Spring 2016 Newsletter - Borough of Manhattan Community College

B OROUGH OF M ANHATTAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE
T HE CITY UNIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK
D E P A R TM E N T O F M O D E R N L A N G U AG E S
S P R I N G 2 01 6 N E W S L ET T E R
As it is now tradition, on April 4th the Modern Languages
Department held its annual colloquium at the Richard Harris
Terrace. This year the MLD Colloquium celebrated music
traditions from around the world. Several musicians, artists and
professors showcased the music of Italy, from classical to
contemporary; the music of the Arab world, from secular to
sacred; the French Chanson, both ancient and modern; the rhythms
of the Spanish-speaking world, and finally, the music of China,
its evolution through the ages. Here are a few pictures of the
event!
MLD Faculty Publications
Professor Margaret Carson ’s interview with AuthorsTranslators Blogspot appeared in January 2016 http://authorstranslators.blogspot.com/2016/02/margaret-carson-literarytranslator-and.html
Rafael Corbalán published “Vicente Blasco Ibáñez y la
moralidad en el cine mudo de Hollywood” in Revista de Estudios
sobre Blasco Ibáñez/Journal of Blasco Ibáñez Studies 3
(Ajuntament de Valencia, Valencia, 2015)
Professor Ángeles Donoso Macaya published “Spic
Ecdysis (2014) de Xandra Ibarra, o las mudas de la performance"
in II y III Coloquio Fotografía y discursos disciplinares. Eds.
Margarita Alvarado, Carla Möller, and José Pablo Concha Lagos.
Santiago: Estética UC, Diciembre 2015. 133-148. Her review of
Natalia Fortuny’s Memorias fotográficas. Imagen y dictadura en
la fotografía argentina contemporánea is forthcoming in
Conversaciones del Cono Sur 2.1
Professor Sophie Maríñez ’s article “Alegorías de una
hermandad atormentada: construcciones alternas de Haití en la
literatura dominicana contemporánea” was published in "Quisqueya
is my lakay": Challenging de-nationalization, waving the
national identity. Special Issue on the Haitian-Dominican
Conflict, Memorias. Revista Digital de Historia y Arqueología
desde el Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia, Volume 28, April 2016.
She also published the entry “Michele Voltaire Marcelin” in the
Oxford Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American
Biography. Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Franklyn W. Knight.
Oxford University Press (May 2016).
Professor Kristina Varade published an entry on Italian
American Dancers in the reference book, The Italian
Americans: The History and Culture of A People (Greenwood,
2016).
Professor Alejandro Varderi’s recent publications
include: "Alexander Apóstol. Apuntes para una mirada queer."
Fragmentos de lo queer. Arte en América Latina e Iberoamérica,
Lucas Martinelli, ed. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos
Aires, 2016: 192-213. “Caracas de noche” Viceversa, April 11;
“El teatro de la ciudad que nunca duerme” Viceversa, March 28;
“Sobre nuestra cultura y la estética del kitsch” Viceversa,
March 14; “Carmen Valle: nómada del lenguaje y del paisaje”
Viceversa, February 29; “Arte medieval: un recuento necesario”
Viceversa, February 15; “Sobre el amor cortés” Viceversa,
February 1; José de Alencar y la formación de la novela
brasileña” Viceversa, January 18; “A los 140 años el nacimiento
de Antonio Machado: Los modernistas españoles ayer y hoy”
Viceversa, December 21; “Los espacios temporales de Carmen Luisa
Plaza” Viceversa, December 7; “Marta López-Luaces: Pertenezco a
varias realidades lingüísticas” Viceversa, November 22;
http://www.viceversa-mag.com/author/alejandro-varderi/ “El cine:
biografía e historia” www.cinecritic.biz (January-February,
2016).
Professor Peter Consenstein was the guest editor of
issues 4 and 5 of Contemporary French and Francophone Studies:
Sites. The issues title were Money/L’argent (September, December
2015).He wrote the “Editor’s Introduction” on both issues. In
addition, his book chapter “Roubaud écranique” is forthcoming in
Oulipo: mode d’emploi (Paris: Champion, 2016).
MLD Faculty Presentations
Professor Margaret Carson presented “Translation as a
Capture Device: Frank Smith’s Guantanamo, as translated by
Vanessa Place” during the seminar “The Itinerant Document:
Between Capture, Display, and Resistance” at the 2016 ACLA
conference at Harvard University, March 18, 2016. She also
presented "The Multilingual Turn: Parallel Reading and Writing
Communities" during the Transitions and Transactions III
conference at Borough of Manhattan Community College on April 2,
2016.
Professor Ángeles Donoso Macaya was invited by Andrea
Noble (Durham University, UK) to participate at the Symposium
“Photography and Its Publics” held at Monash University, Prato
Centre (Italy), on April 14-15, 2016. A dozen photography
scholars from around the world came together in a seminar
environment to present their research and discuss the limits and
possibilities of photography as a medium for and generator of
public engagement and debate. Her presentation was entitled
“Engaging Audiences through Documentary Photography: from Chile
from within (1990) to Chile desde adentro (2015).” She was also
invited by the Latin American Studies Program at Lehigh
University to participate in the Symposium “Fronteras en América
Latina,” where she presented a paper entitled “(Documentary)
Photography and its Limits.” The event took place on March 30,
2016. Dr. Donoso Macaya also participated in the 2016 Annual
Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association
(ACLA), held at Harvard University, on March 17- 20, 2016. She
was one of the organizers of the seminar “The Itinerant
Document: Between Capture, Display, and Resistance,” and
presented “Lonquén’s Echoes (1978‐2014).” She will present
“Persistencia del retrato fotográfico” in the panel “Legados
fotográficos de la violencia en América Latina,” which she coorganized, during the International Congress of the Latin
American Studies Association (LASA), to be held in New York
City, on May 27-30, 2016.
Professor Ainoa Íñigo presented “El mundo en ruinas de
2666: El discurso sobre la literatura y el oficio del escritor
en Roberto Bolaño” at the XVII CILH (Congreso Internacional de
Literatura Hispánica) in Mérida, México (March 11, 2016). She
was also the moderator of the panel. She also presented
"Estética de la marginalidad en Los detectives salvajes de
Roberto Bolaño" at the Northeast Modern Language Association
(NEMLA) (March 19, 2016).
Professor Ling Luo will present “Teaching Material
Selection of Modern Chinese Literature” at the 14th New York
International Conference on Teaching Chinese in May 2016.
Professor Sophie Maríñez was invited to present the novel
Marassa y la Nada/Marassa and the Nothingness, a bilingual
edition (Partridge), by Alanna Lockward. Barnard College, New
York, March 9, 2016. She also presented eight papers on either
her research on early modern French women writers or her recent
work on Haitian-Dominican relations at five conferences,
including the annual meetings of the Renaissance Society of
America, the Dominican Studies Association, the Latin American
Studies Association and the Caribbean Studies Association, which
will take place in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, June 5-11. Also
presented a paper titled The Perejil Massacre in the Dominican
Republic and its Sequel in the 21st Century: Impunity and
Responsibility, in “ Impunité, Responsabilité et Citoyenneté –
Haïti,” a conference organized by the Henri Peyre Institute, The
Graduate Center, City University of New York, March 17-18, 2016.
She also published the poems “Sentencia del Infierno I: Poema a
los desterrados” and “Sentencia del Infierno III: Soñando en
Marassá” in Circum-Caribbean Poetics, a special issue edited by
Jana Braziel and Nicasio Urbina. The Cincinnati Romance Review
(Volume 40, Spring 2016):
http://www.cromrev.com/volumes/Vol40/Creative/CRR%20v40C04%20Sophie%20Marinez.pdf
Professor Kristina Varade was invited to speak at two
major conferences this spring. The first, with the American
Conference for Irish Studies South, discussed her book monograph
on Charles Lever and was entitled "Charles Lever's 'Other' Irish
Literary Voice." The second paper will be given at Trinity
College, Dublin in May and will present her work “Ancora non
raggiungibile: Cellphones and the Fragmented Subject in Italian
Fiction” at the Society for Italian Studies’ international
conference, “Turning Points: Cultures of Transition,
Transformation, and Transmission in Italy.”
Professor Alejandro Varderi presented his book De lo
sublime a lo grotesco: kitsch y cultura popular en el mundo
hispánico at the McNally & Jackson Bookstore, on March 25. He
also co-organized the following activities at the Graduate
Center as part of the Enclave magazine literary series: “A
Reading from Enclave Contributors,” March 4; and “2 x Venezuela:
Diego López Bruzual and Francisco Suniaga,” April 1.”
Other Events and Activities by MLD Faculty
Professor Margaret Carson was one of four translatorparticipants in the annual Translation Slam at the PEN World
Voices Festival on April 29, 2016 at the Nuyorican Café. She was
lead organizer for the event “Edith Grossman: Making Translation
Matter,” a tribute to Edith Grossman on the occasion of her 80th
birthday, held during the PEN World Voices Festival, April 30,
2016. She offered a tribute to Edith Grossman during the event.
She is a member of the panel of experts convened by the “New
Spanish Books Translation Rights Project” established by ICEX
España Exportación e Inversiones and the Ministry of Education,
Culture and Sports of Spain. She also organized the roundtable
“Women and the Spanish Civil War: From Memory to International
Citizenship in a Dangerous World” during Women’s HerStory month,
Borough of Manhattan Community College, and presented on the
Spanish Civil War photographs of the Hungarian photographer Kati
Horna (March 29, 2016).
Professor Ángeles Donoso Macaya was invited to be the
discussant of the panel “Matrices de control y resistencia:
performance, visualidad y política” in the XXXIV International
Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, to be held
in New York City, May 27-30, 2016. On April 21, she took her
Film & Conversation course, to see U.S filmmaker and artist
Laura Poitra’s exhibit, Astro Noise, at the Whitney Museum.
On March 17 Professor Chun-Yi shared his insight
on gender representations in East Asia. The event was the final
colloquium of the FIG Language Society and Culture. Students and
Faculty attended the event.
Chun-Yi Peng, Instructor, Modern Languages
Professor Sophie Maríñez will read her poetry series
Sentencia del Infierno/Sentence from Hell at the Literary Salon
of the Caribbean Studies Association Annual Conference, PétionVille, Haiti, June 5-11, 2016. She also edited the fourth issue
of Échos du Tout-Monde, dedicated to the role of the French
language in our lives. Had its electronic format in PDF posted
on the MLD’s website and shared in social media, including
Facebook, Twitter, and the widely-read blog on Caribbean culture
and literature, Repeating islands:
https://repeatingislands.com/2016/04/10/new-electronic-formatof-bmcccuny-literary-magazine-echos-du-tout-monde/
Professor Marilyn Rivera used ELIC funds to take her
class, SPN 200, to Teatro Círculo to see Callback Series 2016
which explores the question what it means to be a Latino
man. It included the following plays: Manchild Machismo,
Rhapsodia, and Someday a Father Be. She also invited writer and
actor Ricardo Santana Ortiz (2016 HOLA Award winner) to talk to
her class SPN 210 via Skype.
Marilyn Rivera ’s book, Masculinidades y transgresiones en la
obra de Mayra Santos Febres, and Ángeles Donoso Macaya ’s
Latinas/os on the East Coast: A Critical Reader, co-edited with
Yolie Medina, were part of the BMCC Faculty Books Exhibition in
the BMCC Library.
As part of the activities of the Women Herstory Professor
Paquita Suárez-Coalla coordinated and co-sponsored the
following events:
Recordando a Ana Mendieta/ Remembering Ana Mendieta, an
homage to the Cuban American performance artist, sculptor and
painter Ana Mendieta best known for her "earth-body" artwork.
The event consisted of: Presentation of the Documentary Fuego de
Tierra, by Nereida García Fernández on March 17, 2016 and
Literary Reading and Discussion of Ana en cuatro tiempos (short
stories based on Ana Mendieta’s life) by Sonia Rivera-Valdés, on
March 24, 2016.
Women and the Spanish Civil War: From Memory to
International Citizenship in a Dangerous World.
Presentation about different aspects of the Spanish Civil War by
Paquita Suárez Coalla and Margaret Carson (Modern Languages),
Page Delano and Jennifer Prince, on March 29, 2016.
The course Creative Writing in Spanish was taught for the first
time at the Modern Languages Department by Professor Paquita
Suárez Coalla. 20 students were registered.
Professors Paquita Suárez-Coalla and Ainoa Íñigo ,
used ELIC funds to take their students to a Flamenco show at the
Centro Español de Manhattan.
Professor Kristina Varade was one of the four steering
committee members for the upcoming conference, "UpRising,” to be
held at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and
Glucksman Ireland House. This international conference is in
partnership with Dance Research Forum Ireland.
Awards and Recognition
Professor Margaret Carson was selected to be a
participant in the NEH-funded professional development and
curriculum enhancement project “Cultivating Global Competencies
in a Diverse World,” a monthly seminar meeting from September
2015 to May 2016.
Professor Ángeles Donoso Macaya is the recipient of a
PSC-CUNY Research Award (2016-2017). The title of the article to
be completed is "A Queer/Latina Artist’s Ethics of Endurance:
Spic Ecdysis (2014) by Xandra Ibarra.”
Professor Ainoa Íñigo is the recipient of the BMCC
Faculty Development Grant Award with her project “A Gender
Perspective on 2666 by Roberto Bolaño”.
Professor Ling Luo’s research proposal "Understanding and
Integration: Murphy’s Architectural Practice and Cultural
Integration in China" received a PSC-CUNY Research Award (20162017)
Professor Sophie Maríñez was awarded a year-long Faculty
Fellowship at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics, The
Graduate Center, City University of New York. A weekly seminar
and release time to work on her book project Sacred Twins:
Alternate Constructions of the Dynamics Between Haiti and the
Dominican Republic (2016-2017). She received the Stewart Travel
Grant to partially cover travel expenses for participation at
the Renaissance Society of America’s annual conference. Boston,
March 30-31, 2016. She also received the Faculty Advisor
Achievement Award from the Student Government Association for
her role as the Faculty Advisor of the French-Speaking World
Club.
The Department of Modern Languages offers the Associate of Art
(A.A.) degree program in Modern Languages with a specialization
in French, Italian, and Spanish.
This interdisciplinary major will provide students with the necessary
foundation in language skills and cultural literacy to engage in a
professional career. In addition, this program fully articulates with
Hunter
College’s
bachelor
degree
programs
in
Romance
languages.
What can you do with this major?
Really anything you want! The possibilities are endless!
Whether you are considering a career in foreign languages, desire
a well-rounded education, or simply enjoy languages and plan to
travel for pleasure in the future, BMCC's Department of Modern
Languages can help you develop with the skills and the
knowledge to meet your goals.
A strong background in foreign languages studies can lead to
varied and interesting career opportunities in fields such as
business, government or education. A major in foreign languages
can be a stepping-stone to language-centered jobs such as interpreter, translator or teacher, as well as jobs
in which foreign language skills are valuable.
Expand your mind and enhance your life by learning another language with the MLD! Learn how to engage in
conversation, discuss opinions and ideas, and develop an understanding of cultures other than your own.
Learning more than one language increases your job opportunities. In addition to being helpful when traveling.
An Associate of Arts (AA) degree from the MLD can give you an excellent foundation in the world language
of your choice. You can work toward the AA degree for your own personal enrichment, to enhance career
opportunities, or use the credits you earn to transfer to a four-year college or university to continue toward a
baccalaureate degree.
Connect with us
Our dynamic faculty is from all over the world and give you a deeper understand of the language and culture.
Our faculty is trained to provide students with a unique set of international and interdisciplinary cultural
opportunities designed to broaden their cultural horizons, enhance their intellectual flexibility, and increase
their adaptability in the context of an ever-changing global workplace.