Graduate Student News

Graduate Student Perspective

Literature PhD Student Awarded College of Arts & Sciences Dissertation Year Fellowship - Valeriya F. Fritz

This past year I was fortunate to be awarded a College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Year Fellowship. This award provided me with the time and financial assistance necessary to draft the introduction and four chapters of my dissertation, which challenges canon formation both in Spain and Mexico by studying texts by less-known female writers who went into political exile in Mexico after the Republican defeat in the Spanish Civil War. The thesis fills a critical gap by situating female exile literature in the hybrid discursive space of the Spanish-speaking Atlantic. I examine texts by Maria José de Chopitea, Cecilia G. de Guilarte, Luisa Carnés and Carmen Mieza in order to explore the ways in which they articulate issues related to race, gender, nation, and exile through the literary representations of the space of family. 

The release from teaching afforded by the Fellowship enabled me to develop an effective writing and research schedule. It also provided the flexibility to travel to several academic conferences to present my dissertation research, which was crucial to my scholarship. Because of the progress I have made during this Fellowship year, this fall I will be able to dedicate myself to revising and defending my dissertation while preparing job search materials. 

College of Arts & Sciences Dissertation Year Fellowship Winner - Bret Linford

Study abroad is considered a crucial step for university students learning a second language. But what effect does the specific location abroad have on the linguistic outcomes of the learners? With that question in mind, my dissertation examines how second language learners develop dialect-specific features of Spanish after studying abroad in Spain and the Dominican Republic. I specifically examine three variable morphosyntactic structures that demonstrate differences between regions: verbal subjects, direct objects, and the present perfect. The student participants completed oral interviews, written contextualized tasks, a grammar test, and detailed background questionnaires at the beginning of the study abroad and again 90 days later. Native speakers from the study abroad locations also completed the oral interview and written contextualized tasks.

Results showed that the location of the study abroad directly affected the students’ development of the three structures under investigation. In general, students showed more dialect-specific use of the structures but tended to overgeneralize the regional linguistic forms. The development of these structures also depended on factors such as task type, grammatical proficiency and the students’ attitudes toward the culture, language and people of the study abroad location. This research provides important insights for linguists, language educators, and program directors by identifying specific changes that take place in learner grammars during a stay abroad.

As part of this research, I was fortunate to receive funding which included the College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Completion Fellowship. This critical funding has greatly benefited my research by providing me with invaluable time to dedicate to the project. It also provided me with more funding than I would have normally obtained through an associate instructorship which made it possible to pay research assistants to help with the interview transcriptions and data coding. I am very grateful to have received the fellowship. 

Graduate Student Honors and Awards

Research Honors and Awards

Hannah Agauas, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received a 2015 Dissertation Year Fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences. She was also awarded a College Arts and Humanities Institute (CAHI) Graduate Conference Travel Fellowship.

Robert Baxter, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, was awarded a Grant-in-Aid from the University Graduate School to defray dissertation research expenses.

Gibran Delgado Díaz, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received the department’s 2015 Timothy J. Rogers Summer Dissertation Fellowship.

Matt Johnson, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, was selected as the department’s Doctoral Student Academic Achievement Award recipient for 2015-16. He also received a CAHI Travel Fellowship to attend a conference in Puerto Rico.

Justin Knight, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received the JM Hill Outstanding Graduate Paper Award for 2015.

Erin Lavin, PhD 2015 Hispanic Linguistics, received a College Travel Award to present at International Pragmatics Conference

Gaëlle Le Calvez, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, was awarded a travel grant by the Latin American Studies Association-Mexico Section. She also received a CLACS Field Research Grant.

Avizia Long, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, was awarded a College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Completion Fellowship for 2015-16.

Cynthia Martinez, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, was awarded the Luis Davila Best Graduate Essay by the Latino Studies Program.

Liz McDyer, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received the 2015-16 Merle E. Simmons Travel Fellowship.

Sean McKinnon, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received a CLACS Field Research Grant.

Rosa Piqueres Gilabert, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received a College Graduate Travel Fellowship to attend a conference in Chicago.

Jocelyn Young, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received the department’s 2015 Deyermond Travel Fellowship.

Silvina Bongiovanni and Valentyna Filimonova, both PhD candidates in Hispanic Linguistics, served as Associate Editors of the Indiana University Linguistics Club Working Papers Online, Vol. 14, 2 (2014),  Quantitative approaches to the study of sociolinguistic phenomena across Spanish varieties.

Teaching Honors & Awards

Iraida Galarza Galarza, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received the department’s AI Teaching Award for 2015.

PhD Degree Conferred

Rob Bedinghaus (Hispanic Linguistics)
Eric Carbajal (Hispanic Literatures)
Tonya Flores (Hispanic Linguistics)
Luis González Barrios (Hispanic Literatures)
Erin Lavin (Hispanic Linguistics)
Moraima Mundo Rios (Portuguese)
Jared Patten (Hispanic Literatures)
Megan Solon (Hispanic Linguistics)

MA Degree Conferred

Meg Cychosz (Hispanic Linguistics)
Margaret Glide (Hispanic Linguistics)
Dan Jung (Hispanic Linguistics)
Laura Merino (Hispanic Linguistics)
Ian Michalski (Hispanic Linguistics)
Monica Mills (Hispanic Linguistics)
Gloria Navajas (Hispanic Linguistics)
Gabriela Quispe (Hispanic Linguistics)
Alaina Rydzewski (Hispanic Literatures)
Travis Sago (Hispanic Linguistics)
Jenna Taylor (Hispanic Linguistics)
Natalie Techentin (Hispanic Literatures)
Anna Wilson (Hispanic Linguistics)

Tenure Track Positions

Virginia Arreola, Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY
Eric Carbajal, Cal State Fullerton
Bret Linford, Grand Valley State University, MI
Nick Phillips, Grinnell College, IA
Megan Solon, University of Albany, NY

Department Organizes Public Forum on the Politics of Violence

On Friday November 21, 2014, “The Politics of Violence in Mexico: A Public Forum for Information, Solidarity, and Action” took place in the IMU Whittenberger Auditorium. This forum, organized by graduate students in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, aimed to inform the IU and greater Bloomington communities about recent violent events in Mexico and to promote discussion regarding these events. The impetus for organizing the forum was the forced disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa, Mexico, in September and the subsequent discovery of numerous mass graves in the same area. Professors Patrick Dove, Peter Guardino, Bradley Levinson, and John McDowell contextualized and commented on the state of Mexico, before taking part in a Q&A discussion with attendees. The event received extensive coverage and was streamed live as a part of the Global Forum, “Mexico: The Wound of the World.” Following the forum, Professor Dove wrote an opinion piece for CNN México related to the significance of Ayotzinapa in the United States, and the organizers and speakers were invited as guests on a follow-up segment on the HOLA Bloomington radio program.