B OROUGH OF M ANHATTAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE T HE CITY UNIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK
D E P A R TM E N T O F M O D E R N L A N G U AG E S S P R I N G 2 01 6 N E W S L ET T E R As it is now tradition, on April 4th the Modern Languages Department held its annual colloquium at the Richard Harris Terrace. This year the MLD Colloquium celebrated music traditions from around the world. Several musicians, artists and professors showcased the music of Italy, from classical to contemporary; the music of the Arab world, from secular to sacred; the French Chanson, both ancient and modern; the rhythms of the Spanish-speaking world, and finally, the music of China, its evolution through the ages. Here are a few pictures of the event!
MLD Faculty Publications Professor Margaret Carson ’s interview with AuthorsTranslators Blogspot appeared in January 2016 http://authorstranslators.blogspot.com/2016/02/margaret-carson-literarytranslator-and.html
Rafael Corbalán published “Vicente Blasco Ibáñez y la
moralidad en el cine mudo de Hollywood” in Revista de Estudios sobre Blasco Ibáñez/Journal of Blasco Ibáñez Studies 3 (Ajuntament de Valencia, Valencia, 2015)
Professor Ángeles Donoso Macaya published “Spic
Ecdysis (2014) de Xandra Ibarra, o las mudas de la performance" in II y III Coloquio Fotografía y discursos disciplinares. Eds. Margarita Alvarado, Carla Möller, and José Pablo Concha Lagos. Santiago: Estética UC, Diciembre 2015. 133-148. Her review of Natalia Fortuny’s Memorias fotográficas. Imagen y dictadura en la fotografía argentina contemporánea is forthcoming in Conversaciones del Cono Sur 2.1
Professor Sophie Maríñez ’s article “Alegorías de una hermandad atormentada: construcciones alternas de Haití en la literatura dominicana contemporánea” was published in "Quisqueya is my lakay": Challenging de-nationalization, waving the national identity. Special Issue on the Haitian-Dominican Conflict, Memorias. Revista Digital de Historia y Arqueología desde el Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia, Volume 28, April 2016. She also published the entry “Michele Voltaire Marcelin” in the Oxford Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography. Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Franklyn W. Knight. Oxford University Press (May 2016).
Professor Kristina Varade published an entry on Italian American Dancers in the reference book, The Italian Americans: The History and Culture of A People (Greenwood, 2016).
Professor Alejandro Varderi’s recent publications include: "Alexander Apóstol. Apuntes para una mirada queer." Fragmentos de lo queer. Arte en América Latina e Iberoamérica, Lucas Martinelli, ed. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, 2016: 192-213. “Caracas de noche” Viceversa, April 11; “El teatro de la ciudad que nunca duerme” Viceversa, March 28; “Sobre nuestra cultura y la estética del kitsch” Viceversa, March 14; “Carmen Valle: nómada del lenguaje y del paisaje”
Viceversa, February 29; “Arte medieval: un recuento necesario” Viceversa, February 15; “Sobre el amor cortés” Viceversa, February 1; José de Alencar y la formación de la novela brasileña” Viceversa, January 18; “A los 140 años el nacimiento de Antonio Machado: Los modernistas españoles ayer y hoy” Viceversa, December 21; “Los espacios temporales de Carmen Luisa Plaza” Viceversa, December 7; “Marta López-Luaces: Pertenezco a varias realidades lingüísticas” Viceversa, November 22; http://www.viceversa-mag.com/author/alejandro-varderi/ “El cine: biografía e historia” www.cinecritic.biz (January-February, 2016).
Professor Peter Consenstein was the guest editor of
issues 4 and 5 of Contemporary French and Francophone Studies: Sites. The issues title were Money/L’argent (September, December 2015).He wrote the “Editor’s Introduction” on both issues. In addition, his book chapter “Roubaud écranique” is forthcoming in Oulipo: mode d’emploi (Paris: Champion, 2016).
MLD Faculty Presentations Professor Margaret Carson presented “Translation as a
Capture Device: Frank Smith’s Guantanamo, as translated by Vanessa Place” during the seminar “The Itinerant Document: Between Capture, Display, and Resistance” at the 2016 ACLA conference at Harvard University, March 18, 2016. She also presented "The Multilingual Turn: Parallel Reading and Writing Communities" during the Transitions and Transactions III conference at Borough of Manhattan Community College on April 2, 2016.
Professor Ángeles Donoso Macaya was invited by Andrea Noble (Durham University, UK) to participate at the Symposium “Photography and Its Publics” held at Monash University, Prato Centre (Italy), on April 14-15, 2016. A dozen photography scholars from around the world came together in a seminar environment to present their research and discuss the limits and possibilities of photography as a medium for and generator of public engagement and debate. Her presentation was entitled “Engaging Audiences through Documentary Photography: from Chile from within (1990) to Chile desde adentro (2015).” She was also invited by the Latin American Studies Program at Lehigh University to participate in the Symposium “Fronteras en América Latina,” where she presented a paper entitled “(Documentary) Photography and its Limits.” The event took place on March 30, 2016. Dr. Donoso Macaya also participated in the 2016 Annual
Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), held at Harvard University, on March 17- 20, 2016. She was one of the organizers of the seminar “The Itinerant Document: Between Capture, Display, and Resistance,” and presented “Lonquén’s Echoes (1978‐2014).” She will present “Persistencia del retrato fotográfico” in the panel “Legados fotográficos de la violencia en América Latina,” which she coorganized, during the International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), to be held in New York City, on May 27-30, 2016.
Professor Ainoa Íñigo presented “El mundo en ruinas de
2666: El discurso sobre la literatura y el oficio del escritor en Roberto Bolaño” at the XVII CILH (Congreso Internacional de Literatura Hispánica) in Mérida, México (March 11, 2016). She was also the moderator of the panel. She also presented "Estética de la marginalidad en Los detectives salvajes de Roberto Bolaño" at the Northeast Modern Language Association (NEMLA) (March 19, 2016).
Professor Ling Luo will present “Teaching Material
Selection of Modern Chinese Literature” at the 14th New York International Conference on Teaching Chinese in May 2016.
Professor Sophie Maríñez was invited to present the novel Marassa y la Nada/Marassa and the Nothingness, a bilingual edition (Partridge), by Alanna Lockward. Barnard College, New York, March 9, 2016. She also presented eight papers on either her research on early modern French women writers or her recent work on Haitian-Dominican relations at five conferences, including the annual meetings of the Renaissance Society of America, the Dominican Studies Association, the Latin American Studies Association and the Caribbean Studies Association, which will take place in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, June 5-11. Also presented a paper titled The Perejil Massacre in the Dominican Republic and its Sequel in the 21st Century: Impunity and Responsibility, in “ Impunité, Responsabilité et Citoyenneté – Haïti,” a conference organized by the Henri Peyre Institute, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, March 17-18, 2016. She also published the poems “Sentencia del Infierno I: Poema a los desterrados” and “Sentencia del Infierno III: Soñando en Marassá” in Circum-Caribbean Poetics, a special issue edited by Jana Braziel and Nicasio Urbina. The Cincinnati Romance Review (Volume 40, Spring 2016): http://www.cromrev.com/volumes/Vol40/Creative/CRR%20v40C04%20Sophie%20Marinez.pdf
Professor Kristina Varade was invited to speak at two
major conferences this spring. The first, with the American Conference for Irish Studies South, discussed her book monograph on Charles Lever and was entitled "Charles Lever's 'Other' Irish Literary Voice." The second paper will be given at Trinity College, Dublin in May and will present her work “Ancora non raggiungibile: Cellphones and the Fragmented Subject in Italian Fiction” at the Society for Italian Studies’ international conference, “Turning Points: Cultures of Transition, Transformation, and Transmission in Italy.”
Professor Alejandro Varderi presented his book De lo
sublime a lo grotesco: kitsch y cultura popular en el mundo hispánico at the McNally & Jackson Bookstore, on March 25. He also co-organized the following activities at the Graduate Center as part of the Enclave magazine literary series: “A Reading from Enclave Contributors,” March 4; and “2 x Venezuela: Diego López Bruzual and Francisco Suniaga,” April 1.”
Other Events and Activities by MLD Faculty Professor Margaret Carson was one of four translatorparticipants in the annual Translation Slam at the PEN World Voices Festival on April 29, 2016 at the Nuyorican Café. She was lead organizer for the event “Edith Grossman: Making Translation Matter,” a tribute to Edith Grossman on the occasion of her 80th birthday, held during the PEN World Voices Festival, April 30, 2016. She offered a tribute to Edith Grossman during the event. She is a member of the panel of experts convened by the “New Spanish Books Translation Rights Project” established by ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of Spain. She also organized the roundtable “Women and the Spanish Civil War: From Memory to International Citizenship in a Dangerous World” during Women’s HerStory month, Borough of Manhattan Community College, and presented on the Spanish Civil War photographs of the Hungarian photographer Kati Horna (March 29, 2016).
Professor Ángeles Donoso Macaya was invited to be the discussant of the panel “Matrices de control y resistencia: performance, visualidad y política” in the XXXIV International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, to be held in New York City, May 27-30, 2016. On April 21, she took her Film & Conversation course, to see U.S filmmaker and artist Laura Poitra’s exhibit, Astro Noise, at the Whitney Museum.
On March 17 Professor Chun-Yi shared his insight on gender representations in East Asia. The event was the final colloquium of the FIG Language Society and Culture. Students and Faculty attended the event.
Chun-Yi Peng, Instructor, Modern Languages
Professor Sophie Maríñez will read her poetry series
Sentencia del Infierno/Sentence from Hell at the Literary Salon of the Caribbean Studies Association Annual Conference, PétionVille, Haiti, June 5-11, 2016. She also edited the fourth issue of Échos du Tout-Monde, dedicated to the role of the French language in our lives. Had its electronic format in PDF posted on the MLD’s website and shared in social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and the widely-read blog on Caribbean culture and literature, Repeating islands: https://repeatingislands.com/2016/04/10/new-electronic-formatof-bmcccuny-literary-magazine-echos-du-tout-monde/
Professor Marilyn Rivera used ELIC funds to take her
class, SPN 200, to Teatro Círculo to see Callback Series 2016 which explores the question what it means to be a Latino man. It included the following plays: Manchild Machismo, Rhapsodia, and Someday a Father Be. She also invited writer and actor Ricardo Santana Ortiz (2016 HOLA Award winner) to talk to her class SPN 210 via Skype.
Marilyn Rivera ’s book, Masculinidades y transgresiones en la obra de Mayra Santos Febres, and Ángeles Donoso Macaya ’s Latinas/os on the East Coast: A Critical Reader, co-edited with Yolie Medina, were part of the BMCC Faculty Books Exhibition in the BMCC Library. As part of the activities of the Women Herstory Professor Paquita Suárez-Coalla coordinated and co-sponsored the following events: Recordando a Ana Mendieta/ Remembering Ana Mendieta, an homage to the Cuban American performance artist, sculptor and painter Ana Mendieta best known for her "earth-body" artwork. The event consisted of: Presentation of the Documentary Fuego de Tierra, by Nereida García Fernández on March 17, 2016 and Literary Reading and Discussion of Ana en cuatro tiempos (short stories based on Ana Mendieta’s life) by Sonia Rivera-Valdés, on March 24, 2016. Women and the Spanish Civil War: From Memory to International Citizenship in a Dangerous World. Presentation about different aspects of the Spanish Civil War by Paquita Suárez Coalla and Margaret Carson (Modern Languages), Page Delano and Jennifer Prince, on March 29, 2016. The course Creative Writing in Spanish was taught for the first time at the Modern Languages Department by Professor Paquita Suárez Coalla. 20 students were registered.
Professors Paquita Suárez-Coalla and Ainoa Íñigo , used ELIC funds to take their students to a Flamenco show at the Centro Español de Manhattan.
Professor Kristina Varade was one of the four steering committee members for the upcoming conference, "UpRising,” to be held at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and Glucksman Ireland House. This international conference is in partnership with Dance Research Forum Ireland.
Awards and Recognition Professor Margaret Carson was selected to be a participant in the NEH-funded professional development and curriculum enhancement project “Cultivating Global Competencies in a Diverse World,” a monthly seminar meeting from September 2015 to May 2016.
Professor Ángeles Donoso Macaya is the recipient of a PSC-CUNY Research Award (2016-2017). The title of the article to be completed is "A Queer/Latina Artist’s Ethics of Endurance: Spic Ecdysis (2014) by Xandra Ibarra.”
Professor Ainoa Íñigo is the recipient of the BMCC Faculty Development Grant Award with her project “A Gender Perspective on 2666 by Roberto Bolaño”.
Professor Ling Luo’s research proposal "Understanding and Integration: Murphy’s Architectural Practice and Cultural Integration in China" received a PSC-CUNY Research Award (20162017)
Professor Sophie Maríñez was awarded a year-long Faculty Fellowship at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics, The Graduate Center, City University of New York. A weekly seminar and release time to work on her book project Sacred Twins: Alternate Constructions of the Dynamics Between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (2016-2017). She received the Stewart Travel Grant to partially cover travel expenses for participation at the Renaissance Society of America’s annual conference. Boston, March 30-31, 2016. She also received the Faculty Advisor Achievement Award from the Student Government Association for her role as the Faculty Advisor of the French-Speaking World Club.
The Department of Modern Languages offers the Associate of Art (A.A.) degree program in Modern Languages with a specialization in French, Italian, and Spanish. This interdisciplinary major will provide students with the necessary foundation in language skills and cultural literacy to engage in a professional career. In addition, this program fully articulates with Hunter
College’s
bachelor
degree
programs
in
Romance
languages.
What can you do with this major? Really anything you want! The possibilities are endless! Whether you are considering a career in foreign languages, desire a well-rounded education, or simply enjoy languages and plan to travel for pleasure in the future, BMCC's Department of Modern Languages can help you develop with the skills and the knowledge to meet your goals. A strong background in foreign languages studies can lead to varied and interesting career opportunities in fields such as business, government or education. A major in foreign languages can be a stepping-stone to language-centered jobs such as interpreter, translator or teacher, as well as jobs in which foreign language skills are valuable. Expand your mind and enhance your life by learning another language with the MLD! Learn how to engage in conversation, discuss opinions and ideas, and develop an understanding of cultures other than your own. Learning more than one language increases your job opportunities. In addition to being helpful when traveling. An Associate of Arts (AA) degree from the MLD can give you an excellent foundation in the world language of your choice. You can work toward the AA degree for your own personal enrichment, to enhance career opportunities, or use the credits you earn to transfer to a four-year college or university to continue toward a baccalaureate degree.
Connect with us Our dynamic faculty is from all over the world and give you a deeper understand of the language and culture. Our faculty is trained to provide students with a unique set of international and interdisciplinary cultural opportunities designed to broaden their cultural horizons, enhance their intellectual flexibility, and increase their adaptability in the context of an ever-changing global workplace.
