Lingua Franca

¿Qué pasa? Quoi de neuf? Novità? Department News Abounds (16)

Department News:

We are proud to announce that this year the following will graduate from Salem State University: 7 graduate students with a MAT in Spanish, 5 majors in World Languages and Cultures (with concentrations in French, Italian, and Spanish), and 43 minors and certificate students (in French, Italian, Spanish, German, Arabic, and translation).

The following thesis were presented at Undergraduate Research Symposium this year:

• Michael May « Analyse sociolinguistique des mots culinaires dans la langue française: les différences entre le français québécois et le français métropolitain » (thesis in Spring 2019)
• Sophie Swiniarski « Comment l’Accord de Paris rend la diplomatie entre la France et les États-Unis plus importante que jamais » (thesis presented Fall 2018)

The following thesis were presented at this year’s Graduate Research Symposium:

• Sarah Colossimo: “Los gitanos en el mundo hispano: ¿ciudadanos o parásitos”
• Robert Dugan: “El Fujimorismo: ¿salvación o castigo?”
• Cristina Jáuregui: “La independencia de Cataluña: ¿justicia histórica o manipulación política?”
• Holly Parsons: “El sueño imposible: español en cuarenta minutos por semana”
• Katherine Rattey: “El mito de la unificación española en dictadura y democracia”
• Jessica Silva: “Viajando con recursos auténticos: herramienta para la competencia de un segundo idioma”
• Stephanie Swiszcz: “El mercado de la islamofobia en España”
• Leonila Téllez-Valle: “José Rubén Romero: una obra en el olvido”
• Rehana Yusif: “La independencia no elimina el pensamiento colonial: Guinea Ecuatorial y el primer mundo”

Faculty News:

Elizabeth Blood published an English translation of Felix Gatineau’s 1919 Histoire des Franco-Américains de Southbridge, Massachusetts, which was well-received in Southbridge and among French-Canadian genealogists in the United States. Franco-Americans (descendants of French-Canadian immigrants) are the third largest ethnic group in New England today! The translation, entitled History of the Franco-Americans of Southbridge, Massachusetts, by Felix Gatineau, is available on Amazon or Via Appia Press (https://www.viaappiapress.com/). You can watch the video of Prof. Blood’s talk “Southbridge 100 Years Ago” presented at the Jacob Edwards Library in Southbridge on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Q5DYkHtyRZQ

Michele C. Dávila had the following publications this academic year: “Los avatares de la muerte en la obra de Yanitzia Canetti” in the book Descifrando Latinoamérica: Género, violencia y testimonio (Deciphering Latin America: Gender, Violence and Testimony. Eds. Margarita Peraza-Rugeley & Susana Perea Fox. México: Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, 2018, pp. 40-59 and “Miss Bala: agencia indirecta de un personaje entre la espada y la pared”. Agencia, historia y empoderamiento femenino. Eds. Dianbe Marting, Eva París & Yamile Silva. Santo Domingo, RD: CDLEH, 2018, pp. 51-64.

Kristine Doll’s second book of poetry, The Light of Ordinary Days (The Seventh Quarry Press: Wales, UK) is due out this summer, 2019. She has been invited to return to the Yale Club (New York, May 17) and the Grolier Poetry Bookshop (Cambridge MA, May 21) to read her poetry. Doll recently published her interview with SSU poet and professor Kevin Carey: “Kevin Carey: Poet of Place.” The Seventh Quarry Poetry Magazine. 27, Winter /Spring 2018. Wales, UK. She also translated from English to Spanish the book preface in Stanley Barkan’s As Still As A Broom/Tan quieto como una escoba. New York: The New Feral Press, 2018). Several of Doll’s poems as well as her translations from Catalan into English and from English into Spanish were published in Australia. Read the poetry here: www.doubledialogues.com/issue/issue-21/

Kenneth Reeds presented the paper “From the Frontier to the Sea: A Story of How Everything Changes, but Stays the Same” as part of Fairfield University’s Imagining the Coast: A Public Symposium on the Humanities and the Sea at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT. He is also working as an External Reviewer for the assessment of the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Anna Rocca presented new research on Tunisian author Nidhal Guiga at the Society for French Studies Conference, at the University College Cork (UCC) in Cork, Ireland, in Summer 2018. In October, she also presented a paper on Franco-Martinican writer Fabienne Kanor at the South Central MLA annual conference in San Antonio, TX. In 2019, Dr. Rocca published a book chapter on Tunisian artist Héla Ammar entitled “Héla Ammar: Art & Beyond” in Art and Healing: Gender, Genocide, and Aesthetic Expression, published by the University of Nebraska Press. Dr. Rocca also published an article for the peer-edited journal Romanica Silesiana, published by the University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland. The journal issue is entitled Le Maghreb: entre conflit et consensus and her article “Algeria: Sarah Haidar’s Reflections on Conflict.”

Fátima Serra presented at the following Conferences during the 2018-2019 academic year: “Hackers, mitos y leyendas: El silencio de la ciudad blanca de Eva G. Saénz de Urturi” at the XV Congreso de novela y cine negro: un género sin límites, Salamanca, May 2019; “Inconformismo, resistencia en el siglo XXI”: El olivo (2016) de Icíar Bollaín. Cine-Lit 9. Mujer y Género. Portland, Oregon, March 2019; “El drama de la persistencia de la crisis”, XV Congreso Internacional Voces Masculinas y Femeninas. Escritoras y Escrituras. Sevilla, Nov. 2018.