November 19, 2018
On November 7, Arelis Moore de Peralta, assistant professor of Spanish and Health, was the invited speaker at the annual ceremony of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society at the Madren Center. She was also inducted into the society as a faculty member by Provost Bob Jones.
“It was an absolute honor for me to be there, particularly because I was suggested as a main speaker by one of my [Language and International Health] students, who is a leader in the society,” Arelis said.
Congratulations!
November 7, 2018
The Department of Languages mourns the passing of Margit Sinka, professor emerita of German, who passed away on October 28, 2018 at the age of 76.
Margit was born during World War II in Hungary. She and her parents moved to Vienna, Austria, before immigrating to the U.S. and settling in a Hungarian neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. Margit was trilingual in Hungarian, German, and English; she also developed some fluency in Spanish. She earned her Ph.D. in German at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Margit was a member of the Clemson faculty for 33 years. She taught intermediate and advanced German language and literature courses and served as the head of the department’s German section. Her research focused on Medieval German Literature, Modernism (German prose and drama), Contemporary Fiction, Contemporary Culture with an emphasis on Berlin Studies, Holocaust Memory and Representation, and German Cinema. During her career at Clemson, Margit held several important national and regional positions in the field of German, and in 2008, she received the Merit Award from the national American Association of German Teachers and the New York Goethe Institute. After retiring in 2007, she continued to work part-time and conducted five-week Clemson University summer study abroad programs on Holocaust Remembrance in Brussels and Berlin.
Assistant professor of German Gabi Stoicea recalled Margit as “energetic, jovial, and very enthusiastic about Clemson and about our department in particular.”
Margit’s memorial service will take place at 2 p.m. on December 1, 2018 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Clemson, 226 Pendleton Road, Clemson.
Click here to read the Inside Clemson obituary.
November 2, 2018
On October 27, 2018, the Department of Languages hosted the 46th Annual Declamation Contest. This poetry recitation contest brings together middle- and high-school students from the region, who come to the Clemson campus for the day to show off their language skills. This year, 485 students from 31 middle and high schools in South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina registered to compete in ASL, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Russian and Spanish. Clemson students also volunteered to set up, help with registration and parking, supervise contest rooms in Daniel Hall, and lead campus tours. The campus tours were a new offering this year, with approximately 80 contestants and their families participating.
Competitors recited two poems, a mandatory selection and a second selection. They were evaluated by 64 judges, who included Clemson faculty and staff and members of the community. After the judging was complete, students and their families attended an awards ceremony in Tillman Hall. The event also gave participants a chance to explore the campus, eat in a dining hall, and learn more about the school by joining a tour. Past Declamation participants have attended or are now attending Clemson to study foreign languages.
The contest’s continued success is due to the hard work of the Department’s faculty and staff, all of whom volunteer at the event, especially the Declamation Committee of Su-I Chen, Melva Persico, Doroles Martín, Anne Salces y Nedeo, Amy Sawyer, and Julia Schmidt. The Department is grateful for the continued support of donors Dr. Rob Roy McGregor, Jr. and Dr. Ralph Rynes; the volunteer judges; and the Dean’s Office of the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities.
