Active in Puerto Rican Studies

Our Department says “presente” at PRSA!

Six faculty members and two graduate students from the English Department will be presenting at the 8th Puerto Rican Studies Association (PRSA) Conference, titled “Cartographies of Identities: Puerto Rico(ans) in the 21^st Century.” The interdisciplinary encuentro will take place at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe, October 1-4.

Here’s a preview of what we will present:

English faculty members Catherine Mazak, Rosita Rivera and Nancy Vicente will join Teresita Santiago (Penn State) and Jorge Schmidt (Social Sciences, UPRM) on a panel titled Teaching and Learning English on Contested Ground: Language, Identity and Education in Puerto Rico. (10/3 @ 10:15 a.m.)

English faculty member Liz Dayton and Hispanic Studies faculty member Doris Martínez will present a paper titled Communities in Contact: Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in the Geographical Spaces of New York City and Puerto Rico. (10/3 @ 2:45 p.m.)

English faculty member Jocelyn A. Géliga Vargas and MAEE students Irmaris Rosas and Fabiola Barrera will join Luis Daniel Cruz (undergrad, Social Sciences, UPRM), Carlos Delgado, Tania Delgado and Alfredo González (all Aguadilla community leaders) and Héctor Bermúdez (Museo de la Mujer y el Hombre Negro de Puerto Rico) on a roundtable discussion titled Historia oral afropuertorriqueña: una misión y una visión (Afro-Puerto Rican Oral History: A Mission and a Vision). (10/3 @ 4:30 p.m.)

English faculty member Mary Sefranek will present a paper titled The Production of Digital Narratives in Rural Puerto Rico: Technological Panoramas, Prospects and Im/Possibilities in English Education. (10/4 @ 2:45 p.m.)

For more information about the conference and to view the voluminous conference program, go to: http://www.puertorican-studies.org/

Join us on October 8, 2008

engl 6006 guest speaker series

8 October 2008

Research in Action

Democratizing Knowledge at UPRM

Dr. Rima Brusi

Department of Social Sciences

Center for Applied Social Research

UPR-Mayagüez

CHARDÓN 318 @ 6:30 p.m.

ABSTRACT:

Our work is framed by an action research tradition, and uses qualitative and quantitative data. We seek to better understand the connection between low socio-economic status (SES) and access to higher education, specifically at UPRM, in order to generate multiple research and action-oriented projects.

This presentation provides an overview of our research and outreach activities, explores the combined use of qualitative and quantitative data from various disciplines, presents some results of our work in progress, and discusses some of the methodological implications of our model.

INFORMATION: Contact Jocelyn A. Géliga Vargas (787-832-4040 ext. 3096/3064;  jgeliga at uprm.edu)

L³ Society September Newsletter

The first edition of the L³ Society’s September 2008 Newletter is hot off the presses!

This newsletter, created by and for students is focused on the study of language, literature, and linguistics.

The L³ Society’s editors in chief are Adriana I. Caraballo and Angel Matos Caro.

In this edition, the writers for the Lx newsletter include Kimberly Santiago Vega and Wilmary Rivera Flores. The writers for the Literature newsletter are Marshley Márquez, Alexandra Morales, Larrisa I. Ramos, and Odette M. Ortiz.

Links to the newsletters may be found below.
Congratulations to our students for their innovative intellectual endeavors!

Lit Newsletter Sept 08
Lx and Language Newsletter Sept 08

CGS recognizes MAEE graduate Aleida Ferrer!!!!

MAEE graduate Aleida Ferrer was recognized in a recent publication by the Council of Graduate Schools (Washington, DC). Her thesis project (“The Design and Creation of a Bilingual Phonemic Awareness Test for Puerto Rico”) was the only one from Puerto Rico listed in the CGS publication Making a Difference: A Selection of Graduate Degree Holders and their Contributions to the Public Good. Congratulations to Ms. Ferrer, to the Chair of her committee, Dr. Elizabeth Dayton, and to her committee members, Drs. Eileen Blau and Billy Woodall.

Assessment Loop Summary

As of close of business today, April 18, the English Dept has done a fabulous job! Some other faculty are still working on projects. Below is the list of people who have completed all required paperwork & thus their papers are ready to go forward to the Assoc Dean, Mario Nunez.
 
Faculty who completed loops or workshop:
Liz Dayton
Shannon Bischoff
Ellen Pratt
Mary Sefranek
Rosa Roman
Larry Chott
Ray Knight
Betsy Morales
Gayle Griggs
Cathy Mazak
 
TAs who completed Loops or did extra work:
Wilfredo Mercado
Filimon Orozco
Karrieann Soto
Monica Ng
Stephanie Sanchez
Maria Quintero
Jessica Lauer
 
TAs and MAEE Students who have 1 hour workshop credit:
Judy Flores
Alexandra Tubens
Marien Villanueva
Giselle Munoz
Jasmine Rivera
Jennifer Matos
Nora Falvey
Robert Haithcock
Emily Aguilo
Yahaira Rivera
Jeanette Perez
Yadira Altiery
Wilmarie Cruz
 

Casa Abierta

On March 14, 2008, the institution opened its doors to 9th, 10th, and 11th graders of Puerto Rico’s private and public schools. Over 2000 students from around the island were welcomed into Coliseo Mangual to learn about the diversity of our faculties and departments.

Representation from the Department of English was immense and faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduate students collaborated in making this all-day event an overwhelming success!

Amongst the English faculty members were Roberto López, Iris Toro, Myrna Rivera, Carmen Maldonado, Betsy Morales, Stephanie Cardona, Raymond Knight, Waleska Morciglio, Gayle Griggs, Rosita Rivera, Sandra Ríos, Mary Leonard, Jocelyn Géliga, and Aixa Rodríguez.

Way to go, Department of English!

Honor Roll Ceremony

This past Thursday, March 27, 2008, exemplary students from Arts & Sciences received special recognition for their academic excellence.

Please help us to congratulate the following students from the Department of English who, through their hard work, are on the Honor Roll!

Isabel Abón, Emily Aguiló, Adriana Caraballo, Christopher Hernández, Marshley Márquez, Angel Matos, Leslie Mendoza, Juan Ñeco, Yolanda Padilla, Ileana Pagán, Lorianne Ramírez, Gabriel Romaguera, Katherine Rosa, Astrid Sambolín, Julio Vega, and Roxana Velázquez.

Movie Medievalism: The Imaginary Middle Ages Publication

NIck Haydock’s book MOVIE MEDIEVALISM: THE IMAGINARY MIDDLE AGES (McFarland 2008) will be out in May of this year. It is already available for eager beavers on Amazon.com. This book provides a theoretical introduction to the study of films about the Middle Ages and what the author calls the “medieval imaginary.” Employing Lacanian psychoanalysis and Deleuze’s philosophy of cinema, Haydock explores images of multivalent time and looks at how contemporary society projects the past it requires in a number of recent films, including: FIRST KNIGHT, A KNIGHT’S TALE, THE MESSENGER: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, KING ARTHUR, NIGHT WATCH, AND DA VINCI CODE.

Nick Haydock is also in the process of editing with Edward Risden a collection of essays titled HOLLYWOOD IN THE HOLY LAND: THE FEARFUL SYMMETRIES OF MOVIE MEDIEVALISM (also for McFarland & Co.). This book should be out sometime early next fall.

“This Watery World: Humans and the Sea”

“This Watery World: Humans and the Sea” (a collection of essays edited by Prof. Nandita Batra and former grad student
Vartan Messier, based on the CEA-CC conference of the same name held in October 2006) was published by CEA-CC
Publications in December 2007. The volume was very well received, and the editors (Nandita Batra and Vartan Messier)
have been offered a contract for a second edition by Cambridge Scholars Press in the United Kingdom. The book can be
viewed at the CEA-CC conference display, and the Table of Contents is available here:
http://ece.uprm.edu/artssciences/ingles/ThisWateryWorld-TableofContents.pdf