The Cambridge Companion to Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. Eds. Mark Berry & Nicholas Vazsonyi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
The Companion is an essential, interdisciplinary tool for those both familiar and unfamiliar with Wagner’s Ring. It opens with a concise introduction to both the composer and the Ring, introducing Wagner as a cultural figure, and giving a comprehensive overview of the work. Subsequent chapters, written by leading Wagner experts, focus on musical topics such as ‘leitmotif’, and structure, and provide a comprehensive set of character portraits, including leading players like Wotan, Brünnhilde, and Siegfried. Further chapters look to the mythological background of the work and the idea of the Bayreuth Festival, as well as critical reception of the Ring, its relationship to Nazism, and its impact on literature and popular culture, in turn offering new approaches to interpretation including gender, race and environmentalism. The volume ends with a history of notable stage productions from the world premiere in 1876 to the most recent stagings in Bayreuth and elsewhere.
Gabriela Stoicea examines how the incidence and role of physical descriptions in German novels changed between 1771 and 1929 in response to developments in the study of the human face and body. As well as engaging the tools and methods of literary analysis, the study uses a cultural studies approach to offer a constellation of ideas and polemics surrounding the readability of the human body. By including discussions from the medical sciences, epistemology, semiotics, and aesthetics, the book draws out the multifaceted permutations of corporeal legibility, as well as its relevance for the development of the novel and for facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue.
Madison Butler, a 2015 graduate of the Language and International Health program, has received a Spain English Teaching Assistantship from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program, a prestigious exchange program offered by the U.S. Department of State and funded by the U.S. government, is awarded to student scholars who, through work and study opportunities and individual research projects in various participating countries, have the opportunity to facilitate cross-cultural understanding by interacting with and fully immersing in the language, culture, and society of the host country.
Madison will be teaching English in Spain as a Teaching Assistant for elementary, middle, or high school level students.
Four other Clemson students and one alumnus were also accepted to the 2020-2021 Fulbright program.
For more information about these outstanding students, see the announcement from the Newsstand.
The Department of Languages enthusiastically congratulates the following students and staff who won University and College awards this semester:
Carly Malcom
Algernon Sydney Sullivan Student Award
This award is present to two seniors in recognition of outstanding service to Clemson University and the extended Clemson community.
Courtney Grayson
Dre Martin Service Award
In memory of Chardrevius “Dre” Martin, the College of Arts and Humanities presents this award annually to a student in the college who is highly committed to service in our surrounding community, demonstrates a passion for helping others, and possesses a strong academic record.
Julia Dingle
Dean’s Award for Outstanding Customer Service
The College of Arts, Architecture and Humanities Dean’s Award for Outstanding Customer Service is given to a classified employee in recognition of outstanding customer service.
Congratulations to all on these well-deserved and commendable achievements!
Language and International Health major Courtney Grayson was awarded the Dre Martin Service Award by the College of Arts and Humanities as CAAH recognized its top students last month. The Dre Martin Service Award, founded in memory of Chardrevius “Dre” Martin, is awarded annually to an exemplary CAAH student who, in addition to strong academic distinction, displays a commitment to service in the community and demonstrates a passion for helping others.
Courtney, who is an L&IH major with a minor in animal and veterinary sciences, is a committed and enthusiastic student who has been able to combine her academic excellence with her passion for helping others, using her skills and compassion to make a difference in the greater Clemson community and beyond. As a student of the L&IH program, she has studied the Spanish language while gaining practical knowledge of healthcare and public health. She studied abroad in Argentina, where she had the opportunity to work rotations at a local hospital and apply the Spanish-language skills and health knowledge acquired as a student of the L&IH program to serve the local community in Argentina. Courtney has also been actively involved in the greater Clemson community, volunteering as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking patients at a local free clinic for the past two years.
Within the Clemson community, Courtney has volunteered at Tiger Town Animal Hospital as well as with America Reads, tutoring elementary school students in reading. She has also demonstrated her commitment to service through her support of the Clemson community at large and her engagement with the campus Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA). Dr. Arelis Moore de Peralta says of Courtney’s merits and volunteer work that she has “demonstrated a true commitment to the Clemson community, which she has impacted through her volunteerism and advocacy as an interpreter for low-income Hispanic patients, as an animal healer, as a tutor to increase elementary children’s success, and as a queer community’s advocate.”
Courtney plans to pursue a career in the public health sector serving vulnerable and underserved communities in the United States.
About the Dre Martin Service Award
The Dre Martin Service Award was founded in memory of Chardrevius “Dre” Martin. A graduate of the Language and International Health program, Dre is remembered a dedicated student who was constantly serving others at the university and in the community at large. This award seeks to recognize extraordinary CAAH students that embody this selfless commitment to others. Students may be nominated by a peer, a faculty member or a staff member.
Eva Piirimäe, Liina Lukas, and Johannes Schmidt (eds.). Herder on Empathy and Sympathy. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, Volume: 311 (2020).
The English-German collection Herder on Empathy and Sympathy: Einfühlung und Sympathie im Denken Herders considers the meaning and role of the concepts of empathy and sympathy in Herder’s thought. Herder invokes sympathy in a number of disciplinary domains ranging from metaphysics, biology, anthropology, epistemology, psychology, morality, politics, history, aesthetics to homiletics. While Herder is shown as belonging to a long line of thinkers who view sympathy as a metaphysical principle contributing to the interconnectedness of all parts of nature, he also offers new insights about intra-/inter-species sympathetic communication and distinctively human varieties of sympathy for which he reserves the term “sich einfühlen”. Acknowledging the limits of the natural capacity for “sich einfühlen”, Herder nonetheless calls for its reflective cultivation in various domains.
Department of Languages Professor Emerita Clementina Adams was inducted into the College of Arts and Humanities Hall of Fame in a formal ceremony at the Madren Center on March 6, 2020.
This year, the College of Arts and Humanities welcomed eight new members to the CAAH Hall of Fame. Since its founding in 2017, the CAAH Hall of Fame has recognized exceptional individuals who are leaders in their profession or have made a significant impact on the educational, research and service goals of the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities.
Professor Emerita Adams was nominated by the Department of Languages for her invaluable and continuing impact on the department, the profession, and the community. Dr. Adams was a valued member of the Languages Faculty from 1989 until 2014, during which time she designed, developed and implemented the innovative Language and International Health program along with Clemson University colleagues Sandy King, Hugh D. Spitler and Rachel Mayo. Dr. Adams also pioneered the inclusion of American Sign Language in the Department of Languages. Among her many honors at Clemson, Adams received the Board of Trustees Faculty Excellence Award twice. In retirement, she continues to volunteer as a medical interpreter for Hispanic patients.
Dr. Adams’ husband, Paul Adams, and daughter, Lauren S. Miller, were present at the ceremony.
Dr. Adams and her family at the CAAH Hall of Fame induction. Photo courtesy of Clemson University
About Clementina E. Adams
Dr. Clementina E. Adams earned a “Licenciatura” (M.A.) in Spanish Philology and Literature (1969) at Atlántico University, Barranquilla, Colombia. As an Organization of the American States (OAS) Scholar she earned a master’s degree in Instructional Design and Development (1974) and a doctorate in Instructional Systems (1984), both from Florida State University. She was inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society in 1978.
Dr. Adams taught Spanish at Gallaudet University (1980-85), the University of Alaska-Fairbanks (1985-86) and Clemson University from 1989 until her retirement as Professor Emerita in 2014. Her research includes three books, eight book chapters, 43 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 31 funded grants. She has received numerous awards and served on advisory boards at the regional, state and national levels. At Clemson, she served on the Faculty Senate, Athletic Council, and Tenure and Promotion Committee. Dr. Adams received the Board of Trustees Faculty Excellence Award twice and the Service Alliance Faculty Fellow Award three times.
Dr. Adams designed, developed and implemented the Language and International Health program along with Dr. Sandy King from Languages, and Dr. Hugh D. Spitler and Dr. Rachel Mayo from Health Science. Dr. Adams served as founding director of the program (2004-09), which produced 213 graduates by fall 2019. Dr. Adams also pioneered the inclusion of American Sign Language in the Department of Languages offerings. Currently, that section has 21 majors and 75 minors.
In 2004, Dr. Adams completed medical interpreter training in Oakland, California. She has volunteered as a medical interpreter for Hispanic patients in the Upstate for more than a decade through the Joseph F. Sullivan Center. In 2015 she was certified as a Medical Interpreter by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCICH) and continued to volunteer through fall 2019.
More about the CAAH Hall of Fame induction ceremony from The Newsstand.
On December 5, 2019, the Clemson University German Section reactivated the German Honor Society, Delta Phi Alpha, by inducting three exceptional students.
Rachael Risinger is a senior Accounting major and German minor who is currently the president of the German Professional Society. Bennett Meares is a senior Computer Science major and German minor who is a former German Club president and is currently preparing to study abroad in Landshut, Germany. Houston Everett is a junior Computer Science major and German minor who is currently the president of the German Club. All three students have contributed immensely to the German program both inside and outside of the classroom and are great examples for achieving success as German students at Clemson University.
The Cambridge Companion to Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. Eds. Mark Berry & Nicholas Vazsonyi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
