Spanish Students Present in Cincinnati

The Department of Modern Languages’ Spanish Students Leave a Lasting Impression at 38th Cincinnati Conference on Romance Languages and Literatures, April 6-7, 2018

Six Spanish graduate student and two Spanish undergraduate students in the Honors Tutorial College, as well as one Spanish professor and one Italian instructor presented 12 papers at the 38th Cincinnati Conference on Romance Languages and Literatures, April 6-7, 2018. Drs. Daniel Torres, Betsy Partyka and Melissa Figueroa, Professors of Spanish in the Modern Languages Department, prepared their students and accompanied them to the conference, which has become an annual event for our students.

Torres prepared graduate students from his course on “Race, Gender and Diaspora in the Hispanic Caribbean” to form a panel entitled “Raza, género y diáspora en el Caribe hispánico” which Torres moderated.

• Ariela Parisi presented on machismo as a social construct that affects diasporic subjects
• Hannah Grace Morrison talked about the sexualization of the black character ‘Changó’ in Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro’s literature
• Maicol Lynch studied the Dominican diaspora as a literary theme
• Sandra García spoke on the role women play in the diaspora and the relationship between mother and daughter
• Violeta Orozco researched decolonization in the Carpentier novel Concierto barroco.

Parisi also presented her research on the literary classic Don Quijote de la Mancha in a second panel along with Patricia Moreno (also from Ohio University’s Spanish MA program), and Orozco read her own poetry “Skin of the World” in Spanish at a creative writing panel.

Two of our undergraduate students, under the tutelage of Partyka in HTC, presented their research in separate panels. Freshman Suzy Aftabizadeh introduced her work on PTSD in Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga’s short stories, and junior Katherine Broughton shared her preliminary discoveries of Guatemalan Mayan Hip Hop and how it serves to revitalize ancient oral through a new medium.

Not only were our students shining as they impressed their peers from many other universities, but so were our faculty. Italian instructor Carmelinda Chilelli served on a pedagogy panel where she shared her research on using an Italian app in and out of the classroom. And Spanish Professor Melissa Figueroa presented her fascinating findings on the role of moriscos in Spanish narrative fiction.