MESDA Speaker: David Hodge

Since 1996, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese has paid tribute to a long-serving and distinguished emeritus professor through an alumni lecture in his honor. Professor Merle E. Simmon was a professor and scholar of Spanish American Colonial Literature at IU from 1942 to 1983. Professor Simmons' contributions to the department and to scholarship included authoring seven books, developing the program of study in Spanish American Colonial Literature at Indiana University, and serving as director of graduate studies for seven years and department chair for five. Each fall, the department honors Professor Simmons by inviting a distinguished alum to visit Bloomington, speak to the department's faculty and students, and reconnect with his or her roots as a part of the Merle E. Simmons Distinguished Alumni (MESDA) Lecture.

In September of 2024, Foreign Service Officer David Hodge presented at our annual MESDA Lecture. Hodge has served in consular and other positions around the world, and his academic and professional journey began here at IU-Bloomington. He graduated from IU in 1989, earning a dual degree in Spanish Language and Literatures and Business Management. During his years at IU, Hodge did three study abroad programs: a semester in Seville that gave him credits for his Spanish degree; a semester in the Netherlands with what is now the Kelley School of Business; and a program in Peru, which allowed him to complete the Spanish major and receive a BA along with his BS. After graduating from IU, he went to Georgetown University and graduated with an MS in Foreign Service. From there, he entered the State Department.

As a Foreign Service Officer, Hodge has served for over 30 years in multiple and varied positions around the globe. He served as Consul General in São Paulo, Brazil, as well as Deputy Chief of Mission in Guatemala, and Chargé d’Affaires in Panama. His diplomatic career further includes positions in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Portugal, Mozambique, and Thailand. Over the course of his career, he served in several consular positions, as well as cultural affairs officer, counselor for public affairs, assessor of the foreign service exam, director of the Office of Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy in the bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. At the time of his address, Hodge was working as the State Department’s Senior Advisor for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and, in January of 2025, assumed the role of Chargé d’Affaires at the United States of America’s Embassy in Belize. In his engaging talk, Hodge discussed his experiences and challenges working in these various capacities.

Hodge is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and Thai. In his talk, he spoke eloquently about the benefits of language education, and emphasized his commitment to traveling, studying, and learning abroad. David’s trajectory is one of many examples of how the study of languages and the cultures in which they are embedded can challenge you, lead you to and advance you through a career path or paths, and bring you fun and joy. His lecture, titled “From Bloomington to 30 years in the foreign service,” was an inspiring example of the multiple benefits and career paths that be secured through a degree in Spanish and Portuguese.

It was an honor to have Mr. Hodge lecture at our annual MESDA event, which concluded with a stimulating conversation with the audience, followed by a lively reception showcasing our welcoming departmental community.

This Fall, Matthew Kanwit will give the annua l MESDA lecture. We hope you will plan to join us on September 19, 2025, for this exciting lecture and the reception that follows!

Description by Deborah Cohn and Olimpia Rosenthal

There were ten Linguistic Research presentations for the academic year 2024-2025. The presentations were:

• Inaugural faculty lecture by Profs. Gabriela Puscama, Leslie del Carpio, Laura Gurzynski-Weiss and Erik Willis. Faculty introduced themselves, talked about their research projects, and answered questions from the audience. September 20^th, 2024.
• Anthony Brandy, “The Phonological and Sociophonetic Perception of Devoiced Vowels in Mexican Spanish by Leaners of Speakers of Other Dialects.” October 4^th, 2024.
• Christine Song and Nick Blumenau, “Context within Context: Invitation- refusals and Apologies by Heritage Leaners of Spanish through the Lens of Intercultural Pragmatics.” October 4^th, 2024.
• Bruno Staszkiewicz, “Encoding politeness through Prosodic cues in Mexican Requests.” October 24^th, 2024.
• Christopher Brenes, “Pragmatic and Discourse Functions of Discourse marker (i)diay in Costa Rican Spanish.” October 24^th, 2024.
• Jingyi Guo, “Acquiring linguistic variation in third language Spanish: The role of the first and second language.” January 31^st, 2025.
• Stacey Hanson, “Second Language Acquisition of Castilian Spanish /θ/ and /s/.” February 14^th, 2025.
• Kate Lamadrid, “The Role of Textbooks in Developing Intercultural Communicative Competence in Spanish as a World Language.” February 14^th, 2025.
• Anthony Brandy, Iraida Galarza Galarza, and Caroline Amodeo Williams, “Back to the Individual: The Effect of Individual Differences on Gender and Mood Variation in L2 Spanish.” April 11^th, 2025.
• Rachel Garza, “Language in the borderlands: Exploring ideologies of Spanish, Critical Awareness, and Community Identity in South Texas.” April 11th, 2025.

There were seven Literature and Culture Colloquium Series presentations for the academic year 2024-2025. The presentations were:

• Julia Calderón, “¿El fin de la violencia? La crítica sociopolítica en la novela criminal centroamericana de posguerra.” September 20^th, 2024.
• Jonathan Risner, “Home Movies during and with Francoism.” October 18^th, 2024.
• Kathleen Ann Myers, Beth T. Boyd, Pablo García Loaeza, Cara A. Kinnally and Alejandro J. Mejías-López, “Reflecting on Co-authoring in the Humanities: Book Presentation ofContemporary Colonialities in Mexico and Beyond (University of Toronto Press, 2024). November 1^st, 2024. 
• Ollin García Pliego, “Soberanía política y necropoder: un estudio de la violencia en la era del capitalismo neoliberal en2666 (2004) de Roberto Bolaño.” December 6^th, 2024.
• Anke Birkenmaier, “Between Literary Autonomy and the Revolution: Revisiting Alejo Carpentier,” Hernán Matzkevich, “Whom Would You Eat? Dehumanization and the Moral Justification of Genocide in Argentinean Literature and Thought,” and Laís Lara Vanin, “Curly She-Wolves: Black Women and the Conquest of Freedom in Afro-Brazilian Literature.” March 7^th, 2025.
• Giovanni Molina, “The Troubling Allure of a Feminized Epistemology: Contested Forms of Knowledge and Authority in Arcipreste de Talavera.” March 28^th, 2025.
• Estela Vieira, “The Year of the Death of Daniel Martins: José Saramago’s Anti-Fascist Literary Manifesto.” April 18th, 2025.