Faculty News

New Faculty Profile: Paul Coats

Paul Coats joins the department as a new Core Lecturer for the department’s Basic Language Program and will begin supervising the S100 and S150 courses in the fall. He earned his BA in Spanish and Russian from Clemson University (2011) and spent a year at the University of Alicante, Spain, as an exchange student. He later attended graduate school at the University of South Carolina as a Presidential Fellow, where he earned an MA in Spanish (2014) with a focus on Hispanic Linguistics and SLA. He also obtained a graduate certificate in TESOL (2014) and a second MA in Linguistics (2015). Although his primary area of research in graduate school was L3 phonological acquisition (see 2014 thesis The Effect of Explicit Instruction on the Perception of Spanish Stops by Speakers of Korean), his passion has always been teaching—both in the classroom and outside of it—where any research he does has the purpose of further improving his students’ learning. Consequently, Paul has recently returned from teaching with the IUHPFL summer honors program in Mérida, Mexico, and is excited to begin training future instructors in his new role as a supervisor. He also hopes to continue his work with the Grupo de Teatro VIDA.

Faculty News

Patrícia Amaral gave the plenary talk at The Ohio State University graduate student conference in April, titled “What adverbs (un)do.” She was also invited to speak at the Center for Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Australian National University last July and delivered “Pluractionality in Spanish: the verbal periphrasis vivir + gerund.”

Anke Birkenmaier published The Specter of Races. Latin American Anthropology and Literature between the Wars, New World Studies, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016.

J. Clancy Clements gave the keynote talk at the Hispanic Linguistic Symposium, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign last September, entitled “Typology, acquisition, and the distinctness of pidgin and creole languages.”

Manuel Díaz-Campos received a Collaborative Research and Creative Activity Funding Award for his project titled, “The contributions of perceptual studies to the description of sociolinguistic variation.” He also was selected for a Course Development grant to work on his proposal for a 300-level course on the language of leadership. This course will be part of a new minor that is being developed on “Leaders and Leadership” by the Political and Civic Engagement (PACE) program and it will bring sociolinguistics to undergraduates with diverse interests.

Patrick Dove presented a keynote address at the University of Minnesota graduate conference in March, entitled “The Secret of the World: Globalization, History and Modernity in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666.”

César Félix-Brasdefer was promoted to the rank of full professor. He is the recipient of a Conference & Workshop grant from the College Arts & Humanities Institute to support the 3rd International Conference of the American Pragmatics Association, to be held November 4-6, 2016 at IU.

Ryan Giles and Steve Wagschal were awarded a Collaborative Fellowship Award from the Institute for Advanced Study to support costs associated with the publication of their co-authored volume tentatively titled Beyond Sight: Experiences of Smell, Taste, Touch and Hearing in Iberian Literatures and Cultures (1200-1750) which will be published by the University of Toronto Press in 2017.

Laura Gurzynski-Weiss was promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure this year. She was awarded a Short-Term International Visitors grant from the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs and earned the 2016 Trustees Teaching Award for tenure-stream faculty.

Israel Herrera was promoted from the rank of lecturer to senior lecturer. He also was the recipient of the university-wide NTT Trustees Teaching Award.

Virginia Hojas was selected as one of 10 Mosaic Fellows beginning in Fall 2016. This will allow her to develop new materials and approaches in the honors section of S250.

Edgar Illas received a Research Travel grant from the College Arts & Humanities Institute and an Individual Research Award from the Institute for Advanced Study for his project “Survival, or, the War Logic of Global Capitalism.” He also received a Course Development grant from the Hutton Honors College for his course “War Gone Viral: The Dark Side of Globalization.”

Catherine Larson, Professor Emerita, was pleased to travel to see her translation of a play by Angela de Azevedo, Presumed Dead (El muerto disimulado), performed in the Scripts in Play festival sponsored by the Avant Bard theater company in Washington DC. The play was well received, and the visit allowed her the opportunity to interact directly with the audience, director, and cast. Presumed Dead is the first translation of the play in English.

James Lynch was promoted from the rank of lecturer to senior lecturer.

Julie Madewell earned the department’s 2016 NTT Teaching Award.

Julie Madewell and Olga Scrivner were awarded a Phase II Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant from the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education for their project "Augmented Reality Digital Technologies (ARDT) for Foreign Language Teaching and Learning.”

Alejandro Mejías-López was awarded an OVPIA Overseas Conference grant to support his travel to Argentina.

Kathleen Myers recently published In the Shadow of Cortés: Conversations along the Route of Conquest with the University of Arizona Press. She received a grant from Spain’s Ministry for Education and Culture to do fieldwork on cultural geographies and trashumancia and she was the recipient of the 2015 GSAC Outstanding Mentor Award.

Robin Reeves was promoted from the rank of lecturer to senior lecturer. She also received a Sustainability Course Development Fellowship from IU’s Office of Sustainability to develop a content-based section of S250 designed to integrate the acquisitional goals of the course into content focused on issues related to the environment and sustainability.

Jonathan Risner received a Mellon Innovating International Research, Teaching, and Collaboration Award to support his project “Consumptions of Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Studies of Violence in Media.”

Darlene Sadlier, Professor Emerita, received an Emergency Grant-in-Aid from the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.

Estela Vieira received an Institute for Advanced Study Research Consultation grant for her co-edited volume, On Portuguese Cinema. She was selected as OVPIA’s participant for the Short-Term Faculty Research Program with the Brazilian Academy of Letters and also received an Overseas Study Program Development grant to develop a study-abroad program in Lisbon, Portugal.

Reyes Vila-Belda received an Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs Overseas Conference grant to support her travel to Germany and a New Frontiers Exploratory Travel Fellowship, from the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, for her project "Ills of a nation: Class and power in a short story by A. Machado."