Graduate Student News

Diálogos conference 2018

The XV interdisciplinary Diálogos conference, organized by the Graduate Student Advisory Committee (GSAC) of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University-Bloomington, was held on March 2-3, 2018 in the Global and International Studies Building. 

The conference was honored with the participation of two guest keynote speakers: Dr. Concepción Company Company, Emeritus Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and Dr. Adam Joseph Shellhorse, Associate Professor at Temple University. Dr. Company Company gave a lecture entitled “Un ángulo no explorado de la teoría de la gramaticalización. La diacronía de las palabras gramaticales” (An unexplored angle of grammaticalization. The diachrony of grammatical words). Dr. Shellhorse presented “Radical Reinventions of Language: Anti-Literature in Augusto de Campos and Alejandra Pizarnik.” 

Thirty graduate students presented their original research on a variety of topics in Spanish, Lusophone, and Catalan literatures and linguistics. In addition to varied representation of Indiana University’s students, there was noteworthy participation of students from other universities, such as Illinois State University, University of Delaware, University of California-Los Angeles, Syracuse University, University of Maryland, Western Michigan University, Missouri University, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

One of the most significant developments of Diálogos XV was the creation of a panel for undergraduate Spanish majors. They presented outstanding papers previously written for their upper-division classes, an opportunity that we hope to continue to expand upon in coming years.

The conference’s program also included other sessions of interest for the participants. The opening event was the roundtable “State of the Field: Hispanic and Lusophone Studies in U.S. Academia,” which had as facilitators IU professors Steven Wagschal (Chair, Spanish and Portuguese), Patricia Amaral (Director of Graduate Studies, Spanish and Portuguese), Patrick Dove (Associate Chair, Spanish and Portuguese), and Bryan Pitts (Associate Director, CLACS). They gave an overview of their vision of the humanities and social sciences in academia, both now and moving forward. Moreover, both Dr. Company Company and Dr. Estela Vieira (IU Spanish and Portuguese) respectively, offered workshops in linguistics and literature.​

Graduate Student Perspective: Valentyna Filimonova

This has been a year of many new challenges and unique opportunities for me. Since my dissertation proposal defense, my ambitious scavenger hunt for fieldwork funding in Mexico has resulted in an exchange opportunity in Fall 2018 with Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). However, I am most proud of what I have been able to accomplish during this past year, namely an engagement with the emerging field of forensic linguistics, research on teaching and learning, and service to the IU and Bloomington communities.

In 2017, I attended the LSA (Linguistics Society of America) Summer Institute where I was introduced to forensic linguistics, which is the application of sociolinguistic principles and methodologies to the study of law. Since then, I have collaborated actively in several cases directed by Dr. Robert Leonard of Hofstra University, which has the only graduate program in forensic linguistics in the US. This newly discovered passion inspired me to create a Forensic Linguistics Club at IU. Over the course of the Spring 2018 semester, the group that started with only 3 people attracted an audience of 60, who attended our “Intersections of Language & Law” panel. The panel was part of an annual Linguistics graduate student conference and was sponsored by eight departments, including the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

The importance of language in all aspects of the modern world cannot be underestimated, and this reality has become key in my teaching innovation and research. I have transformed my sections of Introduction to Spanish Linguistics (S326) into a Problem-Based Learning course through a course-long forensic investigation. Students were enthusiastic about this ‘experiment.’ I presented my findings at the 19th Annual Midwest SoTL Conference, where attendees were also enthusiastic about the problem-based approach in the classroom. Fueled by the students’ thirst for relevant social applications, I successfully redesigned an Introduction to Sociolinguistics (L315) as a service-learning course in Fall 2017 semester. I was honored to present these course renovations at the CITL (Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning) Conference on Curricular Community Engaged Learning at IU and to earn an Excellence in Teaching Award for those renovations from the Linguistics Department.

I believe it is these unique opportunities that helped me secure a summer internship with the Linguistic Society of America, after which I look forward to continuing my dissertation project in Mexico.

Graduate Student Perspective: Justin Knight

I am both grateful and humbled to have received a College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Year Fellowship for the 2018-19 academic year. I completed an MA in Hispanic Literatures at IU in 2013, defended my dissertation proposal in 2016, and I look forward to dedicating the next year to researching and writing as I further develop my dissertation project.  Tentatively titled “Developmental Allegory in Nineteenth-century Spanish American Narrative,” my dissertation explores literature’s relationship to historical time and politics in post-independence Spanish America. It engages with the work of authors such as Soledad Acosta de Samper, Ignacio Altamirano, José Mármol, Juana Manuela Gorriti, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, and Jorge Isaacs, arguing that the most fundamental insights to be gleaned from narrative texts of this period require a radical reconfiguration of conventional understandings of both allegorical reference and developmental time. Drawing on a range of sources from literary theory and political philosophy, the project attempts just such a reconfiguration in the service of ignored or repressed readings of the texts’ structures of historical allegorization. It seeks to contribute new theoretical perspectives to the growing field of nineteenth-century Latin American studies while also engaging with current scholarly work on allegory and the politics of representation. 

As with any project of this nature, my work is the payoff from a collective investment of labor and energy on the part of an entire department. I would like to thank my professors, and in particular my dissertation advisor, Professor Alejandro Mejías-López, as well as my fellow graduate students and the department’s administrative staff. Their impact on my work and my personal and professional development is too great to detail here, but suffice it to say that none of what I have accomplished in this department would have been possible without their thoughtful intelligence and steadfast support. 

Graduate Student Perspective: Ricardo Martins

I am currently pursuing my PhD in Portuguese Literature at Indiana University. For the past 3 years, I have been fortunate enough to work for a better community in Bloomington and collaborate with many incredible people to create more opportunities for Latinxs in our city. As a Spanish and Portuguese instructor, I have been trying to provide positive learning environments for both graduate and undergraduate students and to instill in them the same passion for languages and cultures that I have.

As a student, I have a personal interest in the Latin-Iberian feminist writers across the centuries, particularly Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz in Mexico, Nísia Floresta in Brazil and Ana de Castro Osório in Portugal, all prominent and precursors of the feminist ideas of emancipation and equality in their respective countries. I am also fascinated by the relations between Latin American authors such as Machado de Assis, Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Luís Borges, and Gabriel García Márquez, all of which shared a penchant for the magical and the fantastical in the literary world.

Being a graduate student and instructor may be overwhelming at times. However, given the turmoil that many countries are experiencing right now – Brazil included – it is of immense importance to contribute to the community in order to help our society become a little bit better. I have been working with the Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs of the City of Bloomington, and we recently received the Be More Awards for our work to improve the conditions for Latinxs in our community. I also received the Distinguished Latino Graduate Student Award for my contributions to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. I have many people to thank for their support and guidance, including my fellow commissioners, colleagues, coworkers, professors as well as my wife Nina and son Marcelo. 

Graduate Student Honors and Awards

Research Honors and Awards

Andrew Bartels, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, won a Title VIII Fellowship for Study in the Summer Language Workshop to study Hungarian this summer.

Beth Boyd, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, was selected for the Center for Renaissance Studies’ 2017-18 Dissertation Seminar for Scholars of Material and Visual Culture at the Newberry Library.

Alexandria Dienstbier, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, was selected for the Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies Research Methods Workshop for Early-Career Graduate Students entitled “New Spain at the Newberry Library: Demystifying Colonial Documents from the Ayer Collection.” She was also awarded the department’s Doctoral Student Award for Academic Achievement.

Nathan Douglas, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received a College of Arts & Sciences Travel Award to attend The American Literary Translators Association’s annual conference.

Travis Evans-Sago, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received a College of Arts & Sciences Travel Award to attend the International Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics.

Carly Henderson, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received a University Graduate School Grant-in-Aid award to support her dissertation research. She also received a prestigious grant from the journal Language Learning, which will support her research.

Justin Knight, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, won a College of Arts & Sciences Dissertation Research Fellowship to support his dissertation project Developmental Allegory in Nineteenth-Century Spanish American Narrative.

Ricardo Martins, PhD candidate in Portuguese, was awarded the 2018 IU Distinguished Latino Graduate Student Award and received the Be More Phenomenal Board Member Award from the city of Bloomington.

Sean McKinnon, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received an OVPIA International Enhancement Grant to study the Kaqchikel language in Guatemala. He also received a UGS Grant-in-Aid and a GPSG Research Award to cover dissertation-related research.

Ángel Milla Muñoz, PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics, received the Eoyang-Lee Fellowship from the Office of International Services to support his continued study of the humanities.

Tamara Mitchell, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, was awarded the department’s Summer Dissertation Fellowship and received a College of Arts & Sciences Travel Award to attend the Latin American Studies Association’s International Congress.

Juan Morilla Romero, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received the department’s Merle E. Simmons Travel Fellowship for Research on Latin American Literature.

Daniel Runnels, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, presented "Indigenous Iconographies and the Bolivian State in the Era of Evo Morales" at the First Nations Educational and Cultural Center as part of Hispanic Heritage month last October. He also gave a presentation entitled “Ritual, objeto, y nostalgia en Cosas consabidas” at the International Book Fair in La Paz, Bolivia in August 2017.

José Luis Suárez Morales, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, was awarded a graduate student exchange position at the Free University of Berlin for the 2018-19 academic year. He also received an OVPIA International Enhancement Grant to attend the summer program “CONCEPTA: Iberoamerica en Historia Conceptual” at El Colegio de México, and earned the department’s J.M. Hill Prize for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper.

Laís Lara Vanin, MA candidate in Portuguese, received the Martins-Sadlier Prize for Best Paper in Brazilian Studies from the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Taís Xavier Carvalho, PhD candidate in Portuguese, was awarded 3rd place in the University Graduate School’s “Three Minute Thesis” Competition.

Teaching Honors and Awards

Christina Cole, PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures, received the department’s 2018 AI Award for Outstanding Teaching.

PhD Degree Conferred

Robert Baxter, Hispanic Linguistics
Silvina Bongiovanni, Hispanic Linguistics
Gibran Delgado-Díaz, Hispanic Linguistics
Nora Gardner, Hispanic Literatures
Beatriz Sedó del Campo, Hispanic Linguistics
Amina Shabani, Hispanic Literatures
Sara Zahler, Hispanic Linguistics

M.A. Degree Conferred

Aline Araújo, Portuguese
Santiago Arróniz Parra, Hispanic Linguistics
Nick Blaker, Hispanic Linguistics
Stephanie Estrada, Hispanic Literatures
Lindsay Giacomino, Hispanic Linguistics
Emma Green, Hispanic Literatures
Mackenzie McFadden-Kern, Hispanic Linguistics
Matthew Pollock, Hispanic Linguistics
Adam Singh, Hispanic Literatures
Camila Valdebenito, Hispanic Literatures

Tenure Track Positions

Silvina Bongiovanni - Michigan State University, East Lansing
Nora Gardner - Lincoln University, Oxford PA
Beth Herring - D’Youville College, Buffalo, NY
Joe Pecorelli - University of North Georgia, Dahlonega
Sara Zahler - University of Albany, SUNY