download its nine articles at https://www.artsci.uc.edu/crr.html. Our department also led in the creation of a new A&S Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Translation and Translation Studies, which will be directed by Prof. Mauricio Espinoza. Although several of our summer study abroad programs had to be cancelled again this year, Prof. Shureka Nyawalo has planned an exciting and well-enrolled study abroad program at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne, France (https://www.artsci.uc.edu/departments/rall/study-abroad/france.html) and Professor Juan Godoy Peñas will lead the second edition of the Summer Spanish Local Immersion Program, which already drew great enrollment last year (https://www.artsci.uc.edu/departments/rall/lli.html).

At the end of the Spring we gathered for a RALL “family picnic.” We had a great time chatting, sharing food, and spending time together. Once again it has been a pleasure and an honor for me to serve as RALL department Head and I look forward to working with everyone again next year.

Have a great and safe summer!

Thérèse Migraine-George

Heather Arden (Emerita) performed in three piano recitals this year. Also, she was invited  to give a talk to Prof. Platt’s art history survey course in DAAP.  Her topic was Le Roman de la Rose and medieval art.

Mauricio Espinoza received a Taft Summer Fellowship to work on his book project “The Song That Speaks Two Words:” U.S. Central American Poetry from Civil Wars to Migrant Caravans.

Muhammad Faruque published his book Sculpting the Self: Islam, Selfhood, and Human Flourishing (University of Michigan Press, 2021). He received a $27,000 grant from the Global Philosophy of Religion Project (GPRP) – Small Projects Grant Fund to organize an international conference this summer called From the Divine to the Human: New Perspectives on Evil, Suffering, and the Global Pandemic. He will be starting this Fall as Inayat and Ishrat Malik Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies.

Juan Godoy Peñas won a Dean's Award for Innovative Instruction and was featured in UC News: https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2022/02/uc-faculty-recognized-for-innovative-instruction-in-the-classroom.html

Michael Gott guest edited an issue of the journal Contemporary French Civilization (April 2022, 47.1) on the theme of “New Directions in cinéma-monde.” CFC is one of the preeminent journals in the wide field of interdisciplinary French and Francophone Studies. The issue includes his introduction (“Introduction: New directions in cinéma-monde, from Quebec to Kinshasa and the moon”) and his essay on “Orienteering (though) cinema-monde: The hubs, networks, borders, and forests of airport cinema.” The special issue of EuropeNow (the journal of the Council for European Studies) on “European Culture and the Moving Image” that he co-edited can be found here online: https://www.europenowjournal.org/2021/09/12/european-culture/ and features his article on “border series.” He will be an invited participant in the Andrew W. Mellon Workshop "Im/Mobilities: New Directions in the Humanities" at the American Academy in Berline in June, 2022.

Irene Ivantcheva-Merjanska presented at the 9th International literary festival of Sofia (Sofia, Bulgaria, 7- 12 December 2021) on 7^th of December – online live interview and reading (IX Софийски международен литературен фестивал 7- 12 декември 2021 г.  https://kulturni-novini.info/sections/11/news/33818-nad-100-uchastnitsi-v-sofiyski-mezhdunaroden-literaturen-festival-2021-g) and at the 15th World Poetry Festival of Venezuela  (13 - 24 October 2021) – poetry reading in Spanish and English.

Thérèse Migraine-George published a book chapter: “French in the World: Francophone Literary Translingualism.” The Routledge Handbook of Translingual Literature, ed. Steven G. Kellman and Natasha Lvovitch. 140-151 (2021).

Kara Moranski was selected by the A&S Dean as a recipient of the Faculty-to-Faculty Research Mentoring Award in A&S. Sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Office of Research, this award is intended to annually recognize outstanding faculty members in each college who have demonstrated research mentorship with faculty at various stages of their careers. She received a (competitive and prestigious) Taft Research Center Fellowship for this next academic year to pursue her project “Language learning in local immersion contexts.” She will draw from her current research, collect data, and conduct a broad study of the efficacy of local language immersion programs for university students. This study will, in turn, provide the framework for two external grant proposals. With colleague Janire Zalbidea (Temple U.) she published the study “Context and generalizability in multisite L2 classroom research: The impact of deductive versus guided inductive instruction” in Language Learning. She and Juan Godoy Peñas, along with Bernard Issa (U. of Tennessee), Mandy Faretta-Stutenberg (Northern Illinois U.), and Harriet Wood Bowden (U of Tennessee, presented the talk “Spanish L2 development in a short-term local language immersion program” at the American Association for Applied Linguistics 2022 Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Maria Paz Moreno was nominated by the A&S Dean for a University’s Distinguished Research Professor Award in AHSS (Arts, Humanities or Social Science). As part of an initiative from Spain´s Biblioteca Nacional to include more women researchers on the topic of gastronomy, she has been added to Wikipedia: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Paz_Moreno                                                            Additionally, she was quoted in the New York Times about the history of Spanish churros:          https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/dining/churros-hot-chocolate.html?                                                                                                                                                                                                Pat O’Connor (Emerita)’s numerous recent publications, activities, and honors include:

• “María [de la O Lejárraga] Martínez Sierra,” essay about this dramatist for The Encyclopedia of Modern Theater (London: in press for 2022).
• Quote from Facebook: “The Spanish Embassy provided a Spotlight clip of  Diana de Paco's SEE YOU IN HEAVEN...OR, MAYBE NOT! For anyone interested in reading the play, the excellent English translation by Patricia O'Connor is available in Estreno Contemporary Spanish Plays vol. 38. This play is also a wonderful option for college courses dealing with contemporary theater, women writers, and/or women's issues.”
• O’Connor  figures as a major character  in the novel of Vanessa Montfort about María Martínez Sierra, La mujer sin nombre (2020), and will also be a character in Montfort’s possible TV series of the same work.
• Participated via a video in the homage to María Martínez Sierra at the SGAE (Authors’ Society) in Madrid, March 8 (International Women’s Day), 2021.
• “El darwinismo social y sus consecuencias en dos obras teatrales recientes de Juana Escabias”, Revista reCHERches de las Presses Universirtarias de Strasbourg, Ed., Isabelle Reck, in press for 2023.
• Prólogo/Prologue (bilingual): Palabra de mujer del otro lado de la luna / Women’s Monologues from the Far Side of the Moon, translations prepared by Iride LaMartina-Lens. Madrid: Editorial Antigona, 2022 or 2023.
• Introduction (extensive) to: María Martínez Sierra: A Great Playwright Hidden Plain Sight, Ed. Colin Chambers. London, England: Bloomsbury Metheun, 2022.
• "Antonio Buero Vallejo en los momentos sencillos”. Buero será su obra.  Madrid: Biblioteca Regional, 2022.
• Short homages on the death of two friends, Juan Serraller and Marion Holt, published in Estreno in 2022 and 2023.
• Current Project: English Translation for publication of Ella se va by Jerónimo López Mozo. The English title is "Another Nora Tells Her Story";  (the play is structured around Ibsen's A Doll's House).

Nicasio Urbina published “Indispensable. La poesía de Pablo Antonio Cuadra.” Carátula,106, December 2021 (http://www.caratula.net/indispensable-la-poesia-de-pablo-antonio-cuadra/) and “La novela nicaragüense en el siglo XXI. Globalización y provincialismo”. Agulha, 187, November 2021 (https://arcagulharevistadecultura.blogspot.com/2021/11/nicasio-urbina-la-novela-nicaraguense.html). He also published “The Jails of the Dictatorship” and Other Poems. Art For a Better World. Saad Ghosn (Editor). Cincinnati: Ghosn Publishing, 2021. p. 151-155. “Me interpongo” y otros poemas. Nagari Magazine, May 2021 (https://www.nagarimagazine.com/me-interpongo-y-otros-poemas-nicaso-urbina). His poem “Cayeron una semillas en el camino” was included in No cerco da pandemia. Antología de poesía. António Lorenço Marques, Leocádia Regalo, Pedro Solvado (coord.) Portugal: Labirinto, 2021. p. 147. He helped organize the XVII Festival Internacional de Poesía de Granada. Nicaragua, February 21, 2021, and participated in the following roundtables: Roundtable about Gabriela Mistral. Cervantes institute of Naples, Italy. April 21, 2021; Roundtable on Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy. Cervantes Institute of Naples, Italy. March 17, 2021; Round table discussion about the works of Ana Ilce Gómez. XVII Festival Internacional de Poesía de Granada. February 24, 2021. 

In the Spring of 2021, Tomás Emilio Arce Mairena obtained a Taft Dissertation Research Grant. He will graduate in the summer of 2022. In the Spring of 2021, a chapter book that he co-wrote with Prof. Mauricio Espinoza was included in Pushing Past the Human in Latin American Cinema (SUNY Press, 2021) edited by Carolyn Fornoff and Gisela Heffes. The title of the chapter book is ‘‘Sea Turtles and Seascapes: Representing Human-Nature Relations in the Central American Caribbean.” During the Fall 2021-Spring 2022, he and Prof. Kara Moranski co-led the graduate journal club. The sessions were presented by 1. Andie Anderson and Cameron Kruse 2. Violeta Orozco 3. Luca Propper 4. Julia Piastro. Each presenter shared with the grad students a topic from their area of expertise (Teaching Methods and the relationship of literature with social justice and music). In the spring 2022, the prestigious Literature Journal Revista Iberoamericana accepted his submission of an academic article: ‘‘El límite de la tipología picaresca en El cielo llora por mí, Ya nadie llora por mí y Tongolele no sabía bailar de Sergio Ramírez Mercado.’’ This article started as a final course paper in the Central American graduate course led by Prof. Nicasio Urbina during the Spring 2019. Then this paper was worked in the Academic Writing Workshop that Prof. Maria Paz Moreno led in Spring 2020. In the Spring of 2022, he published three poems in the online magazine Elipsis. Two of these poems were worked during two poetry workshops: the first one held by Prof. Emeritus Armando Romero in 2017 and then by Prof. Maria Paz Moreno in 2019: https://www.elipsis.ec/poesia/30-veces-llame-tu-nombr In the Spring of 2022, he completed his Film and Studies Graduate Certificate.  

 Julia Escobar Villegas was offered the Dean’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship and the Charles Phelps Taft Competitive Dissertation Fellowship. She was also interviewed by the Graduate School: Julia Escobar Villegas Student Spotlight.

Gabriela Falconi Piedra received a 2022-23 Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship and Taft Summer Enhancement Grant awarded from RALL to develop a segment of her doctoral research. Her course “Comunidades indígenas de la cultura andina y sus representaciones” was selected as part of the Summer Spanish Local Immersion Program to teach in the summer of 2022. Her article “La frontera de Gloria Anzaldúa o el encuentro de múltiples de caminos” was published in Poetika 1, No. 5, Pittsburgh, pp. 33-41. She also published the book review by Paul B. Preciado “Yo soy el monstruo que os habla. Informe para una academia de psicoanalistas” in Cincinnati Romance Review No. 50. She attended the conference OSU Hispanic and Lusophone Studies Symposium with her paper “Santa Rosa de Lima: lectura interseccional sobre las apropiaciones políticas propuestas por el Grupo Chaclacayo en “Rosa Cordis (1986)”; the KFLC: The Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Conference with “La escritura como un acto de identidad y resistencia: una lectura de Gloria Anzaldúa a través de Patricia de Souza”; and the 42th Cincinnati Conference on Romance & Arabic Languages & Literatures (CCRALL) with “Soberanía política y representaciones discursivas en disputa: dos versiones sobre santa Rosa de Lima”.   

Dani Granja, a PhD student in the Spanish program and a screenwriter, co-wrote the script for the 2020 film Sumergible (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6723432/), which was recently announced as Ecuador’s official submission for the 94^th Academy Awards in the category of International Feature: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/oscars-international-feature-race-kicks-off-with-first-official-submission-1235003713/ A short story she wrote was published by NYU’s Temporales magazine: https://wp.nyu.edu/gsas-revistatemporales/ciencias-naturales/

Violeta Orozco published a new book of poetry, The Broken Woman Diaries. In January she was recipient of the “New Voices 2021 Poetry Award” for a full-length poetry collection written in English, an award granted by North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green for her second poetry collection Stillness in the Land of Speed, that will be published in Fall 2022 by Jacar Press in North Carolina. She was selected to be part of the prestigious Macondo Poetry Workshop 2022, a workshop for Latinx writers and activists founded by Chicana Sandra Cisneros.

Lucas Proper received several PhD admissions and has accepted an offer to continue his studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He received an Arts and Sciences Graduate Fellowship for his first year. 

Olga Sanz Casasnovas received a Taft Graduate Summer Fellowship to do research about Severo Sarduy, a Cuban writer. She participated in our 42nd CCRALL as host and panelist, and in the KFLC (Kentucky University) too (2022). Both presentations were focused on the novels of Severo Sarduy. A few poems of hers were published in an electronic cultural journal of Spain named “El pollo urbano” (vol. 211, 2021). This journal has been published since 1977 and is characterized by its satire. (https://www.elpollourbano.es/letras/2021/11/nuevas-voces-miradas-desde-otra-realidad-poetica/). An article about the theater plays created by women and for women in the North of Aragon was published in Turia in 2021 (https://www.roldedeestudiosaragoneses.org/rolde-176-177).

Camila Valdebenito was invited to be part of the panel “Repensar la nación y autorizar el habla. Cultura, racismo y representaciones de la afrodescendencia en Chile desde una perspectiva de larga duración,” organized by the Universdidad de Chile. This is related to her dissertation topic, and it is remarkable that she is being recognized as an expert ever before writing her dissertation. 

For this academic year 2021-22 we are celebrating 16 Spanish Majors, 56 Spanish Minors, 7 French Majors, 10 French Minors, 1 Arabic Major, 5 Arabic Minors, and a total of 55 Certificates (25 Certificates in Business French, 11 Certificates in Business Spanish, 5 Certificates in Spanish/English Translation Studies, 1 Certificate in Spanish, 10 Certificates in Spanish for Service Learning in Social Work and Health Care Services, and 3 Certificates in Italian Language and Culture). This is a total of 150 students graduating with RALL degrees, an impressive number thanks to the hard work of students and faculty !

We are also celebrating the following undergraduate student awards:                                          RALL Students Nominated for Phi Beta Kappa                                                                        Rachel Lorsbach  (Spanish BA)                                                                                                            Recipients of the Betty Jane Hull Memorial Award (French Majors, sophomore or junior)                                                                                                                                                Rebekah Docea (Junior, BA in French)                                                                                      Recipients of the Edward Coughlin Scholarship (for Spanish Majors of any level)            Olivia Walker (Senior, BA in Spanish)                                                                                            Recipients of the Dr. Karen L. Gould Scholarship in Foreign Language Studies Endowment Fund                                                                                                                              Mona Abdel Kader (Senior, BA in Arabic)                                                                                            Charlotte Lickliter (Senior, BA in French)                                                                                      Joshua Lovett (Senior, BA in Spanish)                                                                                                Luisana Urbina (Sophomore, BA in Spanish)                                                                                      UC’s nationally competitive award winner (Truman Scholarship & Critical Language Scholarship): Adam El Zarka; Adam is an outstanding student in our Arabic program. He received the Truman Scholarship for the spring study abroad semester in Oman and the Critical Language ​Scholarship for another summer Arabic program in Morocco.                          RALL Most Outstanding Students                                                                                                Jack Foley: BA in French                                                                                                                      Sarah Hamilton: BA in Arabic                                                                                                              Emilie King: BA in French                                                                                                                  Madelyn Iles: BA in Spanish                                                                                                                Emily Keith: BA in Spanish

Sarah Geraghty is a graduating senior in the Class of 2022. While at UC, she pursued two majors in Medical Sciences and Spanish. She was able to study abroad in Guatemala, earning a semester of credits. Aside from taking Spanish major courses, she also completed a Certificate in Spanish for Social Workers and Healthcare Services. She used these experiences along with her coursework as a bilingual intern at the Good Samaritan Free Health Center. Additionally, she published research conducted in English and Spanish in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. The project was a mixed-methods study entitled “Barriers and Facilitators to Prevention and Care of COVID-19 Infection in Cincinnati Latinx Families: a Community-Based Convergent Mixed Methods Study.” Both the Spanish major and the Certificate program will aid Sarah greatly as she transitions to medical school at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine for the fall semester this year. She hopes to be a part of the Medical Spanish / Latino Health Elective four-year longitudinal program at UCCOM, eventually being certified as a bilingual medical doctor.

Luis Miguel Estrada Orozco (PhD 2018¿?) Postdoc at Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. He became a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte de México (2019-2022), and the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores de México. He published “Autobiografía del algodón, de Cristina Rivera Garza: poética viva y borrador abierto”. Amoxcalli. Revista de Teoría y Crítica de la Literatura Hispanoamericana, vol. 4, núm. 8, agosto-diciembre 2021. “Introducción: Literatura latinoamericana y deporte”. Cincinnati Romance Review. No. 50 Monographic Issue El deporte en la literatura latinoamericana, edited by Luis Miguel Estrada Orozco, Primavera 2021, pp. 1-5. He also published: “Los viejos guerreros: el cuerpo como argumento en Cuarteles de invierno, de Osvaldo Soriano, y ‘Jacob y el otro’, de Juan Carlos Onetti”. Cincinnati Romance Review. No. 50 Monographic Issue: El deporte en la literatura latinoamericana, editado por Luis Miguel Estrada Orozco, Primavera 2021, pp. 66-80. He co-authored with Mauricio Espinoza “Manos de piedra, cuerpos vulnerables: género, clase y nación en el cine centroamericano”. Trad. Mauricio Espinoza. Violencia, marginalidad y memoria en el cine centroamericano. Ed. María Lourdes Cortés. Editorial UCR, 2021, pp. 106-118. And he reviewed “Desde el otro lado de la historia. El samurái de la Gráflex, de Daniel Salinas Basave”. SENALC. Seminario de Estudios sobre Narrativa Latinoamericana Contemporánea. 1 de marzo de 2021. https://www.senalc.com/2021/03/01/desde-el-otro-lado-de-la-historia-el-samurai-de-la-graflex-de-daniel-salinas-basave/

Luis Miguel also gave the followong lectures: “Lectores para no olvidar”. Conferencia virtual. Instituto Municipal de Arte y Cultura de Tecate. 16 de noviembre de 2021. Mesa redonda para ciclo en línea “Reescribiendo los ochenta”. Casa Universitaria del Libro. Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. 31 de agosto de 2021. Presidente del jurado del XX Premio Arreola. Centro de Estudios del Sur. Universidad de Guadalajara. Jurado compuesto por Magali Velasco y Juan Carlos Quezadas. Libro ganador, Mentiras que no te conté, de Elma Correa. 26 de agosto de 2021. And he presented the following books: Journeymen (Abismos, 2021), Instituto Sinaloense de Cultura. Presenta Daniel Salinas Basave. 27 de agosto de 2021. (Virtual). Sociedad de Escritores Michoacanos. Presentan Carolina Toro y Alfredo Carrera. 29 de julio de 2021. (Virtual). Instituto Tlaxcalteca de Cultura. Presenta Josué Sánchez y Addy Gómez Muro. 24 de junio de 2021. (Evento presencial en el Auditorio de la Pinacoteca del Estado “Desiderio H. Xochitiotzin”). Casa del Arte. Centro de Estudios del Sur. Universidad de Guadalajara. Presenta Elisa Corona Aguilar y Alejandro Juárez. 9 de junio de 2021. (Virtual).

Jackie Decembly, who did her MA in Spanish with us just a few years ago, is now achieving success as a screenwriter in Hollywood. She was featured in the Cincinnati Enquirer:  https://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/television/tv-and-radio/2021/06/16/uc-grads-credits-include-grimm-4400-reboot-turner-and-hooch/7660138002/

Pedro Lange Churión (PhD 1993) had a photography exhibition entitled Duerma en ti. It is a research project that brings together large format photography by him, historical investigations and an interactive digital platform containing audiovisual testimonies and documentation carried out by Aránzazu Borrachero Mendívil. In Spain, thousands of newborns were abducted from their mothers in hospitals and maternity wards from the 1940s to the 1980s. This exhibit links aspects of this crime against humanity to eugenic practices well established since the 1920’s in various European countries and in the U.S. The Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, sought to forge a new Spanish race, founded on fascist and ultra-Catholic values. To this end, his regime, while seeing mothers as crucial for the creation of the new race and nation formation, also punished politically dissident women by abducting their newborns. Duerma en ti has been developed against the backdrop of Spain’s current struggle to reckon with its difficult past and the construction of a collective memory. Currently at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Madrid until June 5, the exhibit opened in Valencia. After Madrid the exhibit will presented Bilbao, Barcelona, Berlin, and the United States. https://www.infolibre.es/cultura/franquismo-museos-ninos-robados-crimenes-guerra-civil-exposiciones_1_1222832.html  Pedro is a Fellow at the Heller Center for the Humanities and the Arts. He recently delivered three lectures about North American photophraphy, Walter Benjamin’s concept of optic unconscious , and the Global South https://heller.uccs.edu/fellowships.

Yvonn Márquez Barragán (PhD 2019) is currently an Associate Professor of Literature and Humanities at Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP) in Mexico, and the coordinator of the Writing Center in the same university. In 2021 she won the “Beatriz Espejo” Literary Narrative Award for the book of short stories "El camino de los huérfanos." She was also inducted into the National System of Researchers of Mexico.

Camille Meritan, a former graduate student in French, got an Assistant Professor position at Bentley University in Massachusetts: https://faculty.bentley.edu/profile/cmeritan

Pedro Rodrigo Mariño-López’ article “Las formas de la historia: narratividad, discurso y metaficción en Las formas de las ruinas de Juan Gabriel Vásquez” appeared in the prestigious Revista Iberoamericana 276 (julio-sept 2021) 747-758.

Cristina Ortiz Ceberio (PhD 1993) has a very interesting interview in the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. https://news.uwgb.edu/featured/05/04/professor-cristina-ortiz-from-sneaking-banned-books-during-the-spanish-dictatorship-to-chair-of-humanities/ Cristina also saw the publication of her co-authored book with Maria Pilar Rodriguez. Affective landscapes: political violence in the Basque Country through a gender lens. New York, London: Peter Lang Verlag, 2021; and the following articles: “Carta trasatlántica” in Cartas Trasatlánticas: Jóvenes en dialogo sobre la violencia y la convivencia social. Cuaderno Deusto de Derechos Humanos, vol. 101, Donostia/San Sebastián: Universidad de Deusto. 2022.  Translated as Transatlantic Letters: An Epistolary Exchange Between Basque and US Students on Violence and Community. Cuaderno Deusto de Derechos Humanos, vol. 102, Donostia/San Sebastián: Universidad de Deusto. 2022.  “Indentidades en tránsito: Cuestiones transnacionales en la ficción y el documental” in Euskal Emakume Zinemalgileak/Cineastas Vascas. Donostia/San Sebastián: Filmoteca Vasca, 2021.She co-edited, also with Maria Pilar Rodriguez. Symposium Quarterly Journal. Publisher: Routledge.  Monograph on contemporary Basque literature by female authors. June, 2022.

Marcelo Rioseco (PhD 2008), currently Associate Professor at Oklahoma University, is the director and founder of Latin America Literature Today, which was selected as the winner of the 2021 Whiting Foundation Literary Magazine Prize in the digital magazine category. LALT was chosen from a pool of one hundred applicants by nearly thirty expert readers through two intensive rounds of review. The five winners include two magazines from New York, one from Massachusetts, one from Arkansas, and one from Oklahoma:                  http://www.latinamericanliteraturetoday.org/en                            

Carolina Rueda (MA Spanish 2007) won Best Cinematography at the Female Filmmakers Festival in Berlin with her film Oklahoma Mon Amour (2021). The film was additionally nominated for Best of Festival and Best Screenplay award at FFFB. Marcelo Rioseco was co-author of the screenplay.

Kirsten Smith (French MA graduate in 2020) just passed her qualifying exams and is now officially a PhD candidate in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Minnesota. For next year she received a highly competitive Harold Leonard Memorial Fellowship for Film that will allow her to spend the year doing a doctoral internship at the U. of Québec at Montreal's "Labdoc" (Laboratoire de recherche sur les pratiques audiovisuelles documentaires).

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 I would like to acknowledge the Pat O’Connor Fund for Cultural Enrichment, the Betty Jane Hull Scholarship, the Emily Frank Adler Award for Study Abroad, the Edward Coughlin Scholarship, the Dr. Karen L. Gould Scholarship in Foreign Language Studies Endowment Fund, the French Culture and Francophone Studies fund, and the Susan Cogan Romance Language fund. Donations are allowing us to support our undergraduate students’ study abroad experiences and our graduate students’ research activities, to buy material and equipment for our department, and to support our many social, cultural, and scholarly events in RALL 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: migrait@ucmail.uc.edu for more information on the various areas that you can support in our department.