We also want to recognize both the college and university administration for their help during the pandemic, as well as our dedicated administrative team and amazing staff, who offered us their continued support to make last year a successful one.

Let's celebrate this semester back together with a poem by Mario Benedetti, entitled "No te rindas," or "Don't give up." His words are an invitation to keep working, researching, and teaching:

No te rindas, por favor no cedas, aunque el frio queme, aunque el miedo muerda, aunque el sol se esconda y se calle el viento, aun hay fuego en tu alma, aun hay vida en tus sueños,

Don't give up, please don't give way, Even if the cold burns, Even if fear bites, Even if the sun sets, And the wind goes silent, There is still fire in your soul, There is still life in your dreams.

This new academic year, I would like to welcome our new cohort of graduate students: Leonardo Amaral (MA), Henrique Carvalho (MA), Bruna Fernandes (PhD), Jeremy Dickinson (MA), Nick Blumenau (PhD), Estefany Chiquillo-Sosa (PhD), Katherine Lindley (PhD), Miguel Roman (PhD), Christine Song (PhD), Taylor Brooks (MA), and Nashali Llauger Laureano (PhD). I would also like to greet our new postdoc in Hispanic linguistics, Dr. Natalie Povilonis de Vilchez, our new core lecturer, Dr. Megan Solon, our new adjunct, Anna Lynch, and our four new visiting lecturers, Dr. Alysa Schroff, Ashley Swann, M.A., Dinorah Sapp, M.A., and Dr. María Montenegro.

We have several new publications to celebrate. Professor Deborah Cohn's book, International Education at the Crossroads, was published by Indiana University Press. Professor Ryan Giles published two edited volumes, A New Companion to the Libro de buen amor and The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Medieval Iberia: Unity in Diversity. Along with two former graduate students, Lecturer Megan Solon and Professor Avizia Long (San José State University), Professor Kimberly Geeslin published the book The Acquisition of Spanish as a Second Language: Foundations and New Developments. A former member of our faculty, Professor Edward H. Friedman, has a book written by former students, Cosmic Wit: Essays in Honor of Edward H., being published in his honor as he retires from Vanderbilt University. Professor César Félix-Brasdefer has edited the book New Directions in Second Language Pragmatics. Professor Emerita Consuelo López-Morillas has published two books, including Muslims in Spain, 1492-1814 and The Nasrid Kingdom of Granada between East and West. Professor Anke Birkenmaier has published two edited volumes: Moctezuma. Un drama (1987) and Caribbean Migrations: The Legacies of Colonialism. I was also fortunate to publish two edited volumes, Routledge Handbook of Variationist Approaches to Spanish and Aspects of Latin American Dialectology: In Honor of Terrell Morgan.

I am happy to announce that four members of the faculty successfully applied for promotion this academic year. Lecturer Paul Coats was promoted to Senior Lecturer. Senior Lecturers Israel Herrera and Virginia Hojas-Carbonell were promoted to the new rank of Teaching Professor. Finally, Associate Professor Edgar Illas was promoted to the rank of Full Professor. Congratulations to all of them for their outstanding achievement!

Although there were not many events in the department this last year, I am proud to write that the departmental graduate student association, GSAC, organized the annual Diálogos conference online in the spring. The conference, now in its 18th year, included a diversity of topics such as Transatlantic Readings of Hegemony and Transnationalism, Sociolinguistics, Religious and Moralizing Approaches to the Spanish Golden Age and Colonial Period, Morphosyntax, Contemporary Readings of 20th Century Latin American Literature, and Language Acquisition. There were also outstanding keynote lectures from Dr. Mario Santana, Dr. Rena Torres Cacoullos, and Dr. Leila Lehnen, representing our programs in Literature and Culture, Linguistics, and Portuguese.

Several of our faculty have been recognized for their outstanding work. Professor  Patrick Dove was awarded the IU Presidential Arts and Humanities Research, Creative Activity, and Scholarship of Teaching for his proposal Histories of the Present: War and Displacement in Contemporary Central American Culture. Professor Luciana Namorato was awarded an FLAD (Fundação Luso- Americana para o Desenvolvimento) National Library of Portugal Research Grant to conduct research in Lisbon in spring 2022. She was also awarded a Fulbright in Portugal for next academic year to work on her project, The Literary Embrace: Transatlantic Exchange in the Portuguese-Speaking World, 1840-1910. Professor Steven Wagschal received a 2021 IDAH Summer Incubator Fellowship to work on a project classifying counterfactuals in early Spanish American literature. Professor Melissa Dinverno received the CAHI Grant in Support of Research + Creative Activity to host the exhibit From Exile to the Center: The Archive of Federico García Lorca in Granada, Spain. Professor Kathleen Myers was awarded the CAHI Grant in Support of Research + Creative Activity for her project, Contemporary Colonialities: Mexico and Beyond that she is conducting in collaboration with Professor Alejandro Mejías- López. She also received an Individual Research Award from the Institute for Advanced Study to continue work on her project, A Country of Shepherds: Cultural Geographies and Pastoralism in Contemporary Spain. Professor Félix-Brasdefer received the CAHI Grant in Support of Research + Creative Activity for his project, The Intercultural Speaker in Action: A Pragmatic-Discursive Perspective on Intercultural Communicative Competence. The TT-Trustees' Teaching Award for this year went to Professor Patrícia Amaral, and the NTT-Trustees' Teaching award went to Senior Lecturer Allen Davis. Teaching Professor Israel Herrera received the 2021 W. George Pinnell Award for Outstanding Service. Professor Edgar Illas was selected as Interim Director of The Center for Theoretical Inquiry in the Humanities for the spring semester. Professor Deborah Cohn was awarded the IU Bicentennial Medal for 2020 for her distinguished contributions and support of the university. Professor Anke Birkenmaier received a Grant-in-Aid for her book project, Caribbean Migrations: The Legacies of Colonialism. Professor Emerita Darlene Sadlier received a Grant-In-Aid for Retired Faculty to focus on a book about Brazilian documentary films, and was elected sócia-correspondente (foreign member) and inducted into the Academia de Letras da Bahia, the oldest Academy in Brazil, a lifetime membership. And last but not least, Professor Laura Gurzynski-Weiss received funding from the Center for Rural Engagement for her project, Emerging Bilingualism in Elementary-level Exposure- track Spanish: A Collaborative Partnership between IUB and DuBois.

Graduate students in the Department were recognized with numerous fellowships and grants this year. Maria Cintra received travel research funds for her project, "The Harmonic Symbology of Fernando Pessoa's Poetics: A Comparative Study of Literature, Science, and Other Semiotic Systems," from the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD) in partnership with the National Library of Portugal (BNP). Andrea Carrillo was awarded an IU Graduate and Professional Student Government travel grant to attend LASA 2021 and present her paper, "Kidnapping in the Colombian Literary Diaspora: The Narratives by Patricia Engel and Julianne Pachico." Guillermo Lopez-Prieto received a Future Faculty Teaching Fellowship at Butler University for 2021-22, as well as funding from the Institute for the Digital Arts and Humanities to gather data and visuals for his thesis, "Visceral Violence: Discourse Analysis and Representation of Murder and Injustice in Roberto Bolaño." Lindsay Giacomino accepted a position as Lecturer in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Iowa State University. Nofiya Denbaum received a College Arts & Humanities Institute Award in Support of Research and Creative Activity to support her project, "Islander Creole Corpus: Annotation and Archiving," and accepted a tenure-track position at Minnesota State University. Ricardo Martins was awarded the John H. Edwards Fellowship for academic year 2021-2022. The NTT and AI Teaching Awards Committee selected Daniel Runnels as the recipient of this year's AI Teaching Award. Juan Manuel Escalona Torres accepted a position as Lecturer of Spanish at Cornell University. Gabriela Kolman received a University Graduate School President's Diversity Dissertation Fellowship for 2021-22. Megan DiBartolomeo and Nilzimar Vieira were awarded the prestigious College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Beth Boyd received the Dr. William Slaymaker Graduate Summer Fellowship for her project, "Of Bodies and Other Matter: Image, Authority, and the Construction of Origin Narratives in Colonial Mexico," and accepted a position as a Future Faculty Teaching Fellow at the Indiana University East (IUE) campus. José Luis Morales was awarded a Center for Research on Race, Ethnicity and Society Graduate Student Grant for his project, "The Uses of Memory: Mediatization and Crisis in Post-Dictatorship Guatemala." Daniel Jung received a University Graduate School Grant-in-Aid of Doctoral Research for his project, "Examining the role and dynamicity of motivation in L2 Spanish course engagement and outcomes." Kane Ferguson, Guillermo Lopez-Prieto, and Eliot Raynor were chosen to receive a College of Arts and Sciences Travel Award. Nathan Douglas was awarded a year-long dissertation fellowship from the North American Catalan Society and the Institut Ramon Llull for his dissertation, "The Novel Bodies Politic in Spain and Catalonia." Kaitlin Guidarelli accepted a position as a lecturer in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Ian Michalski accepted a position as Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State-Erie. Caitlin McClelland accepted a position at DePauw University. Fernando Melero García accepted a tenure-track position at University of Texas at Arlington. Laura Merino accepted a postdoc position leading to a tenure-track position at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Finally, Gaëlle Le Calvez House, and Valentyna Filimonova successfully defended their dissertations. We wish all of our grads who defended their dissertations happiness and success in their future endeavors.

Our undergraduate students have continued to grow and stand out among their peers. Seven of our majors were inducted into  Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest and most prestigious of all national honors societies in the US. The National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society, Sigma Delta Pi, and the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) selected IU Spanish major Kathryn Petersen as the 2021 recipient of the Mario Vargas Llosa Award. She was also selected for the 2021 Herman B. Wells outstanding senior award. Portuguese Major Abe Kassis received the 2021 Executive Dean's Award for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity for his honors thesis "LGBTQ+ Representation in 21st-Century Brazilian Cinema." Portuguese minor Nina Castro-Sauer was selected as a Wells Scholar during last year's internal Wells Scholars competition.   Spanish major, Wells Scholar, AATSP Indiana Scholar, and IUB Sigma Delta Phi inductee Meena Moorthy received the 2021 Clara Javan Goodbody outstanding senior award for her community and campus service. Spanish majors Andres Ayala (AATSP Indiana scholar), Araceli Flores, Wendy Ruiz, Carli King, and Austen Ott (IUB Sigma Delta Phi inductee) and Spanish minors Stuart Sones and Emma Gerrety received the 2021 Kate Hevner Mueller outstanding senior award for their significant impact on campus community. Finally, Spanish minor, Wells Scholar, Board of Aeons member, and OVPUE Student Advisory Board member Margaret Schnabel was awarded the 2021 Elvis J Stahr outstanding senior award for her leadership through various roles on campus, as well as being a finalist for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship.

This year, we look forward to welcoming you back to Bloomington in person. The " News and Events" page of the department's website includes many of the activities we have planned for 2021-22. To observe ongoing developments related to COVID-19 cautiously, our annual MESDA lecture will be celebrated in the spring of 2022.

We greatly appreciate the support of all our friends and alumni. Thanks to you for contributing to the academic and intellectual life of the department.

Sincerely,
Manuel Díaz-Campos