Where do you want to be in the world? Wherever that place may be, we can take you there. The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures doesn't just offer foreign language courses. It offers growth, personal challenges, and life experiences. Our courses bring you inside different cultures and allow you to connect with them not just intellectually, but personally. Spanish, French, German, Russian, Czech, Chinese and Japanese are not just sets of grammar rules and vocabulary lists. They are living, breathing organisms that are essential to understanding today's global, multicultural environment. Our job is to take you on a trip around the world. Are you in?
Spotlight on Modern Languages
Faculty in the Department of Modern Languages engage in various activities through research, teaching, and service to the UNL community. Below find some recent accomplishments:
- French MA student Dené Oglesby recently completed a translation for Risk and Meaning: Adversaries in Art, Science and Philosophy by Nicolas Bouleau. Reviews can be found here and here.
- Asst. Professor Iker Gonzalez-Allende's article, "Women’s Exile and Transatlantic Epistolary Ties in the Work of Pilar de Zubiaurre" has been accepted for publication in Hispania: A journal devoted to the teaching of Spanish and Portuguese, published by the AATSP.
- Asst. Professor Isabel Velázquez secured funding from the Research Council. Her Grant-In-Aid will cover a twelve-month period to devote to her research entitled "Heritage Speakers of Spanish in the Midwest: New Perspectives on Language Use and Attitudes in Four Midwestern Communities."
- Assoc. Professor Radha Balasubramanian's article "Leo Tolstoy from 1900-2010 in two leading English Language Newspapers in India" has been accepted and is scheduled to be published in the next issue of Tolstoy Studies Journal.
- Professor Jordan Stump's translation of Pierre Siniac's The Collaborators was one of two runner-ups for this year's prestigious PEN American Center Translation Prize. His translation of Eric Chevillard's Demolishing Nisard was published this summer by Dalkey Archive Press; his translation of Marie NDiaye's Self-Portrait in Green has been accepted by Dalkey Archive Press.
Past Spotlight Accomplishments
- Professor Harriet Turner would like to announce a notice of recent publications this fall, which include four essays published in books, journals, and conference proceedings. Of these, the text of one of these essays, entitled "'Why the Face of the Voice is in the Hand': On the Poetics of Realist Fiction." The essay appears in the volume Studies in Honor of Vernon Chamberlin. Ed. Mark A. Harpring. Newark, DE; Juan de la Cuesta, 2011. 215-230.
- In addition, Dr. Turner directed Julio César Sánchez Rondón's dissertation, which was recognized as one of the Top 20 most Downloaded Files from the UNL Libraries Digital Commons. The dissertation was entitled, Poética de lo Soez: Luis Rafael Sánchez: Identidad y Cultura en América Latina y en el Caribe.
- Professor Tom Carr's article "The Quebec Hospitalière and the Closeted Jansenist: the Duplessis-Hecquet Correspondence" just appeared in Lumen: Selected Proceedings of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
- Asst. Professor Iker Gonzalez-Allende recently published a new book entitled, Líneas de fuego: Género y nación en la narrativa española durante la Guerra Civil (1936-1939). This book investigates the associations between gender and national identity in narratives written by Spanish authors from 1936 until 1939. In total, Dr. Gonzalez-Allende analyzes fourteen works, written by authors as diverse as Ernestina de Champourcin, Rafael García Serrano, Concha Espina, and Benjamín Jarnés.
DMLL Activities
Language Fair:
Registration Now Open
High School teachers can now register their students for the 36th Annual Language Fair, held Thursday, April 12, 2012. More information, including forms and deadlines, is available on the Language Fair web page.
FrenchFriends Launch
In response to student interest indicated in the French Club survey sent last December, FrenchFriends, a pilot peer-mentor program for French students, has just launched. We have just 12 participants, but it is just the right amount with which to start.
Mentors and mentees will meet for at least an hour each week to share interests and practice their conversational French. The goal is to increase social cohesion and promote networking within the department and its student body.
Contact Dené Oglesby if you are interested.
Department Newsletter
DMLL produces a weekly newsletter. Headlines from the most current issue include:
- Essay Contest for Students
- 2012 Annual Symposium for Translators & Interpreters
- Department Spotlight
- Departmental Calendar
- Language Club & Table Information
Spring 2012 newsletters are available below.
Newsletter Archive
Fall 2011:
News
Submit your Abstract Now!
The Mid-America Conference on Hispanic Literature (MACHL) will be hosted by the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures at UNL, October 12-14, 2012. The conference alternates between seven Midwestern campuses and features the literatures of Spain and Latin America. Criteria for the Call for Papers is available on the conference webpage, as well as information about keynote speakers, accommodations, and conference organizers.
Portuguese Fulbright Scholar featured in Daily Nebraskan Story
Our very own Áurea Santos was featured in a story in a recent issue of the Daily Nebraskan. She describes experiencing snow for the first time. Santos comes to UNL from "a very hot city in Brazil," and was apprehensive about her first snow-filled winter. She discusses the weather as well as adjusting to American culture, teaching UNL students Portuguese, and what she will take home about this time in her life.
Drs. Balasubramanian and Winter present at UNO's European Studies Conference
Dr. Radha Balasubramanian, Associate Professor of Russian, and Dr. Thomas Winter, Associate Professor of Classics & Religious Studies, presented at The European Studies Conference held October 8, 2011. Their talk, Tolstoy’s Miniature Masterpiece and the Classical Tradition was one of three given on Russian Language, Literature and Translation. They will submit a paper devoted to this topic for the conference publication.
Graduate is UNL's record-setting ninth student Fulbright
December graduate Anita Middleton of O'Fallon, Ill., traveled to Russia on a Fulbright Scholarship to be an English teaching assistant. During her trip she also plans to volunteer in a child care center or an orphanage. She left for Russia in September.
Middleton graduated with a major in Russian and minors in Czech and international studies. She has already had the chance to practice her Russian among native speakers. The spring semester of her junior year, she took Russian language courses at Moscow International University.
Spanish Graduate earns Fulbright to South Korea
Recent UNL graduate Sarah Lee of Omaha will travel South Korea to work as an English teaching assistant on a Fulbright scholarship. Lee graduated with degrees in Spanish and Chemistry at the May commencement. In addition to her teaching duties, Lee will volunteer in local hospitals and medical clinics as she prepares for medical school.
During summer 2008, she studied in Lima, Peru. Lee said the "eye-opening experience" helped her improve her Spanish-speaking skills and experience new cultures.
"It was really my first experience abroad, alone, and for a significant period of time," she said. "I met a lot of people -- both from Peru and the U.S. -- got to practice my Spanish speaking skills, and had the opportunity to experience many new cultural experiences."
