The Bi-Weekly MFLL E-Newsletter
MONDAY, AUGUST 28, 2006
The Newsletter for Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures
web.utk.edu/~mfll

• Peter Arant (Spanish) used a McClung scholarship to spend two months in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he did a service-learning project with street children and did research for a possible MA thesis on narrative portraits of Guayaquil.



• Kenneth Atwood (Spanish) read a paper based on a chapter of his doctoral dissertation at the Ecuatorianista conference in Guayaquil, Ecuador in July.



• Welcome to Wanessa V. Batista, a new lecturer in Portuguese. Wanessa recently finished her MA degree at the University of New Mexico. Her MA thesis is an analysis of Edmundo Paz-Soldán’s "El Delirio de Turing and Dionísio Jacob’s Assombros Urbanos". Her study of these Latin American authors is guided by postmodern theories. Wanessa is originally from Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Besides her interests in literature, Wanessa is also an experienced teacher of Portuguese and English as foreign languages. In her practice, she likes to show students the importance of seeing language not as an end in itself but rather as an instrument to enter the universe of different cultural systems.



• Maria Cristina Campos Fuentes (Spanish) has a part-time position on the Spanish faculty at Rider University in New Jersey. She is still working on her doctoral dissertation on Octavio Paz and Rosario Castellanos’ poetry.



• Raúl Carrillo (Spanish) who received his PhD in Fall 2004, and has been an Assistant Professor at the College of Charleston since Fall 2005, has had his first book accepted for publication in Mexico. Also, some of his poetry has been included in a new anthology of young Mexican poets.



• Emily Dahl, PhD student in Spanish, taught English as a Second Language at the Centro Ecuatoriano Norteamericano in Guayaquil, Ecuador for two months during the summer.



• In July, Michael Handelsman (Spanish) read a paper at the Ecuatorianista conference in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on the mestizo nation as a failed project in the works of the novelist Jorge Icaza. He also was visiting professor at the Universidad Andina in Quito where he offered a course on Afro Andean literature in their Latin American Cultural Studies doctoral program.



• Daniel Magilow (German) spent the academic year 2005-2006 as the Pearl Resnick Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memoiral Museum and has lectured and written on several topics arising from his research there. One article, about the Children's Holocaust Memorial in Whitwell, Tennessee (the "Paper Clip Project") has been accepted into the journal "Jewish Social Studies". On September 10 he will present a quarterly lecture at the East Tennessee Historical Society entitled "The Short Life and Death of Kitty Weichherz (1929-1942)" about a photographically-illustrated diary he translated.



• Mary McAlpin (French) has been selected as Director for the Semester in Wales Program, Fall semester 2007, at the University of Wales, Swansea.



• Sonja Stephenson-Watson (Spanish) who received the PhD in Spring 2005, and is currently in the second and final year of her postdoc at Washington University in St. Louis, just had published an article titled "Changó, el gran putas: Contemporary Afro-Hispanic Historical Novel" in the "Afro-Hispanic Review", 25, 1 (Spring 2006), 67-85.

On July 21, Chancellor Loren Crabtree and the Rector of the Universidad Andina, Dr. Enrique Ayala, signed in Quito a Memorandum of Understanding between the two universities to continue the collaborative work begun as part of our Fulbright Alumni Intitiatives grant. At that same time, the Chancellor was present for the opening of the photographic exhibit, "El Color de la Diaspora," which was the culminating project of the Fulbright two-year grant; the same show which focuses on Afro Ecuadorians will be at UT beginning in September, and it will run through November.

Dr. Wornie Reed, Director of UT's Africana Studies, and Dr. Raymond Hall of the same program, also participated in the Quito opening.

• ¡LA TERTULIA!
  La Tertulia is a time to relax and socialize with native Spanish-speakers, and just about everyone else who is interested in learning more about Spanish and Latin American cultures in a very friendly fashion and in an informal atmosphere. Join us every Friday at 5:00 p. m. at Cool Beans (1817 Lake Avenue, across the street from the new parking garage on Lake Ave.)



• FALL FRENCH FILM SERIES at the Library Auditorium this semester. We will be starting at 5 PM and finishing at 8 PM. The dates are as follows (all on Sundays):
  • Sept 10, "Le Papillon"
  • October 22, TBA
  • November 19, TBA
  
  
• BRAZILIAN FILM SERIES for Fall 2006
  Hodges Library Lindsay Young Auditorium – 5:00 p.m.
  • September 17
    Sexo, Amor & Traição (Sex, Love & Betrayal). Dir. Jorge Fernando, 2003 - English subtitles, 85 min.
  
  
  
  • October 8
    O Outro Lado da Rua (The Other Side of the Street). Dir. Marcos Bernstein, 2004 - English subtitles, 98 min.
    
    
  • October 29
    Espelho d’água: uma Viagem no Rio São Francisco (Mirror of Water – A Journey in the São Francisco River). Dir. Marcus Vinícius Cezar, 2005 - English subtitles, 108 min.
    
    
  • November 12
    Cazuza: o Tempo Não Pára (Cazuza: Time doesn’t Stop). Dir. Sandra Werneck & Walter Carvalho, 2004 - English subtitles, 96 min.