by Anthony Brandy

On February 23^rd-24^th, 2024, the Graduate Student Advisory Committee (GSAC) hosted and organized the 21^st annual interdisciplinary graduate student conference Diálogos XXI. GSAC adopted a new two-online, one-in-person format for the keynote speakers in the three areas of the department. This format allowed for more ease of participation by keynote speakers from distant locations and offset some costs of running the conference.

For this year, the Linguistics keynote speaker, Dr. Scott Schwenter, Professor of Hispanic Linguistics at Ohio State University, was the in-person speaker. He presented on how Latin Americans understand second person plural pronoun variation and hosted a workshop on research methods in Linguistics. Dr. Eduardo Ledesma, Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, presented virtually on the dynamic principle in Augusto de Campos’ concrete poetry and hosted a workshop on artificial intelligence and the future of Latin American cultural studies. Dr. Denise DuPont, Professor of Spanish at Southern Methodist University, also presented virtually, giving a presentation on cloisters in the literature of Emilia Pardo Bazán and María Zambrano as well as a workshop on the mystical evolution of spirituality and intellectual life in early 20^th century Spain.

A total of twenty-two graduate students and three undergraduate students presented on topics such as limits and boundaries, the art of language, memory, and writing water, flowers, and monsters in Hispanic literature; the phonology, morphosyntax, bilingualism, multiculturalism, and second language acquisition of Spanish; and decolonizing thought and diversity in Portuguese and Brazilian literature. In all, nineteen presenters from IU Bloomington shared their original research alongside graduate student presenters from Manchester University, University of Alberta (Canada), Brown University, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. Diálogos XXI was a great success for the department and the 2023-2024 GSAC.