Spanish – News

Investing in student success: Meet �ֲ��ý faculty new to the tenure track in 2019

Doug Hubley — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 14:40:34 +0000

At a small liberal arts institution like �ֲ��ý, says biochemist Lori Banks, “you get to interact with students differently than you would at a larger kind of school. There’s a different kind of connection, a different vested interest in the success of the students.”

That connection “seemed to be especially strong here,” a factor that attracted the new assistant professor of biology to �ֲ��ý.

The same is true of philosopher Paul Schofield. At a different kind of school, he says, there might not be the same opportunities to get to know students. “But because of the size of �ֲ��ý and the kinds of things that the students are looking for, you’re able to build intellectual community.”

Assistant professors Banks and Schofield are among the faculty appointed to tenure-track positions this year. Others are Stephanie Pridgeon, in Spanish; Ian Khara Ellasante, gender and sexuality studies; and Asha Tamirisa, music. Those five have found that their values, interests, and goals as teacher-scholars are reflected in the �ֲ��ý community.

Tamirisa was drawn to �ֲ��ý’ aspirations and initiatives toward equity and inclusion. “�ֲ��ý seemed to be a step ahead of a lot of other institutions in terms of not thinking the remedy would simply be changing the demographics, but also changing the way the college itself works. �ֲ��ý is willing to say, ‘This is what we could be doing better,’ and then take action.”

Ellasante agrees. In particular, the gender and sexuality studies mission statement spoke to them — “its commitments to anti-racist, decolonial, feminist, and trans work and histories,” they say, “and its focus on action and practice and reciprocal engagement.”

For Pridgeon, who like Schofield has been at �ֲ��ý for a few years as a visiting professor, an enduring appeal of �ֲ��ý is the campus community’s commitment to take on — and see through — the tough and complex kinds of discussion without which, often, nothing really meaningful gets done.

“We’re thinking about difficult, sometimes uncomfortable, problems and challenges on topics that I want to be challenged on, that I want to be forced to reckon with,” she says. “We’re having conversations I want to be having.”

That determination to challenge our understanding of the world while attending to community life is central to the value of the �ֲ��ý education, says Malcolm Hill, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty.

“Our latest tenure-track appointees bring expertise and a creative spirit to our talented academic community. We look forward to benefiting from their contributions in the years to come.”

Let’s meet Banks, Ellasante, Pridgeon, Schofield, and Tamirisa.

Lori Banks, Assistant Professor of Biology

An early inspiration for professor Lori Banks was the “Magic School Bus” television series. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

Name: Lori Banks

Position: Assistant Professor of Biology

Degrees from: Baylor College of Medicine, Ph.D., Molecular Virology and Microbiology; Prairie View A&M University, B.S., Biology

Before �ֲ��ý: Postdoctoral researcher in molecular virology and microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine

Her work: A protein biochemist engaged in preclinical drug development, Banks studies ways that microbial pathogens sense their host environments. She has studied gene expression in the anthrax bacterium and is currently exploring approaches to more effectively treat rotavirus.

Tell us more: “A horrible downstream effect of rotavirus, especially in small kids, is that repeat infections can be associated with cognitive delays,” Banks explains.

A rotavirus vaccine exists, “but in the parts of the world where it’s most endemic, the vaccine doesn’t work very well. So we have to attack the public health problem from a different perspective, that of treating people once they’re infected.” Banks calls her search for an off-switch for the virus “very low-tech” — but notes that it could eventually “inform drug discovery work that affects millions.”

A sense of purpose: Banks was headed to an anatomy class at Prairie View when she saw a newscast of the second World Trade Center tower going down. The Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent anthrax mailings galvanized her interest in biology research. It was a feeling she likens to the call that her grandparents’ generation felt to mobilize for World War II. “I remember thinking that I had this skill set or gift for thinking about biological and chemical questions,” she says. “For me it was just like, ‘We’re the people that are going to be out there saving lives, designing medicine.’”

Sample lesson: “One of my favorite things to discuss with students is being aware of what your own personality is telling you, what skill sets you’re developing, what things you’re drawn to — and how you might be able to best serve the world, the community, your school, whatever, just by being you.”

Ian Khara Ellasante, Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies

Ian Khara Ellasante, new to the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, is a poet as well as a scholar and teacher. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

Name: Ian Khara Ellasante

Position: Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies

Degrees from: University of Arizona, Ph.D. and M.A., American Indian Studies; University of Memphis, B.A., Sociology and English.

Before �ֲ��ý: Visiting scholar in residence, Washington & Jefferson College

Their work: “There are global similarities in the ways that indigenousness, embodied blackness, and marginalized gender identities are targeted and defined,” says Ellasante, a cultural studies scholar. “I am trans, nonbinary, queer, and a person of color. I work to translate the lived experiences at that type of nexus into scholarship that is broadly and compellingly legible.”

Ellasante’s recent work has involved the “peoplehood matrix,” a theoretical construct developed by Indigenous scholars. In this concept, an Indigenous people’s relationship to four elements — land, language, ceremonial cycle, and sacred history — can help delineate their cultural identity. “I argue that when a people align around these four elements, they’re able to persist despite settler colonialism and enforced assimilation.”

Finding their path: Ellasante is a longtime advocate for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults, focusing on housing instability and bullying in schools. As a researcher at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Institute for Research on Women, “I got a lot of experience in community-based participatory research.

“In that work, I saw a pathway: I could merge being an advocate, working within communities, with being a researcher and scholar. I have pursued it, and �ֲ��ý feels like a good place for me to continue that path,” thanks to the robust community-engaged programming of the college’s Harward Center.

A sample lesson: “Early in the semester, I like to have students simultaneously write brief definitions of gender on the board. Then we can see that even in a small classroom, there can be many definitions of gender. Students can better understand its nuances, and the idea that gender is a social construct becomes very clear.”

Stephanie Pridgeon, Assistant Professor of Spanish

Stories are central to the work of Spanish professor Stephanie Pridgeon. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

Name: Stephanie Pridgeon

Position: Assistant Professor of Spanish

Degrees from: Emory University, Ph.D., Spanish; University of Virginia, M.A., Spanish Language and Literature; College of Charleston, Honors College, B.A., Hispanic Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Before �ֲ��ý: Visiting Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies, The Catholic University of America. Pridgeon joined �ֲ��ý as a visiting professor in 2016.

Her work: Pridgeon studies intersections of ethnicity, gender, religion, and politics as depicted in Latin American film and literature. She’s drawn to characters “who don’t do what they’d necessarily be expected to do based on a category with which they identify,” she says.

For instance, in Revolting Jews on Screen, a book manuscript under publisher review, she uses a variety of films to explore the contradictory effects of Jewish political involvement in Latin America. “I became fascinated with all these retrospective stories about how fraught it was to identify simultaneously as Jewish and revolutionary.”

Why teach? “I love hearing other people’s stories,” says Pridgeon, “and I love sharing stories with students and giving them an appreciation for the stories about, effectively, what it means to be human — the messiness of it, the nuances, and the challenges of everyday life.”

Pridgeon values interactions with students that spark different directions for a course. Ditto for current events that change her teaching: for instance, the #MeToo movement gave her a new perspective on Argentinian novelist Claudia Piñeiro’s Tuya, about a woman who finds out her husband is cheating on her. “Those moments where our students can see that I’m learning with them and thinking about things in new ways with them are really productive.”

Why the liberal arts? For Pridgeon, “the core of a liberal arts education has to do with understanding what it means to be human in a variety of cases and contexts. I’m teaching the ability to gain knowledge and critical language skills in order to relate to somebody else’s story, to relate to something that’s a part of human experience.”

Paul Schofield, Assistant Professor of Philosophy

A teaching objective of Paul Schofield is introducing students to overlooked philosophical works by women. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

Name: Paul Schofield

Position: Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Degrees from: Harvard University, Ph.D., Philosophy; University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, M.A., Philosophy; University of Notre Dame, B.A., Liberal Studies

Before �ֲ��ý: After completing doctoral studies, Schofield came to �ֲ��ý in 2013 as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and has since served as a lecturer and visiting assistant professor.

His work: Two themes stand out among Schofield’s research. One, he says, is the question of “whether you can owe moral duties to yourself.” He explains that where contemporary moral philosophy tends to examine our interactions with others, “I argue that the relationship that you have to yourself is morally inflected — that you owe certain actions or behaviors to your own self.” His book on the topic is scheduled for publication in 2020 from Oxford University Press.

Schofield also studies philosophy and film, focusing on the medium’s strengths and weaknesses as a form of philosophical text. For example, he has written about the ballet film The Red Shoes as a distinctively deep representation of agency over one’s movement of one’s body.

Why teach? “I’ve always been intellectually curious,” says Schofield, who was reading philosophy and competing in debate in his teens. “I’ve always liked sharing that with others. Even when I did high school debate as a junior or a senior, I liked to teach the first-years what I knew, which was a lot less back then.”

The liberal arts: “There are philosophers interested in the philosophy of science, philosophy of mind and psychology, political philosophy, aesthetics and the arts.” And because such philosophers are “attempting to answer the fundamental questions about other disciplines,” Schofield situates philosophy at the very center of the liberal arts education.

�ֲ��ý students: “They’re willing to challenge themselves to take on difficult projects, to be told that there’s more work to do. I find the �ֲ��ý students to be the most intellectually curious group of young people I’ve ever been around.”

Asha Tamirisa, Assistant Professor of Music

Asha Tamirisa has taught sound and video production to middle- and high-school students. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

Name: Asha Tamirisa

Position: Assistant Professor of Music

Degrees from: Brown University: Ph.D., Computer Music and Multimedia; M.A., Modern Culture and Media; M.A., Computer Music and Multimedia; Oberlin College, B.A., Musical Studies

Before �ֲ��ý: While doing her postgraduate work, Tamirisa taught courses on multimedia art and electronic music at Brown and in community workshops in Rhode Island.

Her work: Harnessing a variety of technologies in performance and installations, Tamirisa describes herself as a sound and media artist. “The research that I do really informs the creative work that I make,” she says.

“I’m interested in fields like feminist science and technology studies and media archeology, which look critically at the stories behind our machines and can inform technological use and design.” For instance, motivated by the interrelated histories of textiles and digital technologies, Tamirisa is currently working on converting a small loom into an interface for audiovisual performance.

Tell us more: “I see teaching as an opportunity to rethink epistemologies of technology, music, and sound,” Tamirisa says. “How do gender and race fit into the histories of the technologies that we’re dealing with now? How does that shift our engagement or our understanding with them now?

“Understanding how gender and race have been imbricated in the histories and practices of these fields have shifted my engagement with these fields as an instructor as much as they have as a practitioner.”

Sample lesson: In the music theory course that she’s teaching this semester, Tamirisa’s students will select a piece of music and, throughout the semester, “apply the techniques that we’re learning in class to that piece. This is a way for me to get to know the students and their musical tastes and to demonstrate how the course material connects to music across genres and styles.”

She says, “I love the push and pull of starting a class with an idea of where it’s going to go, and then hearing from the students about where they want to go and where that takes us collectively.”

In second major award, Tolosky ’15 receives Projects for Peace grant

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 22 May 2015 19:41:17 +0000

Patrick Tolosky ’15, a Spanish major and premed student from Longmeadow, Mass., was awarded a Davis Projects for Peace grant to build a health center in Peru. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

A Spanish major at �ֲ��ý College, Patrick Tolosky ’15 of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, has been awarded a Davis Projects for Peace grant to construct a health center with the people of the Q’eros nation, located in a remote region of the Peruvian Andes.

Now in its ninth year, Projects for Peace provides $10,000 grants to aspiring undergraduates attending member institutions of the Davis United World College Scholar Program. These students propose sustainable projects around the world that promote peace and address the root causes of conflict.

Tolosky will work collaboratively with the Q’eros people, one of the few remaining Inca communities in Peru, to build a health center focused on preventive care. This “Hampi Wasi,” or home of healing, will serve as a base for both visiting healthcare professionals and practitioners of the botanically based traditional medicine of the Q’eros.

“This work cannot wait, because this community should no longer have to abandon a newborn to curable dehydration or watch preventable infection take a limb or a life,” Tolosky says.

“I’ll be excited to hit the ground running and get started quickly upon arriving in Peru in mid-June. It will be rewarding to see what true collaboration can accomplish.”

Tolosky, who aspires to a career in public health and medicine, is the president of the pre-med club at �ֲ��ý and co-president of the college’s Public Health Initiative. He has tutored children at the Lewiston Public Library and has volunteered widely on and off campus.

He also received a 2015-16 Fulbright Teaching Assistantship for Spain, one of 18 current or former �ֲ��ý students to receive Fulbright fellowships this year. He will work in Peru during the summer and head for Spain in September.

Hannah Rae Porst ’11.

Tolosky’s Project for Peace extends the work of Hannah Porst, who graduated from �ֲ��ý and received a Project for Peace grant in 2011. With her Davis grant, Porst built the first Q’eros school, in the village of Ch’allmachimpana.

That project, Tolosky explains, spawned Willka Yachay, a nonprofit that continues to help the community thrive. In a collaborative effort since 2012, Willka Yachay and the Q’eros people have constructed three additional school buildings that serve children and adults. They have also undertaken other projects for this community whose 14 villages comprise about 2,000 people.

Porst and Tolosky were initially put in contact by a common adviser, professor Claudia Aburto Guzmán of the �ֲ��ý Spanish department. Porst and Tolosky then met last summer at a children’s home in Urubamba, Peru, where Tolosky helped build a sustainable greenhouse after studying in Lima. They have collaborated closely since then. It was Tolosky’s third visit to South America.

Tolosky was moved to launch his project when Porst told him about the lack of healthcare among the Q’eros — and about one of the consequences of that lack, the child mortality rate. “The World Bank database cites Peru’s child mortality at 2 percent, while in Q’eros it is around 40 to 50 percent. When Hannah told me that, I simply couldn’t comprehend it.”

The Hampi Wasi will provide education in preventative medicine and serve as a base of operations for visiting healthcare professionals. Combining traditional and modern practices, volunteers will teach nutrition, sanitation, prevention of hypothermia and other preventative measures.

But it will also support the traditional medical practices of the Q’eros, serving as a repository for documentation of those practices, which are now passed down orally. Part of the tradition is lost every time one of its practitioners dies, as was evidenced by a recent unexpected death of a highly skilled “curandero” or healer.

“The intention is not to establish Western medical care as the dominant force, but rather to supplement the traditional practices of the Q’eros people when it’s beneficial,” says Tolosky.

“This will be a great example of different types of medicine working together toward a common goal.”

Tolosky, whose summertime work in a Massachusetts emergency department has opened his eyes to the effects of both poverty and preventative care on overall health, sees healthcare as the key to a peaceful and sustainable future for the Q’eros community.

He adds, “I think a beautiful part of this world is how many different cultures there are, and how each has something to offer the others. I’m excited to learn from the Q’eros people and walk away with a broadened perspective about what it means to be human.”

Soderberg ’00 and López-Carr ’93 selected to elite NAS symposium for best and brightest young scientists

Jay Burns — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 14:00:43 +0000

Geographer David López-Carr ’93 and astronomer Alicia Soderberg ’00 were among 35 top young U.S. scientists selected to the Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium.

Gearing up for the inaugural edition of a joint U.S.-Israeli scientific symposium, the National Academy of Sciences scoured the land for 35 of the best and brightest young minds.

In the end, not one �ֲ��ý graduate made the cut — not one, that is, but two alumni: astronomer Alicia Soderberg ’00 and geographer David López-Carr ’93.

Soderberg, López-Carr and their fellow U.S. researchers joined 40 Israeli counterparts in June at the Israeli-American Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium held in Irvine, Calif.

The joint symposium was the latest edition of the long-running Frontiers of Science series, which got its start in 1989 as a way for select and promising young scientists “to see what exciting developments are going on in fields far from their own” and to give them networking opportunities with other researchers, says NAS program director Edward Patte.

Not only does the Kavli Frontiers of Science program invite only A-list young researchers who’ve already received prestigious fellowships, awards and other honors, it is also a predictor of later success. Of the approximately 4,500 researchers who have been named Kavli Fellows over the years, 136 have subsequently been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and 10 have received the Nobel Prize.

“An indicator of the effective mentorship and training they received at �ֲ��ý.”

“The Kavli Frontiers of Science program is highly selective, so we are proud to see two of �ֲ��ý’ talented alumni scientists receiving invitations,” said Matthew Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at �ֲ��ý. “Alicia Soderberg’s and David López-Carr’s recognition by the National Academy of Sciences and the Kavli Foundation is also an indicator of the effective mentorship and training they received at �ֲ��ý.”

Soderberg earned her �ֲ��ý degree magna cum laude in physics and mathematics, writing her honors thesis in physics on “Efficiency Calculations for the Rate of Supernovae at High Redshift.”

While at �ֲ��ý, and with support from Professor of Physics Eric Wollman, she received funding from the National Science Foundation to join research teams at observatories in Hawaii, Arizona and Puerto Rico and to study at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Now a recognized expert on the phenomenon of supernovae, Soderberg is back at Harvard as an associate professor of astronomy.

López-Carr earned highest honors in Spanish for his thesis “Una Traducción de Peatón de Quito: Dejando ‘Huellas’ en Inglés” (A Translation of Peatón de Quito: Leaving ‘Footprints’ in English).

He also completed a minor in geology, crediting Professor of Spanish Francisca Lopez and Professor of Geology Michael Retelle for inspiring him to “investigate phenomena at the intersection of the physical and social sciences.”

He graduated magna cum laude, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and is now a professor of geography at the University of California–Santa Barbara, where he directs the Latin American and Iberian studies program.

López-Carr also directs UCSB’s Human-Environment Dynamics Lab, contributing to the understanding of the myriads links among population growth, rural development, forest resource use and conservation. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 scholarly publications and an equal number of conference papers. He is involved with ongoing research projects in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Recently, he was named co–principal investigator for a million-dollar NASA-funded project involving UCSB, San Diego State University, George Washington University and the University of Ghana.

The multidisciplinary project will try to uncover what is driving rapid land change and urban transition in Ghana. López-Carr will contribute research analyses of population and health surveys, connecting that information to what is shown by “multi-temporal,” or time-lapse, satellite images of changes in land use in Ghana.

His own prodigious scholarly output notwithstanding, López-Carr praises his colleague Soderberg as a “true supernova among our scholarly �ֲ��ý alumni.”

Indeed, it’s been a good year for Soderberg and her studies of supernovae, the incredibly bright and energetic explosions of stars.

Seen here is an artist’s conception of an unusual kind of supernova that Soderberg has explored. Known as an engine-driven supernova, it emits low-energy radio waves rather than high-energy gamma rays. Illustration by Bill Saxton.

Soderberg, whose own tally of scholarly publications is also more than 100, recently received the 2013 Young Scientist Medal and Prize from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics for her pioneering discoveries of new aspects of stellar explosions.

In 2012, Soderberg was selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, an award given to early-career scientists and scholars “whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars.”

In the July issue of Astronomer Magazine, she is profiled among several “Rising Stars” in the field. Being at the fore of supernovae research, she told the magazine, means being prepared.

That’s how, in 2008, she became the first astronomer to see a star in the act of exploding.

Though the publication Nature called it “luck” (she was looking at the remnants of another nearby supernova at the time), Soderberg says that “luck favors the prepared.”

In the case of the 2008 explosion, she and her team were doing work to confirm a long-held theory that the stellar explosion marking the birth of a supernova includes a burst of cosmic X-rays. So as Soderberg was scanning the heavens on Jan. 9, 2008, and noticed a sudden X-ray burst, she knew right away what she was seeing.

The Kavli Frontiers of Science symposia are co-sponsored by the Oxnard, Calif.–based Kavli Foundation. The most recent joint program with Israel is the latest in a set of bilateral symposia that have connected young U.S. scientists with counterparts in China, England, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, and Japan for the purpose of strengthening scientific and technological collaborations.

Talk by Lecturer in Spanish David George previewed in European press

Doug Hubley — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 17:36:52 +0000

David George, lecturer in Spanish.

Research by David George, lecturer in Spanish, figured prominently in about a seminar in Spain dedicated to novelist Vicente Blasco Ibáñez.

Not widely known in the U.S. nowadays, Blasco Ibáñez was famous internationally in the 1920s, and Hollywood adapted several of his novels. Held July 3-5, the conference at the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, in Valencia, looked specifically at the author’s influence on cinema.

George looked at the author’s influence on Japanese film, not American. He discussed his rediscovery of two 1924 films adapted from the fiction of Blasco Ibáñez: Osumi to haha (“Osumi and her mother”), based on the story “The Old Woman of the Cinema,” and Wakasa yo saraba (“Farewell, youth!”), from the novel Woman Triumphant.

“At the summit of his international fame, Blasco Ibáñez was received as a real celebrity” in Japan during a 1923-24 visit, writes George. That buzz helped inspire a rash of translations of his work and, later in 1924, the film productions.

During his short visit, Blasco Ibáñez was surprised to find his picture alongside that of the movie star Rudolph Valentino by the door of a Kyoto cinema showing Blood and Sand, one of the Hollywood adaptations of his work.

George’s presentation concluded that if Blasco didn’t influence the development of Japanese cinema directly, his works did influence a reform of Japanese cinematic language that gave way to directors such as Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa.

Lecture series to explore encounters between Europe, Islamic world in theater, art and politics

�ֲ��ý News — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:04:44 +0000

Ali Akhtar, assistant professor of religious studies and of classical and medieval studies, has organized a lecture series on encounters between Europe and the Islamic world and offers a talk in the series March 25. Photograph by Michael Bradley/�ֲ��ý College.

With a talk called Coming to Terms With Islamic Spain: Contemporary Stagings in Modern Spanish Theater, an expert in Spanish theater from Bard College opens a lecture series exploring cultural encounters between Europe and the Islamic world at noon Monday, March 4, in the Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

David Rodriguez-Solas of Bard opens the series, titled Europe and the Islamic World: Cultural Encounters in Theater, Art and Politics. The series is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact Ali H. Akhtar at aakhtar@bates.edu or Jeanne Beliveau at jbelive2@bates.edu.

Three lectures will follow in this series, all in Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk):

Nebahat Avcioglu, a professor of art history at CUNY Hunter College, offers the lecture Turquerie and Orientalism: Cultural Transfer Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the 18th and 19th Centuries at 4:30 p.m. Monday, March 11, in Pettengill G65;
Series organizer Ali Humayun Akhtar, an assistant professor of religious studies and of classical and medieval studies at �ֲ��ý, speaks on Post-Graffiti Damascus and Cairo: Arab Street Art as a Global Aesthetic at 4:30 p.m. Monday, March 25, in Pettengill G52;
Michelle Campos, an associate professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Florida, gives the lecture Between Empire and Nation: Muslims, Christians and Jews at the End of the Ottoman Empire at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 2, in Pettengill G65.

Rodriguez-Solas is a visiting assistant professor at Bard College who teaches Spanish and Latin American and Iberian studies. He is the author of Teatros nacionales republicanos: la Segunda Republica y el teatro clasico espanol, (2013, “Republic National Theaters: the Second Republic and Spanish Classical Theater”).

Avcioglu specializes in Islamic art and architecture. Her publications focus on imperialism, art and travel, the Enlightenment and exoticism, 19th-century Orientalism in architecture, post-classical Istanbul and modern and contemporary mosques in Europe.

Akhtar studies the complex interactions among political, religious and intellectual establishments in Europe and the Islamic world in medieval and early modern times. “Scholars can paint a picture of the medieval political and intellectual landscape throughout the Mediterranean region in a way that can help modern societies better understand their current affairs and trajectories,” Akhtar says.

Campos has lived and conducted research in Israel and Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Her areas of interest include the late Ottoman Empire, the social history of historical Palestine, Muslim–non-Muslim relations, urban history and social networks.

The series is sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies and the Program in Classical and Medieval Studies, with additional support from the following: the Office of the President; divisions of humanities, social sciences, interdisciplinary studies; departments of politics, art and visual culture (in conjunction with the Alison Lockwood Fund for art history), Spanish, theater and dance, French and Francophone studies, and anthropology; and the program in European studies (in conjunction with the department of German and Russian studies).

Makman ’14 among first nationwide to receive new language scholarship

Doug Hubley — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:10:09 +0000

Isabel Makman ’14 at the Peterhof Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.

A �ֲ��ý junior studying in St. Petersburg, Russia, is among the first recipients of a new scholarship offered by CIEE, an organization based in Portland, Maine, that provides international education and exchange programs.

Isabel Makman of Kalispell, Mont., is one of 13 recipients of CIEE’s Language Intensive Focus Track (LIFT) scholarship, and is the only one attending a Maine college.

The scholarship supports Makman’s goal of staying in St. Petersburg through spring 2013. A Russian major and Spanish minor, she’s studying the Russian language through a CIEE program, as well as literature and culture.

“I was very honored to hear that I would be one of the first recipients of this scholarship,” she said.

“My experience in Russia has been wonderful so far. I have been living with a host family, attending classes at St. Petersburg State University, volunteering as an English teacher and interning at an English-language newspaper.”

She adds, “Russia has certainly changed the way I think about the world. For example, there are people in Russia who seem to think communism was not such a bad thing, contrary to what I’ve always been taught. This new perspective has certainly been interesting and enlightening.”

CIEE’s goal for the LIFT program is to enable serious, academically focused students to pursue deep language acquisition. The inaugural LIFT scholars were chosen from a highly competitive pool of current CIEE students pursuing intensive language development in Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese or Portuguese, in addition to Russian.

“The caliber of students who applied for a LIFT scholarship is truly remarkable,” said CIEE President and CEO James P. Pellow. “Each recipient is clearly dedicated to internationalizing their education.

“It is our privilege to be able to provide these impressive students with important financial assistance that will allow them to continue to pursue their personal and professional passions in another country.”

Beginning in fall 2013, LIFT scholarships will be available to students on all year-long CIEE language programs. .

A nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, CIEE is a world leader in international study and exchange programs.

Barlow grant supports senior’s Christmas presence in Ecuador

�ֲ��ý News — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:04:24 +0000

Tiarra Abell ’12, a double major in Spanish and anthropology, is spending her December break in Ecuador doing research.

As the end of the semester approaches, �ֲ��ý students are looking forward to a break from late nights in the library and a chance to spend the holidays with friends and family. But for senior Tiarra Abell of Louisville, Ky., winter break is a time to get some real work done.

At 4 a.m. Dec. 10, just hours after her last class of the semester, Abell began her journey back to Ecuador, where she spent her junior semester.

“A reality is coming true that I never imagined,” Abell said. “Although I didn’t want it to, I expected my time in Ecuador to end. But within just six months I’m able to go back!”

Along with 11 other seniors, Abell received a Barlow Thesis Research Grant. Established by David Barlow ’79, the grant’s goal is to enhance the study-abroad experience.

“I really like the Barlow thesis grant program, as it helps link the study abroad experience to the student’s academic program at �ֲ��ý,” said Stephen Sawyer, director of off-campus study. “It allows students to return to their study-abroad country and interact with that setting in a more targeted way, building on their first experience.”

A double major in Spanish and anthropology, Abell is writing two senior theses, both investigating the lives of the Afro-Choteño community in Chota, a rural village with a population of 800. While living with a host family in Chota last spring, Abell was struck by the warmth and generosity of the Afro-Choteños despite the poverty in which they live.

“That was the first time in my life that I have experienced extreme poverty, in its real form,” said Abell. “The way they accepted me into their culture because I looked like them was very powerful to me. Just because I am black and I was doing well, they were very proud of me, as if I was one of their own.”

The timing for the return visit could not be better. After witnessing Easter in Chota, Abell was inspired to write her Spanish thesis on the role of faith in the lives of the devoutly Catholic Afro-Choteños. Abell hopes that spending Christmas in Chota will allow her to gather valuable interviews and photographs for her thesis.

After �ֲ��ý, Abell plans to pursue a career in medicine. While in Chota, she volunteered at the local health clinic. She will return to the clinic to gather more field notes for her anthropology thesis on the economic and racial inequalities affecting medical treatment in Chota.

“This is a great opportunity,” she said. “Now I not only have volunteer experience in the medical field, but I have it in another culture.”

Most of her time will be spent in Chota, but Abell will visit Quito and Otavalo to gather books and articles that are not available in the United States on the Afro-Choteños. During this time she plans to meet Carla Guerron, the author of one of her primary sources, El Color de la Panela (“The Color of Brown Sugar”).

Abell will miss spending the holidays with her family in Louisville. “This is the first Christmas I have missed with my family, but being able to share and give back to people who don’t have nearly as much—who can’t even conceptualize the amount of things I have—brings me back to the true meaning of Christmas that my parents and family instilled in me.”

While home for Thanksgiving, Abell added, “my best friend’s sister gave me a big bag full of toys to give to the kids in Chota knowing that they would go to good use.”

— Erica Long ’12

Open to the World: Spain, ‘down the Plains’ come to Maine as poetry fest begins

Doug Hubley — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:23:05 +0000

From left, Mary Rice-DeFosse, Francisca López, and Jane Costlow listen as Rhea Coté Robbins reads one of her poems.

It had to be said: Sometimes, “something gets found in translation, too.”

This truth was stated during the opening of Translations: Cross-Cultural Exchange Through Poetry, the second edition of an innovative festival dedicated to the translation of poetry, a creative act every bit as demanding as the making of a new poem.

The speaker was Jane Costlow, professor of environmental studies, who welcomed the listeners filling Chase Lounge late in the afternoon of Oct. 25. If poet Robert Frost felt that poetry gets lost in translation, Costlow said, what gets found is “the beginning of wisdom”: a glimmering of our own places amidst “the vast variety of human creativity.”

Poet Rhea Coté Robbins reads.

The session was the first of five readings during the , which runs through Oct. 29 (and includes a conference on the practice of translation). Most of the poets write in languages other than English, and the festival’s format is the simultaneous presentation of poems in both the author’s voice and English translations, created by �ֲ��ý faculty and students and projected as text on a screen.

Following Costlow’s welcome were readings by poets Rhea Coté Robbins, a Franco-American writer, editor and teacher from Brewer, Maine; and Francisca López, �ֲ��ý professor of Spanish.

Costlow established a helpful conceptual landscape for the listeners. She situated the festival in the context of the week’s Open to the World: �ֲ��ý Celebrates Unbounded Learning events, marking the renovation of two academic buildings that are, as she said, “devoted to the study of language, culture and our complex ethical relationships to each other and to the more-than-human world.”

And Costlow suggested that the meanings of poetry are not always textual. “I invite you, for at least part of each poet’s reading, to forget about what it means, and just submerse yourself in the music.”

The music began with Coté Robbins, whose early life in “down the Plains” — a Francophone neighborhood in the Maine mill town of Waterville — resonated through her work. She was one of the festival’s two poets reading in English (the other being �ֲ��ý senior lecturer in English ). Reading quickly and undramatically, she delivered more than 20 poems animated by the tensions of unattainable dreams and of class and gender conflict.

From left, poets Naomi Otsubo and Polina Barskova listen attentively.

In her father’s mill the papermaking machines cook, gas, electrocute and eat the workers. The bosses in her mother’s shirt factory urge the women to work “Faster, Faster, Faster.” Women — Coté herself, Peyton Place author Grace Metalious — negotiate the visceral conflict between creative and family needs.

“We Spread the Dirt” depicts Coté Robbins and family bringing to her parents’ graves soil from France, in lieu of the homeland visit they could never make:

we are priests
without ritual—
Eiffel Tower pink-tinted dirt and rocks
for her
France-on-the-Loire brown
country farmer’s soil
for him

A native of Andalusia, in southern Spain, López writes poetry in Spanish. The festival translations of her 13 poems were created by departmental colleague and festival organizer Claudia Aburto Guzmán.

Francisca López speaks with a member of the audience after the reading.

López described herself as a rational person for whom poetry is a way to address the questions that rationality can’t touch. Where Coté’s work was markedly social and political, López’s poems were more abstract, organic, inward-looking, intimate. Her reading style, too, was softer, closer.

“Jump to the Abyss” was an attempt to make sense of a student’s senseless death:

you greet, joke, toast with someone
in the distance

and get closer . . .
to the wings of glass

for your flight
toward the encounter.

“The Soul’s Rags” could be about the people of our past who become like ghosts: “you lay dozing with me / in the silence of eternity.” “The Kiss” may describe the imbalance of power in a passionate encounter:

You keep the air
the hunger and thirst
the joy and sorrow
the need to move on

A senior from Pomona, Calif., double-majoring in Spanish and in women and gender studies, Jeanette Mariscal was running the Translations slide projection for the second year. Last year, she said, hearing German poet Lothar Quinkenstein gave her a whole new sense of the expressive capability of the German language.

Hearing poetry as opposed to simply taking it off the page, she said, “gives it life. When they read it, you get a better feel for their thinking.”

“In truth, poetry is as much a performance as anything else,” Aburto Guzmán remarked after the readings. “All these poets are good at that.”

Professor of Environmental Studies Jane Costlow welcomes Chase Hall listeners. Google Earth presentations showed the poets’ journeys.

Open to the World: Foreign becomes familiar in Roger Williams Hall

Doug Hubley — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:03:43 +0000

French professor Alex Dauge-Roth gestures during the faculty conversation about global citizenship held prior to the dedication of Hedge and Roger Williams halls. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

�ֲ��ý’ global reach has been a driving theme behind , a celebration of new academic spaces including Roger Williams Hall, home to the college’s foreign language programs and Off Campus Study Office.

So the foreign language faculty took an hour or so during the afternoon of Oct. 27, the day the newly renovated Bill and Hedge Hall were dedicated, to present a sampling of courses and projects in their repertoire.

Dedicated to the idea of educating students for global citizenship, here are a few highlights from the presentation in the brand-new Language Resource Center:

Alex Dauge-Roth, associate professor of French, talked about his course “Border and Disorders in French and Francophone Literature and Films.” An apt choice for a week of �ֲ��ý programming devoted to breaking down borders, the course examines representations of inclusion and exclusion — for example, two opposing political ads that use, in nearly identical ways, the symbol of a black sheep among white ones to support either openness to immigration or rejection of it. “The idea is to complexify for students how they define their borders,” Dauge-Roth said. “You cannot be at home without excluding others.”
Against a backdrop of Central European images taken last year by Rachel Morrison ’13, Professor of German Craig Decker offered a capsule history of �ֲ��ý Fall Semester Abroad programs in Vienna and Berlin. Noting that all FSA programs, not just the German-language trips, are interdisciplinary by design, he said, “It’s interesting to see how students combine what goes on in the two courses.” It’s a kind of synthesis “that doesn’t always happen on campus.”
Sarah Strong, professor of Japanese, cut to the heart of cross-cultural exchange in describing her course “The Fantastic in Modern Japan.” Looking at comics, fiction and anime film, the course encourages students to discover what’s common among cultures — but more important, to “encounter what is unfamiliar that they can learn about and bring into their sphere of understanding.” For example, how the young heroine in the manga and film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind comes to terms with the toxic fungal forest that is consuming a post-apocalyptic world.
A fascinating translation project undertaken by Professor of Spanish Francisca López, Lecturer in French Laura Balladur and others: Students in certain foreign-language courses have translated work by the poets participating in the college’s annual international poetry festival (taking place concurrently with the Open to the World events). During the festival, the student translations have been projected on a screen while the poets read them in the original language. For the second part of the course, the students translate into French and Spanish poems written by students in a poetry course taught by Senior Lecturer in English Robert Farnsworth — and all the students, translators and translated, meet to discuss the linguistic and cultural issues that are gained in translation.

�ֲ��ý presents second annual Translations international poetry festival and conference

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:41:56 +0000

During the first Translations poetry festival at �ֲ��ý College, in 2010, organizer Claudia Aburto Guzmán had an encounter that seemed to crystallize the event for her.

This innovative festival presented international poets reading their work in the original language, with English translations prepared by �ֲ��ý faculty and students. Working with Somali poet Omar Ahmed, “it struck me that I was involved in the true practice of communication,” says Aburto Guzmán, associate professor of Spanish.

.
Note: The time for Rafael Carpintero’s talk has been pushed back to 7 p.m. Friday.

“He and I had to communicate through layers of cultural expectations — his Somali culture and my Chilean culture, in addition to U.S. culture. I had to be so clear with language.”

Taking place Tuesday, Oct. 25, though Saturday, Oct. 29, this year’s festival celebrates cross-cultural communication with readings by poets from the Americas, Europe and Japan. New to the event is an Oct. 27-29 conference, organized by Visiting Assistant Professor of German Raluca Cernahoschi, exploring the art and practice of literary translation.

The festival is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact 207-786-8293 or gdumais@bates.edu.

The festival begins at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25, with a welcome, readings and a reception in Chase Hall, 56 Campus Ave. Readings continue in Chase at 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, Oct. 26-29.

The conference begins with registration at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday in Chase. Conference sessions take place at 8 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 27, and at 9 a.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28-29, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

A closing reception in the �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St., follows the Saturday readings.

Here are the poets and the dates when they read (all the poets read on Oct. 29):
Oct. 25: Rhea Coté, of Brewer, Maine, and �ֲ��ý faculty member Francisca López, a native of Spain;
Oct. 26: Miguel Angel Zapata, of Peru, and Naomi Otsubo, a native of Japan living in Maine;
Oct. 27: Polina Barskova, a native of Russia, and �ֲ��ý faculty member Robert Farnsworth;
Oct. 28: Danny Plourde, a Francophone poet from Canada, and Carmen Elisabeta Puchianu, a poet from Romania who writes in German.

Conference presenters include Enrique Yepes, a Colombian critic and scholar of Latin American literatures; and Rafael Carpintero of Spain, a translator whose works include Spanish editions of titles by best-selling Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. Yepes offers the talk Carving the Air: On Poetry Festivals at 7 p.m. Thursday in Chase Lounge, and Carpintero discusses the translation of poetry at 7 p.m. Friday in Chase.

The authors’ work will be available at the �ֲ��ý College Store, 56 Campus Ave., throughout the festival.

“Poetry, widely defined, can illustrate all issues pertinent to our times and culture,” says Aburto Guzmán. “In the public sphere, translation can help us focus on the challenges involved in cross-cultural communications.”