The Bi-Weekly MFLL E-Newsletter
MONDAY, APRIL 28, 2008
The Newsletter for Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
web.utk.edu/~mfll

• KODJO ADABRA's (French) second novel, "Identités," has just been published in Paris and will  be on the French market in early May.  It is about a ghost who returns 200 years after its earthly existence has ended to seek answers from the living.
  

• KATHRYN ATKINS-ROBERSON (French) conducted training seminars in TPR Storytelling for ESL teachers across the state.  She is teaching a follow-up online course in TPR Storytelling for the UT Center for Literacy. She has also made a training video in TPR Storytelling sent to teachers throughout Tennessee.
  

• STEPHEN BLACKWELL (Russian) received Ready for the World  and CIE Program Development funding for a site visit to Krasnodar, Russia, where UT students will be studying for the first time this June. He is also organizing a mini-conference November 24 and 25, called "Science and Literature: An Interdisciplinary Symposium."  The workshop will include four invited keynote lecturers and presentations by UTK faculty and graduate students.  Please spread the word to your interested students and colleagues.



• LORI CELAYA (Spanish) successfully defended her dissertation titled "México visto desde la literatura de su frontera norte:  identidades propias de la transculturación y la migración" earlier this month. She will graduate in May with a Ph.D. in Modern Foreign Languages with a 1st concentration in Spanish and a 2nd concentration in Portuguese.
  

• NURIA CRUZ-CÁMARA (Spanish) presented a paper, "La doctrina socialista y el público en 'Una mujer por caminos de España' de María Martínez Sierra," at the 61st Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, April 17-19.

• DAWN DUKE's (Spanish) article, “Así se va aclarando: Construcciones imaginarias de generaciones de mujeres negras en Vejigantes y Tenda dos Milagres,” appeared in Negritud:  Revista de Estudios Afro-Latinoamericanos. Número 1, November 2007, 243-263.
  

• In February 2008, the Governing Board of the Universidad Andina Simón  Bolívar, with its principal campuses in Bolivia and Ecuador, selected MICHAEL HANDELSMAN (Spanish) to serve a four-year term as President of the newly created independent Andean Commission for Evaluation and Accreditation of Higher Education.  The Commission is made up of three academics who will be responsible for the oversight and coordination of the Andean University System’s evaluation and accreditation process of all university programs.  The Commission will establish the basic standards and measurements to be used by each university and, ultimately, will make the final determination relevant to each academic program’s accreditation.
  

• CHRIS HOLMLUND (French) spent the early part of March as the first external, non-Canadian, reviewer of communications, gender studies, and media studies grants submtited from around Canada for SSHREC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council). Then she moved on to Philadelphia, 'home' of 'Rocky', where she preceded the Democratic contenders in talking about Sly on one of the two panels she helped organize devoted to "Philly's Favorite Son." (In Chris's case she studied the impact his "Shape Shifts" have had on his non-Method performances over nearly 4 decades of movies.) While there she also again chaired the French & Francophone group as it planned activities for the next two Cinema/Media Studies conferences. End March she gave an invited talk at Tulane for a Brazil/U.S. communications colloquium. 
  
  Early April she helped bring the Black Panthers to campus and the broader Knoxville community. January saw publication of an overview section on "Contemporary Stardom" (with additional short appraisals of Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, and Whoopi Goldberg's careers) in the 3rd edition of Pam Cook's "The Cinema Book" (London: British Film Institute).

• EREC R. KOCH (French) will deliver a plenary lecture titled “Sensuous Taste, Good Taste, and French Classical Cuisine,” at the 2008 North American Society for Seventeenth Century French Literature conference at Lafayette College, April 24-26.

• DANIEL H. MAGILOW (German) has received a grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (German Academic Exchange Service) to attend a six-week seminar this summer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York on the topic "The Technology of Memories: Collective Traumatic Remembrance in Modern Germany."

• JOHN ROMEISER (French) was recognized by Faculty Senate President David Patterson for his two years of service as chair of the Undergraduate Council at its April 22 final meeting for this academic year.

• DOLLY J. YOUNG (Spanish) gave an invited presentation March 6 in San Juan, Puerto Rico titled, "Addressing Values and Attitudes in FL Culture Instruction a la FL Standards."  This spring she also gave three online broadcast lecturers on "Moving Beyond Products and Practices to Perspectives" for the Wiley Faculty Network Progam.
  
  She will participate June 3 in a panel at the EDUCAUSE Southeast Regional Conference. The panel topic is "Supporting Faculty Adoption of Emerging Technologies:  Wanderlust or Creating a Campus Roadmap?" with Jean Derco of the ITC.  The panel moderator is Julie Little.  The conference is in Jacksonville, FL. She will also participate in a two-week program for Spanish Teachers in Cuernavaca Mexico from July 12-26 courtesy of a AATSP Award.

• Two Members of MFLL received prestigious university awards at this year’s Chancellor’s Banquet.   MICHAEL HANDELSMAN, Distinguished 
  Professor in the Humanities, received the 2008 Jefferson Prize in recognition of his exceptional contributions to research, teaching, and service.  BETH COLE, Accounting Specialist II, received this year’s Extraordinary Customer Service Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the department in matters ranging from budget to personnel.

• The following incoming doctoral students have been awarded prestigious graduate fellowships: Carrie D. Ottsen (French), Herman Spivey Humanities Graduate Fellowship Juan Gomez (Spanish), J. Wallace and Katie Dean Fellowship

• The German Studies Program held its annual Scholarship Awards Event (Kind, Harris, Wunderlich, Osborne, Shockley, Nordsieck) and Delta Phi Alpha Initiation Ceremony at the McClung Museum on Thursday, April 24 from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m., and the event was attended by more than 100 people from across campus and the community. Guest Speaker for this event was Austrian author Lilian Faschinger who read excerpts from her novel “Magdalena the Sinner,” and a reception sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences followed the program. This event was co-sponsored by The Ready for the World Initiative, The Bill and Donna Cobble Fund for the Enrichment of Undergraduate German Studies, the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, the Department of English, International House, UT-Libraries, the Department of Religious Studies, and the Department of Classics.

• Stefanie Ohnesorg (German) and Maria Stehle (German) received funding from the "Ready for the World Initiative" for bringing Austrian writer Lilian Faschinger to UT on April 24 and 25, 2008. Lilian Faschinger, one of the best known contemporary Austrian writers, received the prestigious Friedrich-Glauser-Prize on April 19, 2008 in Vienna for her latest novel "Stadt der Verlierer" (2007) in the category for best crime novel written in German in 2007. The Glauser Prize is often referred to as the "Oscar" for German crime fiction.

• A group of students, faculty, and staff had read Lilian Faschinger's novel "Magdalena the Sinner" in a semester-long Literary Colloquy entitled "Murder She Wrote." This Literary Colloquy was organized and conducted by Stefanie Ohnesorg and Maria Stehle and met for a total 11 session throughout the spring semester 2008. Lilian Faschinger's campus visit marked the culminating event for this Literary Colloquy, and the author joined us for our final session on Friday, April 25 from 12:00-1:30 in the Faculty Lounge of Hodges Library.

• Romana Rouskova (M.A. cand. in German) successfully defended her thesis entitled "Max Liebermann's Jewish Heritage" on Wednesday, April 23, 2008.

• Bradley Blair (M.A. cand. in German) successfully defended his thesis entitled "A Paradox of Self-Image: William Shakespeare’s 'The Merchant of Venice' and 'King Richard II' in Hitler’s Germany" on Wednesday, April 23, 2008.

• Elizabeth Schonagen (M.A. cand. in German) successfully defended her thesis entitled "Peer versus Self Corrections and the Pursuit of Grammatical Accuracy in L2 Writing: Student Perceptions and Realities" 
  on Tuesday, April 29, 2008.

• David Schulz (M.A. cand. in German) will defend his thesis entitled "'Ich-Sicht' und Sprachverlust: Werthers Liebestod" on Tuesday, May 6, starting at 10:00 a.m. in Room 613 McClung.

TRANSITIONS

• Nike Arnold (German) will resign from the UTK faculty at the close of the current academic year.  Nike has been a tremendous contributor to the academic life of our department and has been a important animator of the German program.

RECENT EVENTS OF INTEREST

• The Research Seminar on Modern German and Central Europe (Sponsored by the UT Humanities Initiative) hosted two prominent guest speakers, Profs. Jeffrey Herf and Omer Bartov, during the last 2 weeks of April 2008. The members of the Research Seminar along with several graduate students met with Prof. Herf (author of the "The Jewish Enemy") and with Prof. Bartov (author of "Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine") in order to discuss their latest publications and future research projects. The Research Seminar also organized the following two public lectures with Profs. Herf and Bartov that were very well attended and stimulated interesting discussions among faculty and students from across campus:
  
  
  • Tuesday, April 22, 4:00pm - 5:00pm, Black Cultural Center
    Speaker: Dr. Jeffrey Herf, Professor of History, University of Maryland Lecture Title: "'The Jewish Enemy': Nazi Propaganda in Germany and the Middle East During World War II and the Holocaust"
    
    
  • Monday, April 28, 4:00pm - 5:00pm, Black Cultural Center
    Speaker: Dr. Omer Bartov, John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History and Professor of German Studies, Brown University Lecture Title: "The Holocaust from Below: Testimonies as Historical Documents"
    
    
  Core-members of the interdisciplinary “Research Seminar on Modern German and Central Europe” are: David Lee (German), Vejas Liulevicius (History), Daniel H. Magilow (German), Stefanie Ohnesorg (German), Denise Phillips (History), Gilya Schmidt (Religious Studies), and David Tompkins (History).

UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST

• GERMAN M.A. DEFENSES, OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

  David Schulz (M.A. cand. in German)
  Thesis Title: "'Ich-Sicht' und Sprachverlust: Werthers Liebestod"
  Thesis Defense:
  Tuesday, May 6, starting at 10:00 a.m. in Room 613 McClung Thesis Committee:
  Stefanie Ohnesorg (Chair), David Lee, Carolyn Hodges

• The fourth annual Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures Open House and Awards Ceremony will take place on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 1.30 pm in the Multipurpose Room of the Black Cultural Center (1800 Melrose Avenue).

• The Lecturers Association will have its end of the year social on Thursday, May 15, 12 noon, at the home of Susan Edmundson, 1427 Staffwood Rd. Knoxville, 37922.  If you need directions, call Susan at 670-1067.

IN MEMORIAM

• Henry Kratz, distinguished scholar and former Head of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, died on April 14, 2008, following an extended illness. A memorial service in his honor was held at Rose Mortuary on April 18, 2008.

This is the final MFLL e-newsletter for 2007-08.  The first one for 2008-09 will appear Monday, August 25.