Category: Faculty News

From the Newsstand:

Taylor Summey, Class of 2021
December 10, 2018

This Tiger helped develop Clemson’s American Sign Language (ASL) educational interpreting program, which gives students the necessary knowledge and experience to work with deaf children in mainstream school systems. Educational interpreting is offered in only seven programs across the country. Clemson is the only higher-education institution in the state that offers a four-year degree in ASL.

Meet Stephen Fitzmaurice.

Title: Assistant professor of ASL interpreting

Years at Clemson: Nine. I started at Clemson as a visiting assistant professor with the goal of launching an interpreting program. Five years ago, I was offered a tenure–track position.

What I do at Clemson: I teach upper-level ASL coursework, mostly related to linguistics and ASL-English educational interpreting. I am also the principal investigator for a large grant from the South Carolina Department of Education to manage the South Carolina Educational Interpreting Center.

What I love about Clemson: I absolutely love Clemson students. The students I meet, teach and advise carry with them an effervescent yearning to learn and a passion to serve the greater good. The other thing I love, particularly about the department of languages, is we have such a culturally and scholarly diverse faculty – the opportunities to engage with teachers and scholars from such different backgrounds is always thrilling. Finally, I love that Clemson is the only institution in South Carolina offering a four-year degree in ASL and is home to one of only a handful of educational interpreting programs in the nation.

My defining moment at Clemson: One defining moment for me was attending the graduation ceremony and witnessing the first modern languages (ASL) students receiving their degrees. I knew each one of the students to be exceptionally talented Tigers. They all had job offers when they walked across the stage.

Accomplishment I’m most proud of: I am most proud our alumni. They are all gainfully employed and are scoring significantly higher on their exams than the national mean. I am also proud of the fact that I was able to complete my doctoral degree at Gallaudet University while raising two amazing kids and working at Clemson full time.

Where I see myself in five years: I see myself wearing Clemson orange and continuing to grow our program.

Last thing I watched on TV: Aside from Clemson football and Clemson men’s and women’s soccer – Madame Secretary.

Guilty pleasure: I love Lindt dark chocolate with chili peppers.

One thing most people don’t know about me: I am originally from Canada but have lived in South Carolina for the last 20 years. And, although I am left-handed, I sign right-handed.

https://youtu.be/hN-026t3qBo

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!

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.

The following faculty members were promoted to Senior Lecturer:

Kim Misener Dunn, ASL

Allison Hinds, Spanish

Ellory Schmucker, Spanish

Kenneth Widgren, French

The following faculty members were promoted to Full Professor (read more here):

Johannes Schmidt, German

Eric Touya, French

Other faculty news:

Joseph Mai, associate professor of French, had his essay “Site 2: Style and Encounter in Rithy Panh’s Cinéma-Monde” appear in the collection “Cinéma-Monde: Decentered Perspectives on Global Filmmaking in French,” edited by Michael Gott and Thibaut Schilt, (Edinburgh University Press). The essay examines how the great Cambodian documentary filmmaker Rithy Panh addresses representations of a post-Khmer Rouge refugee camp to a world cinema audience. He also published a chapter in the Modern Language Association book “Approaches to Teaching Hugo’s ‘Les Misérables,’” edited by Michal Ginsburg and Bradley Stephens (2018). His piece explores Hugo’s conception of the moral individual. Mai also published an essay in The Mekong Review about Anthony Bourdain’s experiences in Cambodia.

Tiffany Creegan Miller, assistant professor of Spanish, presented at the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) in Los Angeles March 27-29. Her presentation “Orality and Translation in Print and Digital Recordings of Humberto Ak’abal’s Sound Poetry” was part of a seminar on topographies of sound and music in Spanish and Latin American literature and film. While in California, Miller was also invited to discuss her work with Kaqchikel Maya communities in Guatemala on the Maya radio program “Contacto Ancestral,” which airs in Los Angeles on the community radio station KPFK. She also published an article, “Performing Transnational Maya Experiences in Florida and San Juan Chamula in Workers in the Other World by Sna Jtz’ibajom and Robert M. Laughlin,” in Hispanic Studies Review 3 (2018): pp. 46-62. This article draws from Maya storytelling techniques to examine the ways that Maya activists in Chiapas, Mexico, use theatre and performance to raise awareness about the challenges that Maya migrants and their families face, both in sending communities and the United States. Miller also presented at the annual congress hosted by the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) May 23-26 in Barcelona, Spain. Her presentation “‘Xib’e pa El Norte’: Ethnographic Encounters With Kaqchikel Maya Transnational Migration From Lake Atitlán, Guatemala” was part of a seminar on the theoretical and methodological challenges in studying migrations. Miller was an NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Summer Scholar at the University of Georgia. The NEH Summer Institute June 17-29 focused on Digital Technologies in Theatre and Performance Studies. In July, Miller was invited to deliver a talk at Oxlajuj Aj, a Kaqchikel Mayan language field school, offered through Tulane University. This presentation – “Kojb’ixan pa qach’ab’äl!: El papel de las canciones infantiles en las aproximaciones pedagógicas a la revitalización cultural y lingüística en el idioma kaqchikel” – took place July 25 in San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala. Her presentation focused on Kaqchikel Maya children’s songs in bilingual classrooms in the context of contemporary Pan-Maya activism in Guatemala. Miller was also elected secretary of the Central America section advisory board of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).

Arelis Moore de Peralta, assistant professor of Spanish and Health, returned from a spring break trip to the Dominican Republic, along with her Creative Inquiry and “Tigers Building Healthier Communities Abroad (TBHCA)” students. Moore and six students conducted research in an effort to develop sustainable, collaborative interventions to improve health and well-being in a low-resource community. This was the third TBHCA trip to the Dominican community of Las Malvinas II. This time, Moore and her group collaborated with a colleague from Boston University’s School of Social Work and their local partner university, Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE). Together they conducted two focus groups and a “photovoice” project with the youth of Las Malvinas II to identify effective ways to engage them in local health improvement efforts.

Salvador A. Oropesa, professor of Spanish and chair, read the paper “Fantasías Neoliberales en la Serie Procedimental de Eva Sáenz de Urturi” at the XIV Congreso de Novela y Cine Negro: Clásicos y Contemporaneos at the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain. His article “Mitología y terrorismo en la Trilogía del Baztán de Dolores Redondo” appeared in the collection “Clásicos y Contemporáneos en el Género Negro,” edited by Álex Martín Escribà and Javier Sánchez Zapatero (Santiago de Compostela: Andavira, 2018, pp.121-27).

George Palacios, assistant professor of Spanish, was a visiting professor in the school of history at the Universidad Industrial de Santander in Bucaramanga, Colombia, where he taught the literature, culture and history of the African diaspora in Colombia and the Caribbean. Palacios lectured on “Reflexiones en torno a la diaspora Africana en Colombia” and “Literature and History through the Prism of the Haitian Revolution.” He also gave the inaugural lecture for the master in education program of the faculty of social sciences and humanities at the Universidad de Medellín in Colombia: “Una reflexión sobre el currículo: procesos y crítica para el contexto Latinoamericano.” Palacios presented the paper “Resistencias Afrodiaspóricas frente al destierro en la novela Colombiana hacia mediados de siglo XX” at the VI International Conference on Afro-Hispanic, Luso-Brazilian and Latin American Studies, held Aug. 7-10 in Accra, Ghana.

Kelly Peebles, associate professor of French, published “Renée de France’s and Clément Marot’s Voyages: Political Exile to Spiritual Liberation” in a special issue of the journal Women in French, “Les femmes et le voyage (Women and Traveling),” edited by Catherine R. Montfort and Christine McCall Probes. She also published “Embodied Devotion: The Dynastic and Religious Loyalty of Renée de France (1510-1575)” in “Royal Women and Dynastic Loyalty” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), edited by Caroline Dunn and Professor Emerita Elizabeth Carney (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 123-137). She also presented the paper “From Mother to Daughter and Bride to Widow: Transforming the Gender Roles of Renée de France and Anne d’Este” at the Royal Studies Network Kings & Queens 7 conference, held July 9-12 in Winchester, England.

Johannes Schmidt, professor of German, presented (in German) on the differences in Johann Gottfried Herder’s and Nietzsche’s philosophies of history at the meeting of the International Herder Society in Turku, Finland. He also chaired two panels and gave the laudation honoring Karl Menges of University of California, Davis, the recipient of the 2018 Herder Medal. He was one of several scholars interviewed for a German radio feature on Johann Gottfried Herder, titled “Herder: a Grandniece Discovers the Poet.” The feature was recently released as a podcast.

Daniel J. Smith, associate professor of Spanish, presented “Spanish and English Contact and the Order of Morpheme Acquisition” April 5 at the 2018 SouthEast Coastal Conference on Languages and Literatures (SECCLL) in Savannah, Georgia. While referencing a “natural order” of the acquisition of morphemes in first and second language acquisition, the presentation highlighted how two languages can influence each other and make changes in the order of acquisition. Implications were made regarding teaching English and Spanish as second languages and for children learning both languages simultaneously.

Gabriela Stoicea, assistant professor of German, published the chapter “When History Meets Literature: Jonathan Israel, Sophie von La Roche, and the Problem of Gender” in a collection edited by Carl Niekerk, “The Radical Enlightenment in Germany: A Cultural Perspective” (Brill/Rodopi, 2018), pp. 211-37.

Jae Takeuchi, assistant professor of Japanese, was awarded the Hamako Ito Chaplin Memorial Award for excellence in Japanese language teaching. The national award is given out to only one or two instructors of Japanese each year. Takeuchi also presented her research “Our Language”– an autoethnographic analysis of Japanese Dialect Use in L1/L2 Interaction” at the annual American Association of Teachers of Japanese annual conference in Washington. She was also invited to be a panelist for a discussion “On Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions Expected of Future Japanese Language Educators” at the 27th meeting of the Central Association of Teachers of Japanese Conference, held at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She also presented her research at the same conference, in a talk titled “‘His Japanese Makes No Sense’ – Native Speaker Bias and Depictions of L2 Japanese Competence.”

Pauline de Tholozany, assistant professor of French, gave the keynote address at “Equinoxes,” the French Studies Graduate Conference on March 17 at Brown University. Her paper was titled “‘Sophie, avec impatience’: of Impatient Children, Broken Stuff, and Irritated Adults in 19th-Century France.” She also presented a paper at the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association, along with two Clemson Students, Surabhi Poola and Kaitlin Samuels. Their panel was titled “Of Plots, Readers, and Change: Norms and Transgressions in 19th-Century French Literature.” She also published a chapter in the Modern Language Association book “Approaches to Teaching Hugo’s ‘Les Misérables,’” edited by Michal Ginsburg and Bradley Stephens (2018). Her piece describes teaching the novel in the context of an interdisciplinary course on childhood.

On March 14, Graciela Tissera, associate professor of Spanish, presented her research at the Congreso Internacional Interdisciplinario “La ciudad: imágenes e imaginarios,” which was organized by Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. Her paper entitled “La ciudad a través del cine: visión del individuo y los sistemas” focused on the portrayal of the cities of Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, and Barcelona in the following movies: “Secuestro Express,” by Jonathan Jakubowicz (Venezuela, 2005); “Cidade de Deus,” by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund (Brazil, 2002); and “Biutiful,” by Alejandro González Iñárritu (Spain, 2010). The analysis explored the profile of the cities as structured systems and their influence on the individual from social, cultural, economic and philosophical perspectives. She presented her research April 6 at the SouthEast Coastal Conference on Languages and Literatures, which was organized by Georgia Southern University. Her paper “‘Box 507’ (2002) by Enrique Urbizu: Crossroads of Human Spirit and Economic Systems” focused on the unforeseen outcomes of confrontations between companies investing in real estate. She also organized and chaired a session at the conference, “Individuals vs. Systems in Cinema,” to discuss the complex relationships portrayed inside and outside systems in multicultural environments and in relation to psychoanalysis, metaphysics, ethics, technology, health, business and gender. Tissera’s students, Jesse Bynum (Modern Languages-Spanish major with an English minor) and Hannah Cheeks (Psychology and Modern Languages-Spanish major) participated in the session. Bynum’s research paper “Systematic Defensive Memory and Psychological Trauma in David Carreras’ ‘Hipnos‘ (2004)” discussed dissociative identity disorders as coping mechanisms and experimental treatments for severely emotionally disturbed patients. Cheeks’ research paper “Exploring the Treacherous Systems of the Mind: Sergi Vizcaíno’s ‘Paranormal Xperience’ (2011),” centered on altered perceptions and symbols created by the unconscious mind as representations of systems influencing human behavior. The professional presentations were made possible through the Creative Inquiry program and Department of Languages travel grants.

Eric Touya, professor of French, and Col. Lance Young led a group of Clemson students to Paris and Normandy in France during the summer. The aim of the course was to revisit the journey of the American soldiers during World War II from a French perspective. Through this journey, the students analyzed and reflected on the meaning and purpose of the GIs’ actions and experiences, and the current place and role of France and the United States in the world.

The Department of Languages welcomed the following new faculty members at the beginning of the Fall 2018 semester.

Jody H. Cripps, Assistant Professor of American Sign Language

Jody holds a Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from the University of Arizona. His research interests include but are not limited to: language acquisition and literacy, signed music, and signed language pathology. Jody is also a co-founder of two non-profit organizations and is the Editor-in-Chief for Society of American Sign Language Journal. Prior to joining the department, Jody worked at Towson University, where he expanded the Deaf Studies program within and outside of the classroom setting. At Clemson, he currently teaches elementary ASL and will teach Linguistics of American Sign Language (ASL 4010) next semester. Outside of academia, he is a surfer bum at heart and spends his spare time enjoying recreational sports, often with his wife and their two deaf dogs.

Liliana Hernández, Lecturer of Spanish

Lili, a native of Medellín, Colombia, holds an MFA from the Universidad de Antioquia. She worked as the director of the Plecto Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo, a contemporary art gallery in Medellín, and has curated many art shows and festivals. Lili previously taught at Clemson from 2004 to 2010, during which time she coordinated a Latin American art show and film festival on campus. Currently she teaches intermediate Spanish courses and serves as a departmental advisor.

Andrea Naranjo, Lecturer of Spanish

Andrea was born and raised in Cali, Colombia. She earned a Law Degree from the Universidad San Buenaventura and worked as a lawyer in the private sector in Cali, acquiring experience in contracts, labor law and commercial law. She later earned a Master’s Degree in Spanish from Middlebury College. Prior to coming to Clemson, she taught for several years at James Madison University. Andrea is a poet and her work has been published and awarded in Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Argentina and the United States. Recently she published her second book of poetry in Mexico City and she earned the Hayek International Production Award for her contribution to Mexican letters and literature. Among her interests are business and society in Latin America and creative writing. Currently she teaches Intermediate Spanish, Spanish for Business Composition, and Spanish for International Trade and serves as a departmental advisor.

Mercedes Tejera, Lecturer of Spanish

Mercedes is a Ph.D. candidate in Ibero-American Literature at the University of Florida. She holds a B.A. in Spanish Literature with a second major in Latin American and Latino Studies and an M.A. in Spanish and Latin American Literatures, both from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Her research interests are 20th- and 21st-century science fiction novels from Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Spain (focusing on gender, politics, and mass media culture). Mercedes teaches intermediate Spanish.

Johannes Schmidt and Eric Touya were among seven newly promoted professors to be recognized by President James P. Clements and Provost Robert H. Jones at a reception on September 4 at the Brooks Center for the Performing Arts. Richard E. Goodstein, dean of the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities, also hosted a dinner in their honor last month.

Johannes Schmidt received a promotion to full professor in the Department of Languages. Schmidt’s research interests range from 18th- and 19th-century German literature and philosophy to German drama and music.

He has taught a variety of courses including German drama, 18th- and 19th-century German literature, the culture and literature of exile, humanities seminars on drama, World War II, the Shoah, and German language and culture courses at all levels.

With Rainer Godel, Schmidt is the co-editor of the International Herder Yearbook, a bi-annual, peer-reviewed professional journal of the International Herder Society.

Schmidt earned his bachelor’s degree in Germanistics, Linguistics and Economics at the University of Konstanz in Germany, his master’s degree in Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and his Ph.D. in German Literature at the University of Hamburg in Germany.

In 2006, Schmidt was elected treasurer-secretary (North America) of the International Herder Society. He also served as the president of the South Carolina Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German from 2003-06.

Eric Touya received a promotion to full professor in the Department of Languages. His research and teaching interests include 19th– to 21st-century French and Francophone literature and culture, and interdisciplinary approaches to literature, art, media, theory, culture, economics, ethics and society.

Touya also is the academic advisor for the French and International Trade program and the study abroad program in Paris and Normandy.

“I am happy to hear the news and to serve as teacher, mentor and scholar for this great university,” Touya said. “I am grateful to all the students and colleagues and to my wife and daughter for their support.”

Touya is a recipient of the prestigious Chevalier des Palmes Academiques, awarded by the French government.

Touya received his diplôme d’etudes approfondies in comparative literature at the Universite de Paris IV, Sorbonne, and his Ph.D. in Romance languages and literatures at the University of Chicago.

He is the author of “Musique et poétique à l’âge du symbolism” (L’Harmattan, 2005), “French-American Relations: Remembering D-Day after September 11” (University Press of America, 2008), “Francophone Women Writers: Feminisms, Postcolonialisms, Cross-Cultures” (Lexington Books Publishing, 2011) and “The Case for the Humanities: Pedagogy, Polity, Interdisciplinarity” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).

From the Summer 2018 issue of Clemson World:

While the Japan Alumni group is not yet an official Clemson Club, some of the more than 50 Clemson alumni and friends in Japan have been getting together for events a few times a year. They are exploring ways to support the University including providing support and guidance to students studying abroad in Japan or alumni moving to Japan for work, as well as finding internship opportunities for students. They are hoping to be the first international chartered alumni club. They gathered in November when Yuki Kihara Horose, study-abroad coordinator for Clemson Abroad, and Carolyn Crist, a student adviser with the College of Architecture, Art and Humanities Global Engagement, were visiting partner institutions in Japan. The group joined emeritus professors Yuji Kishimoto and Toshiko Kishimoto in Tokyo, their hometown, where they received the Japanese national medal of distinction in 2017.

Congratulations to Arelis Moore de Peralta, assistant professor of Spanish and Health and the winner of the 2018 Phil and Mary Bradley Award for Mentoring in Creative Inquiry. This award is given to a faculty member in recognition of their outstanding work with undergraduate students. Students participating in Creative Inquiry projects are the nominators for this award.

One of Moore de Peralta’s nominators wrote: “She has taught our CI that anything is possible with the support of each other, and through her support to us, has encouraged and helped her students to present research all across the nation… Dr. Moore has made a significant impact on my personal life. She has taught me how to go into third world countries, and to use community health tools to create a healthier, sustainable, and long-lasting community. She taught me the value of partnership, and that only by creating strong partnerships can a community become long-lasting and flourish. She truly cares about each of her students in a unique and loving way. She provides leadership opportunities for every single one of her students, by making each student in charge of a smaller project, fostering communication and organizational skills in each person. She encourages outreach and the building of partnerships with different organizations on campus, and promotes countless public speaking opportunities by allowing each student to present at conferences locally and nationally. She takes no
credit for her work, but allows each student to shine in their own way.”

Moore de Peralta will be honored at a ceremony on May 8 and receive a monetary award. Read more about her Creative Inquiry project here.

Jae Takeuchi, assistant professor of Japanese, who has been awarded the Hamako Ito Chaplin Memorial Award for excellence in Japanese language teaching at the college level. The national award, administered through the Association for Asian Studies, is given to only one or two instructors of Japanese each year.

Stephen Fitzmaurice, assistant professor of ASL, published “Best Practices for Educational Interpreters in South Carolina,” a technical assistance resource for the South Carolina Department of Education Office of Special Education Services. He was also featured in the Member Spotlight of the national Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf.

Alma García-Rodríguez, lecturer of Spanish, received her Ph.D. in Spanish literature from the University of Florida. Her dissertation focused on the representation of the city in six novels from the Hispanic Caribbean: Santo Domingo, La Habana and San Juan. She took a Neo-Baroque perspective to study these cities as elements that stand against an established order and authority in order to create a new identity that governs itself. She plans to continue researching Caribbean literature.

Daniel Holcombe, lecturer of Spanish, published the essay “Salvador Dali’s Everyman: Renaissance and Baroque Classicism in ‘Don Quixote and the Windmills (1946)’” in Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America. Here he traced Dali’s classical trajectory through art historical analyses of the third watercolor illustration from the artist’s first illustrated edition of “Don Quixote.” He also published “Salvador Dalí’s “Don Quixote: High Art or Kitsch?” in Laberinto Journal. He was recently named an editor of this online peer-reviewed journal published by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. His article in Laberinto defines Dalí’s role as an illustrator of the 1946 text. It also reveals how Dalí achieved what critics have deemed impossible: the rendering of both fantasy and reality in the same pictorial composition. Holcombe presented related research at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association conference in Atlanta in November 2017. He also published a book chapter, “Marco Berger: Homoaffective Edging and Cinematic Queered Continuums,” in Intimate Relationships in Cinema, Literature, and Visual Culture, edited by Gilad Padva and Nurit Buchweitz for Palgrave Macmillan. In the chapter, Holcombe combines queer theory with Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical theory l’objet petit a to analyze the spectator gaze and cinematic techniques in two films by Argentinian director Marco Berger.

Jason Hurdich, lecturer of ASL, was named the Marie Griffin Interpreter of the Year. The award, given by the Southeast Regional Institute on Deafness, recognizes his outstanding service to the deaf, hard of hearing and deaf-blind communities of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee and the Carolinas. Read more about his award here.

Salvador Oropesa, professor of Spanish and Department Chair, published the article “‘El Quijote’ en la trilogía de la frontera de Cormac McCarthy: Neobarroco del Southwest” in the Colombia-based journal Lingüística y Literatura 72 (2017): pp. 135-55. In his abstract, Oropesa said: “We read Cormac McCarthy as a novelist of the Baroque of the Southwest paying special attention to syntax, vocabulary, and intertextuality. The bulk of the critical attention on McCarthy is anglocentric. We cover the influence of Spanish literature, mainly Cervantes, in the Border Trilogy.” He also presented the paper “La Trilogía del Baztán de Dolores Redondo como guía de liderazgo en el contexto de la novela policiaca contemporánea española” at the XXVII annual congress of the International Association of Female Hispanic Literature and Culture November 8 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Kelly Peebles, associate professor of French, published the article “The Head, the Heart, and Hysteria in Jeanne Flore’s ‘Tales and Trials of Love’ (c. 1542)” in the Journal of Medical Humanities. She presented the paper “Mothering in the Shadow of the Crown: Royal cousins, religious refugees, and the nurturing influence of Renée de France” at the Royal Studies Network’s Kings & Queens 6 conference, which was held in Madrid, Spain, September 12-15.

Graciela Tissera, associate professor of Spanish, presented her research on armed conflicts and historical memory in film, “Paco Cabezas y Gilles Paquet-Brenner: intersecciones de la memoria histórica en el cine,” at the IX Congreso de Análisis Textual Trama y Fondo (University of Valladolid, Spain) in October. Tissera also attended the II Congreso Internacional Figuraciones de lo Insólito en las Literaturas Española e Hispanoamericana organized by the University of León, Spain in October to present her research paper “Jorge Luis Borges y David Roas: percepciones de múltiples universos y seres soñados.” The research focused on the perception of time, space, and personal identity related to supernatural dreams and idealist philosophy in the fiction of Borges and Roas.

Eric Touya, associate professor of French, gave the lecture “Make Civil Rights and the Humanities Happen at Your Library” on October 12 at the 2017 South Carolina Library Association Conference in Columbia. He also read the paper “Humanizing Economics: Pedagogical Approaches to Transforming the Homo Economicus” at the 32nd Annual Interdisciplinary Conference in the Humanities held October 27 at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton.