The department has several conversation and reading groups, in various languages, organized and/or led by graduate students in the department. These include the following:

Cafezinho, organized by Juliana Lorenço (spring 2025 after Feb 26), Vania Castro (spring semester until Feb 26), and V Filipe Dias Vieria (Fall 2024).

Wednesdays 4:00-5:30 Fall 2024-Spring 2025

Cafezinho is the Portuguese coffee hour that takes place once a week. The idea is that students and people who are learning the language can come and practice it with each other or even with native speakers. There are usually Brazilians, Angolans and Portuguese who come to Cafezinho and it provides a good opportunity to meet new people. We usually offer some cookies and coffee so that people can have something to eat while talking, and special events are organized for things like the Independence Day of Brazil. During this spring semester we had some guests, and they were able to share their research projects there.

Café Hispano, organized by Nick Blumenau.

Fall 2024: Mondays 4-5:30pm; Spring 2025: Tuesdays 4:30-6pm

Café Hispano is a weekly gathering where undergraduate students, graduate students, and people from the community come to speak and practice Spanish. There is music, food and drinks and various holidays were celebrated throughout the year. For instance, during Día de los Muertos, Lilian Casillas, from La Casa, attended and gave a presentation on the holiday and participants got to decorate an alter and make papel picado. Las Ferias was also celebrated, and participants learned how to dance the Spanish Sevillanas.

 

Café Tertulia Turns Four, Giovanni Molina Rosario (founder). Organizer: Giada Mirelli

A tertulia is an informal social gathering that takes place regularly. Right after Covid eased up, we realized we needed that kind of space. The department supported the founding of Café Tertulia in 2022 and now it stands as our Grad Hour. Each year, a different person hosts it, giving it their own twist. Variations aside, its core mission to build community remains true and every graduate student in our department is welcome. There you can chatter away, break bread—or pastries—with others over coffee, exchange interesting suggestions, share artistic ventures, and, above all, nurture the bonds that bind us not only as academics, but as multifaceted individuals.

 

Cafè Català, organized by Ari Plymale

Thursdays 4:00-5:00 Spring 2025; Wednesdays 4:30-5:30 Fall 2024

Cafè Català is IU Bloomington’s weekly Catalan conversation hour, where speakers of all levels have the chance to practice the language with others and celebrate Catalan culture! This year we were joined by a wide variety of Catalan speakers at IU, ranging from new learners of the language to native speakers from Barcelona. Highlights included special celebrations of holidays like the Diada nacional de Catalunya and the Diada de Sant Jordi, as well as opportunities to try out classic Catalan foods like pa amb tomàquet!

Semantics Reading Group

In the Semantics Reading Group, we meet weekly to discuss topics in syntax/semantics. In addition to expanding on our discussions from class, this is a space to collaborate and receive feedback on ongoing research in topics of personal interest. This past year, we also held workshops on preparing abstracts and submissions for conferences and journals, as well as developing skills in using LaTeX and Overleaf, among others.

Spanish Phonetics Working Group

Fonemi, organized by Rachel Garza

In its third consecutive year, the faculty and student-led laboratory phonology reading and workshop group, Fonemi, continued to meet in the GA 2134 conference room on Friday afternoons from 12-1. This year, Fonemi was co-led by Professor Erik Willis and PhD candidate Rachel Sangster Garza. Each week, students met to discuss research strategies, progress, challenges, and interesting articles. Students’ shared research interests that varied widely from LGBTQ+ dialectal research, second language acquisition of peninsular varieties, heritage Spanish in borderlands, Central and South American Spanish variation, languages in contact, and more. Some students also led workshops on a variety of topics such as auto-transcription of interviews and survey methodologies.

Graduate Writing Group

Fridays: 9am-12pm
Organizers: Anthony Brandy and Ariana Teegarden

In our graduate student writing and working group, an average of 7 graduate students convene weekly to share writing and working goals at the start of the session. In the following three hours, we work individually on our stated goals, sharing coffee, snacks, and progress. At the end of the three hours, we state without judgement what we were able to complete in those three hours and discuss what we'll be working on in the coming week.