Department Highlights and Events
In the News
- Robert McKee Irwin has been named Chancellor's Fellow for the period 2007-2012. This award honors the achievements of rising stars, outstanding faculty members who, according to Chancellor Vanderhoef "show great promise to be exceptionally successful in their academic careers. They represent the best among our junior professors, excelling in their research, teaching and public service."
- The Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2007 that the Department of Spanish at the University of California at Davis was ranked as the second most productive graduate program in the area of studies in the nation by The Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, which is partly financed by the State University of New York at Stony Brook and produced by Academic Analytics. The Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index rates faculty members' scholarly output at nearly 7,300 doctoral programs around the country. It examines the number of books and journal articles published by each program's faculty, as well as awards, honors, journal citations, and grants received by them. For more information about our faculty scholarly productivity, please, see our page on Faculty in this site.
Upcoming Events
- Susana Chávez Silverman (PhD, UC Davis)
Professor and Chair, Romance Languages and Literatures, Pomona College
Author of Killer Crónicas
will read and perform from her new book manuscript:
"Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles"
Wednesday, May 16, 3:00 pm, Olson 53A.
Cosponsored by the Department of Spanish, Department of English, Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, and Davis Humanities Institute - Cultural Studies Graduate Group Colloquium Series presents:
"Veil, Mask, and Rebozo: Identity, Border, and Citizenship in the Geopolitical Borderlands of Latin America"
Marisa Belausteguigoitia
Directora, Programa Universitario de Estudios de Género
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Thursday, May 17, 4:00-6:00 pm, 3201 Hart Hall
Cosponsored by Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, Department of Spanish
Past Events
- Movie Screening and Filmmakers' Workshop
March 8th & 9th: Argentine Filmmaker Andrés Di Tella held a discussion after the screening of his movie, "Montoneros, una historia," ("Montoneros, a story") and a clip from his work in progress, "Fotografías," ("Photographs") on Thursday, March 8th at *7pm* (time correction) in 1322 Storer. He also held a workshop entitled, "Documentary & Subjectivity," on Friday, March 9th at 2pm in 53A Olson. Both events were held in English. Di Tella's visit was cosponsored by the Department of Spanish, the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, the Department of Comparative Literature, and the Program in Cultural Studies.
- Professor Elizabeth Conrood Martinez, from Sonoma State University, presented
"El transnacionalismo y otras cositas que no nos contaron"
Monday, November 13
4:00 pm
Sproul 912
Sponsored by the Spanish Department and the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas
- Professor Juan Pablo Dabove, from the University of Colorado, Boulder, presented
"La cosa maldita: Leopoldo Lugones y el Gótico Imperial"
Friday, November 17
4:00 pm
Olson 53A
Sponsored by the Spanish Department
If you would like to read the Lugones pieces that Dabove will be discussing in this lecture, please click here.
- Directors Marianne Teleki and Héctor Salgado presented a SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW of
"Special Circumstances" (a documentary on memory, truth and justice in post-Pinochet Chile).
The film will be followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers.
Thursday, November 30
7:10-9:00 pm
1322 Storer Hall
Sponsored by the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas
For more information, please click here
- Professor Estelle Tarica, Chair of the Latin American Studies program at UC Berkeley, presented
"Mariátegui and the Desire for Indigenismo, Then and Now"
Monday, October 23
4:00 pm
Sproul 912
Sponsored by the Spanish Department, the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, and the Center for History, Society and Culture
- Contemporary Argentina
Professor Mónica Szurmuk of el Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José Luis Mora, Mexico City, presented:
"Memoria, ciudadania y postmemoria: /Lenta biografia/ de Sergio Chejfec"
Thursday, June 1
2:00pm
SocSci 5214 (HIA Conference Room)
Sponsored by Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, Davis Humanities Institute, Critical Theory Program, Graduate Group in Cultural Studies and UCMEXUS
Professor Sandra Lorenzano, Vicerector of Research and Graduate Studies, Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, Mexico City, presented
"Tramas de la memoria. Palabras e imágenes ante el horror"
Thursday, May 18
2:00 pm
SocSci 5214 (HIA Conference Room)
Sponsored by Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, Center for History, Society and Culture; Davis Humanities Institute; Department of Comparative Literature; Critical Theory Program; Consortium for Women and Research; Graduate Group in Cultural Studies
- Mexican Cinema
Professor Maricruz Castro Ricalde, Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Toluca campus, presented:
"El feminismo en disputa: prensa y cine hecho por mujeres en México"
Professor Castro's discussion centered on Mexican female film directors, such as María Novaro, and their problematic relationship with "feminism"
Monday, April 10
3:00pm
912 Sproul HallIn conjunction with Professor Castro Ricalde's visit, a screening was presented of:
El jardín del Edén (1994)
a film by María Novaro
Looking for a better destiny for their lives, a group of people arrives to Tijuana, in the Mexico-USA borderline. A widow and her children, a chicano woman without a firm identity, a "gringa" writer fascinated with Mexico and her hermit brother, plus a mexican peasant who wants to cross the border are the main characters looking for "the garden of eden"
Friday, April 7
Young 184
5:15 pm
(screening was free and open to the public)
Sponsored by Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, Film Studies Program, Chicana/Latina Research Center, Graduate Group in Cultural Studies and Chicana/o Studies Program
- The 1992 Nobel Peace Prize-winner and Human Rights and Indigenous Rights activist, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, spoke at Mondavi Center's Jackson Hall on Friday, October 21, 2005. Rigoberta Menchú Tum and her namesake foundation take the indigenous peoples' ancestral spirituality as a source of wisdom, interpretation, inspiration and energy. As Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Indiginenous woman and survivor of genocide in Guatemala, she seeks the observance of A CODE OF ETHICS FOR AN ERA OF PEACE as her contribution to humanity.
- Professor Francine Masiello, UC Berkeley, Department of Spanish & Portuguese, accepted our department's invitation and gave a presentation.
-
"Secrets of the Trade: Joyce and Sex in Buenos Aires"
- The UC Davis Department of Spanish, the Hemispheric Institute of the Americas and the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cultural Division are proud to welcome Chilean writer Diamela Eltit to campus April 7th & 8th, 2005. She participated in two public events and all were welcome to attend! Thursday, April 7th, 2005, 3:00pm, Memorial Union, East Conference Room
- Please join us for a presentation by Professor Vicky Unruh, University of Kansas, Department of Spanish & Portuguese
Friday, February 25th, 2005
3:00pm
912 Sproul Hall
A screening and discussion of the film ¿Quien viene con Nelson Torres?
Friday, April 8th, 2005, 4:00pm, Walter A. Buehler Alumni Center - AGR Conference Room
A public interview about her work conducted by Michael J. Lazzara, Assistant Professor of Spanish.
- "Maromeras en la cancha cultural: Escritoras y vanguardias en Latinoamé
Tuesday, May 17th, 2005
4:00pm
Olson 53A
Event Series
- Distinguished Junior Scholars Series Tuesday March 1st, 2005
3:00pm
912 Sproul Hall
Julia Medina, PhD
"Augusto C. Sandino: La representación de un mito de resistencia"
- The Hemispheric Institute of the Americas, the Film Studies Program
and the Department of Spanish welcome all to the Film Festival:
Las peligrosas: Mexican women in classic Mexican and Hollywood film.
- This festival presents a series of classic movies, both of
Hollywood and of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, that show how the
image of the Mexican woman was constructed in the 30's and 40's as a
social danger. The seductive power of the Mexican woman who is
passionately willing to sacrifice social standing - crossing racial
frontiers and breaking with standards of propriety - for love, is a
temptation to men, but a threat to them as well. The stories of
these bad women nearly always end in tragedy. They are the sexual
fantasies of the men who invented them, but also are components of
mechanisms of social control of Mexican women. Nonetheless, these
representations of women's sexual power might point to strategies of
resistance for women against racist patriarchal hegemony both in the
United States and in Mexico.
Thursdays at 6:00pm, UC Davis, Wellman 216 (free admission)
The Films:
2/17 Duel in the Sun (1946) - the exotic mixed race seductress
2/24 Angelitos negros (1948) - classic race melodrama
3/3 Ramona (1936) - scandalous Mexican woman who falls in love with a Native American
3/10 Lola Casanova (1949) - Creole beauty who becomes queen of the Kunka'ak Indians
Conferences
International Conference on Erotic Literature of Early Modern
VENUS VENERADA: LA LITERATURA ERóTICA EN ESPAŅA
April 21-22, 2005
UC Davis, 126 Vooorhies
Faculty News
- Associate Professor Linda Egan's 2001 book, CARLOS MONSIVAS: CULTURE AND CHRONICLE IN CONTEMPORARY MEXICO (Tucson: University of Arizona), was just released in Spanish translation in Mexico, published by the FONDO DE CULTURA ECONOMICA. There will be a book presentation sponsored by the Fondo on February 6, 2005, in the Palace of Bellas Artes, in Mexico City.
- Assistant Professor Cristina Martínez-Carazo gave a presentation entitled "Cine e inmigración" at the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo in Madrid, Spain on August 3, 2004. She has also been invited to give a presentation at the III Congreso Internacional, at the University of Alabama in July, 2005. The title of her presentation is "Madrid como espacio de encuentro/desencuentro en Extranjeras de Helena Taverna".
- Assistant Professor Travis G. Bradley gave a presentation entitled "Phonetic Realizations of /sr/ Clusters in Latin American Spanish" at the Second Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonetics and Phonology, held at Indiana University in September, 2004. He also presented the results of a study carried out with Ann Marie Delforge (Ph.D. student, Hispanic Linguistics) entitled "Phonological Retention and Innovation in the Judeo-Spanish of Istanbul" at the Eighth Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, held at the University of Minnesota in October, 2004. In addition, Professor Bradley will give a presentation entitled "Contrast and Markedness in Complex Onset Phonotactics" at the upcoming 79th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, to be held in Oakland, CA, in January, 2005.
Graduate Student News
- Rajiv Rao (Ph.D. student, Hispanic Linguistics) gave a poster presentation entitled "Peak Displacement in Spanish at Syntactic Boundaries" at the International Conference on Tone and Intonation, held in Santorini, Greece, in September, 2004. Rajiv also gave a presentation entitled "On Intonation's Relationship with Pragmatic Meaning in Spontaneous Speech in Spanish" at the Eighth Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, held at the University of Minnesota in October, 2004.
- Angelo J. Rodríguez (Ph.D. student, Hispanic Linguistics) gave a presentation entitled "Pitch Accent Realization in Buenos Aires Spanish" at the Eighth Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, held at the University of Minnesota in October, 2004.
- Benjamin S. Schmeiser (Ph.D. student, Hispanic Linguistics) gave a presentation entitled "On the Durational Variability of Svarabhakti Vowels in Spanish Complex Onsets" at the 2004 Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL), held at the University of Southern California in November, 2004.
