Research and Innovation

Congratulations to Dr. Laura Demaría on the publication of her most recent book of microfictions out of Borde Perdido Editora in Córdoba, Argentina. 

Here is a sample:

"Escribo como quien se hurga en una lastimadura hasta sacarse la cascarita. No porque quiera hacerme daño. Más bien, por curiosidad. O para explorar el avance de esos hilitos de sangre que salen, inexorablemente, fuera de mi cuerpo."

 

Based on their extensive academic, research and professional careers in several European and North American countries, Manel Lacorte and Agustín Reyes-Torres rely on consolidated theoretical and practical paradigms on language acquisition and teaching to propose a pedagogy of Spanish 2/L that successfully includes different types of pedagogical, linguistic, cultural and social knowledge. This book has as its basic reference the 2/L teacher's individual and collective reflection on (1) the use of appropriate resources, processes, and strategies for 2/L learning in different sociocultural contexts; (2) contemporary notions of multiliteracies and multimodality embedded in the teaching of languages, literatures, and cultures; and (3) the perspectives and interests of the participants in 2/L instruction, that is, learners and pre-service and in-service teachers. The book gives special attention to the individual circumstances, needs, and interests of 2/L Spanish educators in these times defined by marked job mobility and constant technological innovations in all social and professional spheres.

Together with my colleagues from the University of Leipzig, Germany led by Denisa Bordag we have developed Ontogenesis Model of the L2 Lexical Representation. We introduce the blueprint of the Ontogenesis Model of the L2 Lexical Representation (OM) that focuses on the development of lexical representations. The OM has three dimensions: linguistic domains (phonological, orthographic, and semantic), mappings between domains, and networks of lexical representations. The model assumes that fuzziness is a pervasive property of the L2 lexicon: most L2 lexical representations are low resolution and the ontogenetic curve of their development does not reach the optimum (i.e., the ultimate stage of their attainment with optimal encoding) in one or more dimensions. We review the findings on lexical processing and vocabulary training to show that the OM has a potential to provide an interpretation for the results that have been treated separately and to move us forward in building a comprehensive model of L2 lexical acquisition and processing.

Nominated by faculty and students of the Latin American Studies Center (LASC), the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (SLLC), and the Departments of English and American Studies

The book provides a useful and comprehensive overview of all the important issues in L2 education of the last 50-60 years, and second, introduce the pedagogy of multiliteracies as a multifaceted approach that moves past the linguocentric perspective that has historically characterized L2 teaching by (a) leaving behind the divide between language and content courses, and (b) favoring a multimodal and socioculturally situated approach to L2 teaching that places oral, written, visual, and digital texts – understood broadly as the key meaning-making units – at its core.

Headlines on re-education camps in Xinjiang and a forced switch to Mandarin as the language of instruction in Inner Mongolian primary schools have brought concern in the international community about the wellbeing of China’s ethnic minorities. To address this concern, the current article examines China's minority police changes under Xi Jinping in the last few years.

Engaging with this relatively unknown collection of fairy tales, Koser examines how Benedikte Naubert strategically deployed the learned figure of the Egyptian almé to mount a defense of women as storytellers and transmitters of knowledge and cultural memory. Naubert's figure of the almé articulates the perils women faced when asserting themselves as authors, offers as a model for eighteenth-century women writers to negotiate the literary sphere, and constructs a community of women storytellers. At the same time, Koser critically explores Naubert's literary interventions into early Orientalist discourses that contributed to images of the "Orient" and processes of othering around 1800.

Avital Karpman, Hebbrew Program Director, was an invited speaker for a virtual conversation on "Re-imagining The Future Of Hebrew In America," with Sharon Avni, Professor, BMCC. The event was sponsored by CASJE (Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education).

 

Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) stands out among recent Latin American writers because of his unique combination of critical acclaim, popularity, and literary significance. Queer Exposures analyzes two central but understudied topics in Bolaño’s fiction and poetry: sexuality and photography. Moving beyond a consideration of how his texts represent these topics, Ryan F. Long demonstrates that, when considered in tandem, they form the basis for a new innovative and critical approach. Emphasizing the processes of exposure associated with photography and sexuality, especially queer sexuality, provides readers and scholars with a versatile method for comprehending Bolaño’s constellation of texts. With close readings of a broad range of texts, from poetry written just after his arrival in Spain in the late 1970s to his posthumously published novels, Queer Exposures concludes that an emphasis on sexuality and photography is essential for understanding how Bolaño’s texts function in dialogue with one another to elucidate and critique the interrelations of writing, visual representation, and power.

Ulysses, Europe, Orpheus, and Eurydice are among the mythical characters whose adventures have been illustrated since antiquity in the arts, and for over a century now, in cinema. French filmmakers Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, Christophe Honoré, and Jean-Jacques Annaud participated in the transmission and rewriting of these Greek myths, each in their own way. In "Ulysses" (1982), Varda combined an autobiographical commentary on a photograph taken in 1954 with a feminist and political perspective on its context, echoing the works of Roland Barthes and Jacques Rancière on photography. Resnais, in "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" (2012), returned to his passion for theater by revisiting two of Jean Anouilh's plays in light of Jean-Luc Nancy and Mathilde Girard's dialogue on myth and performance. "Métamorphoses" by Honoré (2014) offers a transgender reading of mythological stories, in every sense of the word, under the aegis of Jupiter, Bacchus, and Orpheus in order to articulate a liberated but informed vision of the future for younger generations living in a Mediterranean environment. In "His Majesty Minor" (2007), Annaud presents a parody of "The Odyssey" through a critical reading of Greek mythology by the humanities and social sciences