Month: October 2019

The Fall of the Iron Curtain film and event series will continue on Tuesday, October 22nd with “Dancing in the Death Strip: How Techno Reunited Germany”, a presentation by the Department of Languages’ own Harris King.

Organized by Gabriela Stoicea together with three faculty members from the Department of English (Aga Skrodzka, Kati Beck, and Lucian Ghita), the Fall of the Iron Curtain film and event series commemorates 30 years since the Fall of the Iron Curtain. The series includes screenings of five films from countries that used to be part of the Eastern Bloc (Hungary, Poland, Romania, East Germany), as well as presentations, lectures, and a workshop.

The series kicked off on October 1st with a screening of the Hungarian film “The Exam” (Dir. Péter Bergendy, Hungary, 2011), followed by screenings of the films “Goodbye, Lenin!” (Dir. Wolfgang Becker, Germany, 2004) and “Cold War” (Dir. Paweł Pawlikowski, Poland, 2018). Also included earlier this month were a lecture and a workshop by film scholar Katarzyna Marciniak from Ohio University. The series runs through Wednesday, November 6th, so be sure to mark your calendars for the upcoming events in late October and early November. All films are shown with English subtitles and are introduced by Clemson faculty.

Upcoming Events in the Fall of the Iron Curtain Series:

Tuesday, October 22^nd

“Dancing in the Death Strip: How Techno Reunited Germany”

6:00-9:00 PM (ASC 118)

Harris King (Dept. of Languages, Clemson University)

Tuesday, October 29^th

The Paper Will Be Blue

(Dir. Radu Muntean, Romania, 2006)

6:00–9:00 PM (ASC 118)

Introduced by Lucian Ghita (Dept. of English, Clemson University)

Wednesday, November 6^th

The Lives of Others

(Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Germany, 2006)

6:00-9:00 PM (ASC 118)

Introduced by Gabriela Stoicea (Dept. of Languages, Clemson University)

Following these events, a thematic display will go up in Cooper Library highlighting some of the materials on this topic that are in the Library’s collection. Various genres will be represented: history, autobiography, fiction, children’s/young adult, and films. Anyone who is interested in learning more about the topic can stop by the display in November and check out some of these materials.

The series is generously sponsored by the Department of Languages, the World Cinema Program, the Department of History, RCID, and the Humanities Hub. All events are free and open to the public.

Raquel Anido, assistant professor of Spanish, was promoted to associate professor with tenure.

Su-I Chen, senior lecturer of Chinese, presented at the Chinese Language Teachers’ Association (CLTA) Annual Conference in Seattle, April 5-7, 2019. She and her collaborators presented a roundtable session entitled “Understand Cultural Pluralism Through Differential Instructions on Movies.” They used three movies (Wolf Totem 狼图腾, On Happiness Road 幸福路上, and Our Shining Days 闪光少女) to share the teaching results/proposals for different levels and different classroom settings to introduce a diversity of cultures presented in the films. Chen shared her teaching of the cultures in Wolf Totem in her CHIN3060 class in the Spring 2019 semester at Clemson.

On January 14, together with Salvador Oropesa, Lee Ferrell, senior lecturer of German, presented the characteristics and nuances of the Clemson Language and International Trade program to students of the MA Seminar of Culture and Identity led by Professor Wilfried Dreyer at the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule in Regensburg, state of Bavaria in Germany.

Harris King, lecturer of German, was promoted to senior lecturer.

Kumiko Saito, assistant professor of Japanese, presented her paper “Mapping the History of the Future: Politics of Enlightenment in Translated Works of Science Fiction in Meiji Era Japan” on January 20 at the Southeast Regional Conference of the Association for Asian Studies in Memphis, Tennessee.

Eric Touya, professor of French, published Simone de Beauvoir: le combat au féminin. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2019.

Faculty Bookshelf: http://www.clemson.edu/caah/departments/languages/academics/faculty-research.html