Department Highlights
Fall 2023
Antonio Ochoa, Lecturer in Spanish, was selected for publication by Nightboat Books. Keep an eye out for his upcoming book, Small Sargassum Mountains/Pequeñas montañas de sargazo! Antonio's was one of only two manuscripts selected out of hundreds of submissions this year. Read more about it here: Announcing the 2023 Prose Reading Period Selections.
September 9 & 15 at 7:30 PM, the department will host French Films on the Green. French Films on the Green is a yearly event where French films are shown outdoors at Tufts. This year's films will focus around dance. Please read more about the event with this link: French Films on the Green.
The Department will now offer two French major tracks: the Major in French Literary Studies and the Major in French & Francophone Cultural Studies.
Spring 2023
Isabelle Naginski, Professor Emerita of French, retired after more than 35 years of working at Tufts.
The 2023 Langsam Barsam Simches lecture took place on April 27 and featured Claudia Mattos Avolese, senior lecturer at the SMFA at Tufts. The talk centered around Antropófago, a movement towards Indigenous Brazilian art in the twentieth century.
Magdalena Malinowska hosted the fourth season of Films in Spanish. Spring 2023 featured Jewish films. Previous semesters have featured queer films and disability films.
The Department of Romance Studies held the third annual Simposio de Español, an annual conference that features Tufts students’ writing.
The 2023 edition of Voces, the student publication of Romance Studies, was released in April. This year, the leadership of the publication was led by Magdalena Malinowska and Rose Facchini, with guidance from Anne Lombardi Cantú, the publication’s founder.
Magdalena Malinowska participated in a Pedagogy & Professional roundtable discussion titled “El poder de la imagen en la enseñanza de L2” at the Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association in Niagara Falls. Her presentation, “La complejidad visual de Roma”, focused on visual pedagogical tools in teaching of the Oscar-winning film by Alejandro Cuarón.
José Dominicci Buzo presented at the Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association in Niagara Falls. He presented with a paper titled “Category is: Homenaje a ‘la Veneno’. Manifestaciones hagiográficas en Drag Race España” in the Cultural Studies & Media Studies roundtable discussion “Autoficción en tierra ajena I”.
Rose Facchini presented her paper entitled “The Land Giveth and Taketh Away: Eco-Gastronomy in Gloria Bernareggi’s novella Medusa rossa (2022)” at the 54th NeMLA Conference held in Niagara Falls, NY. Her analysis focused on food identity and locality, an eco-gastronomic approach to how the author weaves together family and changing traditions to highlight a meditation on the human relationship with the environment through food.
Rose Facchini was featured on Translators Aloud, a YouTube channel devoted to sharing the work of literary translators, where she read her translation of Italian author Diego Lama’s flash fiction story “Libertà” [“Freedom”]. A brief synopsis of the story: “Alberto gets a heads up about the imminent apocalypse.”
Adrienne Eldredge’s proposal for her article, “Performing Emotions in Italian Theatre of late-Renaissance Italy and France,” was accepted by PRISMI, revue d’études italiennes (Université de Lorraine) for their 2025 volume. Adrienne is a lecturer in French.
Anne-Christine Rice, Lovia Mondesir, Robert Decker, and Nina Gerassi-Navarro put together a panel discussion on Haiti featuring fours speakers.
Kate Risse presented on her students' conversations with members of a school/community center in San Juan de la Concepción, Nicaragua at the Boston Area Pedagogy Conference on April 1.
Anne-Christine Rice hosted The French Film Experience.
Rose Facchini hosted two Italian movie nights.