Modern Languages and Literatures

May 2007 Banquet (Bianca Rosenthal, Kevin Fagan, Michael Fawcett, Karen Muñoz-Christian, Nancy Rucci)

• Odile Ayral-Clause's work on Sabine Sicaud has just been published by Black Widow Press.

Oktoberfest 2008

• Kevin Fagan continues to develop his research work on freedom of conscience in Miguel de Unamuno. In December 2008, he participated with emeritus MLL professor, Hernan Castellano, in a commemorative discussion on the role of the exiled teacher/scholar, at the Casa-Museo Pablo Neruda, Isla Negra, Chile. In March 2009, he presented a paper on Unamuno, Diario Intimo, discussing Unamuno's existential "anguish" faced with a dying child, at the annual Conference of the Instituto Literario y Cultural Hispánico at CSU, Dominguez Hills. Another paper contrasting Newman's Apologia and Unamuno's Agonia has been accepted for the annual PAMLA conference at CSU, San Francisco, for presentation in November 2009. Both topics will be enhanced for journal publication. Nine Cal Poly students participated in his exchange program with La Serena State University last year. During the summer of 2009, Dr. Fagan will be a faculty leader in Cal Poly's Cuzco, Peru, summer program.

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)

• Corinna Kahnke was recognized as Faculty Woman of the Year at Cal Poly's 27th Annual Woman of the Year Awards Luncheon.

Fasching 2009

• Brian Kennelly is an elected member of the Modern Language Association of America's Delegate Assembly Organizing Committee (2008 -2011) and is a Modern Language Association Bibliography fellow (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 and as editor of the Annotated Resource Guide for AP © French Language and Culture. In Fall 2008, he was appointed by the Academic Senate of the California State University to represent humanities faculty system-wide on an International Baccaulaureat Consultation Group. 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. In October 2008, he presented "Intellectual GPS: Faculty Perspective on the Importance of a Digital Repository" at the 10 October day-long colloqium at Cal Poly, "Putting Knowledge to Work: Building an IR for Your Campus". He presided over a rountable session ("Academic Freedom?") at the MLA convention in San Francisco in December 2008 (for coverage see: Inside Higher Education, 3 November 2008; The Chronicle of Higher Education, 29 December 2008; Inside Higher Education, 30 December 2008; The Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 January 2009; The New York Times, 9 January 2009). In February 2009, he led a workshop on the AP © French Language course for new and experienced AP © teachers at Aragon High School in San Mateo, CA. He looks forward to presenting "Pedophile as Paragon? Or (Mis)Representing Motherhood in Tony Duvert’s Quand mourut Jonathan" on 21 May 2009 as part of the Women's and Gender Studies Faculty Lecture Series, serving again as a Reader at the 2009 AP © reading in French as well as an Assistant Examiner for the 2009 International Baccalaureat (French B), presenting "Baladodiffusion and Beyond: Using Radio France Inside and Outside the Classroom" at the 82nd annual American Association of Teachers of French convention and co-presenting "Designing Instruction for the AP © French Language and Culture Course" at the November 2009 American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages conference. Updates here.

Brian Kennelly (right) with fellow presenters at Colloqium: "Putting Knowledge to Work: Building an IR for Your Campus"

• 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.

Fasching 2008

• Karen Muñoz-Christian published an article on service learning in Spanish courses in Information For Action: A Journal on Service-Learning Research with Children and Youth (Winter 2009). She presented "Cuban-Americans Write Home: Diaspora in the 21st Century" at the 2009 American Culture Association/Popular Culture Association joint meeting. During Winter Quarter, she teamed with Josh Machamer (Theater and Dance) to prepare actors for a bilingual production of Blood Wedding. Two of her Spanish 301 classes have translated documents for more than fifteen local non-profit organizations.
  

• 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.

Former Chair, Bill Little, on a recent trip to Guatemala