May 2007 Banquet (Bianca Rosenthal, Kevin Fagan, Michael Fawcett, Karen Muñoz-Christian, Nancy Rucci)
Odile Ayral-Clause is happy to report that the French version of her biography of sculptor Camille Claudel has been published on time for the new exhibition on this artist at the Musée Rodin, Paris (April 15 to July 15). Go and see this exhibition if you happen to be in France this summer. The works of this artist will enthrall you. Ayral-Clause's work on Sabine Sicaud will be published by SubText next year. Website.
Kevin Fagan will serve as Resident Director of the Mexico Summer Program during Summer Session I (2008) in Querétaro, Mexico. He continues as CLA Faculty Exchange Coordinator to La Serena State University. With Dr. John Peterson, Chair, Horticulture and Crop Science Dept., he is developing a Spanish/Viticulture program in South America. Dr. Fagan was nominated for the Cal Poly International Faculty of the Year award in Fall 2007 and has been elected as Junior Faculty Representative for the Cal Poly CFA Board. His article, “Unamuno y Sarmiento: la pluma es más fuerte que la espada (Unamuno and Sarmiento: The Pen Is Mightier than the Sword)” was recently published by Logos. He is currently working on articles on the intellectual showdown between Unamuno and Fascism at the University of Salamanca, the relationship of conscience and in coercion Unamuno’s critique of Christianity, and the use of cognates by English-speaking learners of Spanish. Website.
Kevin Fagan and Debra Valencia-Laver (Oktoberfest 2007)
Michael Fawcett recently wrote two piano solos, "Spring," and "Esquisse." He is working on a book of nostalgic arcana (DRIPS 'n DRABS) and continues as language examiner for the San Luis Obispo Fire, Police, and Public Works Departments.
Ana Hartig-Ferrer recently spent time in Costa Rica and Spain, where she actively sought out opportunities to keep current with developments in the Spanish-speaking world.
Oktoberfest 2007 (Jiasi Xia, Corinna Kahnke, Linda Halisky, Odile Ayral-Clause)
Brian Kennelly was elected to the Modern Language Association of America's Delegate Assembly Organizing Committee (2008 -2011) at the 2007 MLA convention and has been awarded a Modern Language Association Bibliography Fellowship (2008-11). He was a Table Leader at the 2008 AP © reading in French and an Assistant Examiner for the 2008 International Baccalaureat (French B). He currently serves on the College Board's AP © French Language and Culture Curriculum Development and Assessment Committee and represents AP © French Language and Culture on a cross-disciplinary writing team for the AP © World Languages and Cultures Vertical Teams Guide. He is moreover working as a module-developing consultant for VizCommunication. In September 2008, he presented "Swart Poes as Black Honey? Miscegenation and (Mis)Representation in Zakes Mda's The Madonna of Excelsior" at West Virginia University's Thirty-Second Colloqium on Literature and Film. Anticipated activities in 2008-09 include: presenting "Intellectual GPS" at the 10 October day-long colloqium at Cal Poly, "Putting Knowledge to Work: Building an IR for Your Campus"; presiding over a rountable session ("Academic Freedom?") at the MLA convention in San Francisco; and presenting “Pas ça: Pédhomophilie and/as Perversion in Tony Duvert’s Quand mourut Jonathan” in Spring 2009 as part of the Women's and Gender Studies Faculty Lecture Series. Curriculum vitæ. Website
Oktoberfest 2007
William Martinez Jr. has been named the Resident Director for both the Valladolid Summer program in Summer 2008 and the Cal Poly Valladolid Fall program for Fall 2008. He has been invited to participate as a panelist and reviewer for EduaArgentina in Rosario, Argentina this spring. He was nominated in Fall 2007 for the Cal Poly International Faculty of the Year award. His article “El impacto de ‘Viernes’ en la poesía venezolana” was published in Ogigia, an electronic Journal of Language and Literature in Fall 2007. He also had a book review of the translation of The Kite Runner published in the same journal. He is currently working on three articles, one focusing on the use of metaphor in language teaching as it applies to the teaching of writing in Spanish, a second one on Spanish mysticism, and a third one on the life of Fray Felipe de Jesús, the first Mexican saint. Website.
Fasching 2008
Karen Muñoz-Christian gave a presentation on service learning in Spanish language classes at the 3rd-annual CSU Conference on Community-Based Learning in March 2008. Her students have already contributed nearly 1,200 hours of service in Spanish classrooms at Pacheco Elementary during the 2007-08 academic year. Her SPAN 301 class is currently translating materials in Spanish for fifteen agencies serving the San Luis Obispo Latino community. She looks forward to chairing and participating in a panel on enhancing student writing at the 2008 AATSP conference in San José (Costa Rica) in July 2008.
John Thompson presented a paper and chaired a session at the 105th Annual Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA in November 2007. In March 2008 he attended the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes Annual Meeting at the Huntington Library in San Marino. He has been invited to present a paper on medieval French literature in January 2009 at the Centre Universitaire d'Etudes de Recherches Médiévales d'Aix at the Université de Provence.
Kevin Fagan, John Thompson, and Gloria Velasquez at May 2008 Banquet
Gloria Velasquez was a featured artist at the Floricanto 08 held in San Juan Bautista in August; she also gave a lecture in August as part of the Cuesta College Migrant Program; her award-winning short story "Sunland" will be included in the forthcoming anthology of the Chicano/Latino Literary Prize: An Anthology of Prize-Winning Fiction, Poetry, and Drama at UC-Irvine; she was featured in the Johntown Breeze in February in an article about the John Robert Velasquez Scholarship she created in memory of her brother at Roosevelt High School in Colorado.
Robyn Rigoni and Lou Greenberg hard at work on June 08 commencement banner
Former Chair, Bill Little, on a recent trip to Guatemala
