Graduate Student News

Graduate Student Perspective: Teresa Hancock-Parmer

This past year I was fortunate to enjoy a College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Completion Fellowship. The award provided me the time, financial support, and motivation necessary to finish writing my dissertation.

With a teaching release I developed a consistent, effective writing and research schedule; in seven months I was able to write my final three chapters, revise my entire dissertation, and prepare job search materials.

The award also gave me flexibility for conference travel, and I presented different dissertation chapters at three conferences during the fall semester. Additionally, the stipend helped with childcare expenses.

I defended in May 2014, within the department's five-year PhD timeline. I am very grateful for the fellowship, my adviser's encouragement, and my committee's support, all of which have been essential to my progress.

Graduate Student Perspective: Tony Hessenthaler

I recently returned from two weeks in Seville, Spain, at the Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos (EEHA) and the Archivo General de Indias (AGI). This research trip was made possible by the Merle E. Simmons Travel Fellowship.

In Seville I was able to access rare and not yet digitized documents related to my dissertation, which centers on 17th century Manila, including petitions to the King asking for more resources in the Philippines and petitions to enslave indigenous people at the end of the 17th century.

Lodging and extended library hours at the EEHA proved to be invaluable, as was the staff at both the AGI and the EEHA, who helped guide me to the most recent research in my field.

Graduate Student Perspective: Matt Kanwit

Holding the College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Completion Fellowship for the 2013-2014 academic year has provided a wonderful boost as I have worked to complete my dissertation and enter the job market.

Due to the research-dedicated time that the fellowship provided, I was able to invest a lot of energy in analyzing the over 10,000 tokens of future-time expression in native-speaker and language-learner Spanish that I collected for my dissertation.

In addition to enabling me to analyze data, run statistical tests, and write the five chapters of my dissertation, the fellowship allowed me to have a flexible schedule, which was a great asset as I presented at conferences and held campus visits related to my job search. I know that my dissertation is much stronger because of the fellowship and also that I was able to prepare for telephone/Skype interviews and campus visits with much greater zeal based on the extra hours of productivity that the fellowship created in my schedule.

In fact, I think that simply being able to list the fellowship on my CV made me a more viable job candidate.

In addition to being thankful for the outstanding preparation I have received inside and outside of the classroom in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, I am grateful for the opportunities that holding the dissertation fellowship has afforded me.

Graduate Student Honors and Awards

Research Honors and Awards

Silvina Bongiovanni, PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics, received a Tinker Field Research Grant through the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Valeriya Fedonkina, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received a 2014 Dissertation Year Fellowship from the Salaroglio Modern Foreign Language Scholarship as well as the Russell A. Havens Scholarship in Foreign Languages.

Moses Fritz, PhD student in Hispanic Literatures, was awarded the Academic Year fellowship for 2013-14. He also was the recipient of the JM Hill Award for Outstanding Graduate Research Paper in Hispanic Literatures for 2013 with his essay "Far From Fantasy: The Cultural Foundations of Hunting Practice in Amadís de Gaula".

Matthew Fuss, MA '13 Hispanic Linguistics, was the winner of the JM Hill Award for Outstanding Graduate Research Paper in Hispanic Linguistics for 2013 with his "Morphosyntactic variation in Papiamentu: The use of the gerund to express progressive aspect".

Kaitlin Guidarelli, PhD student in Hispanic Literature, received a 2014 FLAS summer fellowship at Yale University.

Teresa Hancock-Parmer, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received a 2013 College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Year Fellowship. She was also awarded a College of Arts and Sciences Travel Award to attend the Sixteenth-Century Society Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Tony Hessenthaler, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, was awarded the 2013-14 Merle E. Simmons Travel Fellowship for his research in Seville.

Matthew Johnson, PhD student in Hispanic Literatures, won the JM Hill Award for Outstanding Graduate Research Paper in Hispanic Literature for 2014 with his essay "Entre Sarmiento y Shklovski: El desperdicio de Matilde Sánchez como "biografía extrañada".

Matt Kanwit, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received a 2013 College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Year Fellowship. In 2014 he was awarded a College Graduate Travel Fellowship for his paper "Spanish mood in adverbial clauses: Lexical effects and the acceptance of both present and future," which he will present at the International Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics.

Cara Kinnally, PhD '13 Hispanic Literatures and American Studies, was recognized when her dissertation, "Writing America: Transnational Discourses of Empire, Race and Community Formation in Greater Mexico," was chosen as IU's representative for the 2013 CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award competition in the Humanities and Fine Arts. As each university is allowed to make only one nomination in this category, Cara's dissertation was chosen from a diverse and highly competitive group.

Erin Lavin received a Grant in Aid of Doctoral Research from the University Graduate School.

Gaëlle Le Calvez, PhD student in Hispanic Literatures, is the reciepient of the 2014 Merle E. Simmons Travel Fellowship in support of her summer research in Mexico. Her paper, "La escritura y el desplazamiento del autor" was selected as the Best Graduate Student Essay in Latino Literature, Arts & Cultures for 2014. She also received a Tinker Fellowship through CLACS for summer research.

Bret Linford, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received a 2014 College Dissertation Completion Fellowship. He also received a Grant in Aid of Doctoral Research from the University Graduate School and a CAHI Dissertation Research Travel Fellowship for his project on "The Second-language Development of Dialect-specific Morpho-syntactic Variation in Spanish During Study Abroad."

Avizia Yim Long, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received a Tinker Field Research Grant through the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She also recieved a CAHI Dissertation Research Travel grant and a FLAS Area Fellowship to study in Korea.

Ian Michalski, MA student in Hispanic Linguistics, received a Tinker Field Research Grant through the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Tamara Mitchell, PhD student in Hispanic Literatures, was honored when her essay "La Guagua aérea" was selected as the best graduate student essay for the 2013 Latino Studies writing contest. She also received a Tinker Fellowship through CLACS for summer 2014 research.

Joseph Pecorelli, PhD student in Portuguese, was awarded a 2013 FLAS summer fellowship by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies for study in Florianópolis, Brazil.

Nick Phillips, PhD '14 Hispanic Literatures, received the Timothy J. Rogers Summer Dissertation Fellowship for 2013. He also received the Bieder travel fellowship to deliver his paper entitled "Local Crime in the Global City: Carme Riera's Natura quasi morta as a Spatial Interrogation of the Contemporary Barcelona Metropolis" at the North American Catalan Society Conference.

Alysa Schroff, PhD student in Hispanic Literatures, received the 2014 Merle E. Simmons Travel Fellowship in support of her research trip to Mexico and recieved a Tinker Fellowship through CLACS for summer research.

Megan Solon, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, was awarded a College Graduate Travel fellowship for her presentation at the Current Approaches to Spanish and Portuguese Second Language Phonology Conference. She also received a Grant-in-Aid of Doctoral Research from the University Graduate School.

Melissa Whatley, PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics, won the JM Hill Award for Outstanding Graduate Research Paper in Hispanic Linguistics for 2014 with her essay "L2 Spanish past-time marking: Frequency and form". She also received a College Graduate Travel fellowship for her presentation at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference.

Recipients of the first annual Spanish and Portuguese GSAC Travel Grant Awards were Tanya Flores, Elizabeth Herring, and Rosa Piqueres-Gilabert, and receiving the awards in 2014 were Tony Hessenthaler, Teresa Hancock-Parmer and Tammy Mitchell.

Teaching Honors and Awards

Tony Hessenthaler, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received the 2013 university-wide Lieber Associate Instructor Teaching Award for teaching excellence. Tony was the recipient of the 2013 Departmental AI Teaching Award.

Avizia Long is the recepient of the 2014 Departmental AI Teaching Award.

Jared Patten, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received an Honorable Mention in the competition for 2013 Departmental AI Teaching Award.

Amina Shabani, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, won the highly-competitive university-wide Lieber Associate Instructor Teaching Award in 2012. Amina has also been selected as a Future Faculty Teaching Fellow in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Butler University for 2014-15.

PhD Degrees Conferred

• Virginia Arreola (Hispanic Literatures)
• Maria Hasler Barker (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Stephen Fafulas (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Michael Gradoville (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Ryan Hallows (Hispanic Literatures)
• Joshua Hamilton (Hispanic Literatures)
• Ivy Howell (Hispanic Literatures)
• Cara Kinnally (Hispanic Literatures)
• Zak Montgomery (Portuguese)
• Michael Mosier (Hispanic Literatures)
• Thomas Neal (Hispanic Literatures)
• Nick Phillips (Hispanic Literatures)
• Marda Rose (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Emily Tobey (Hispanic Literatures)

MA Degrees Conferred

• Melissa Ballestros (Hispanic Literatures)
• Rebecca Clay (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Christie Cole (Hispanic Literatures)
• Valentyna Filimonova (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Mark Fitzsimmons (Hispanic Literatures)
• Matthew Fuss (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Morris Gevirtz (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Maria Cintra Guimaraes (Portuguese)
• Mark Hoff (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Matt Johnson (Hispanic Literatures)
• Justin Knight (Hispanic Literatures)
• Guillermo López-Prieto (Hispanic Literatures)
• Jackie Markle (Hispanic Literatures)
• Angel Milla Muñoz (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Andrea Mojedano-Batel (Hispanic Linguistics)
• Victoria Nixon (Hispanic Literatures)
• Ellen Robinson (Hispanic Literatures)
• Olivia Holloway Salzano (Portuguese)
• Heather Songer (Hispanic Literatures)
• Travis Williams (Hispanic Literatures)
• Jocelyn Young (Hispanic Literatures)

Tenure Track Positions

• Maria Hasler Barker, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX
• Ligia Bezerra, Spelman College, Atlanta, GA
• Stephen Fafulas, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
• Tanya Flores, University of Utah, Lake City, UT
• Matt Kanwit, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
• Cara Kinnally, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
• Mark Mosier, Cornell College, Mount Vernon, IA
• Thomas Neal, University of Akron, Akron, OH
• Silvia Roca-Martinez, Citadel College, Charleston, SC
• Emily Tobey, University of North Carolina - Pembroke

Graduate Student Notes

We are pleased to announce the creation of a new periodical, Hiedra Magazine, a bilingual publication dedicated to literature, arts, and contemporary thought, edited and published in Bloomington.

Its editors and editorial board comprise a wide range of graduate students and faculty from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese as well as others across campus. For more information about the magazine please see hiedramagazine.com.

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The Fall 2013 semester marked the initiation of the Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics Society (HiLLS), a graduate student-led organization that addresses the professional needs of Hispanic Linguistics graduate students in the Department. HiLLS 2013-2014 board members: Silvina Bongiovanni, Jordan Garrett, Carly Henderson, Melissa Whatley, and Sara Zahler.