Professor Nicholas Spadaccini receives the Official Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic

Congratulations and Felicitaciones to our faculty Professor Nicholas Spadaccini, a Cervantes scholar and editor-in-chief of Hispanic Issues and Hispanic Issues Online, for receiving the Official Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (Cruz de la Orden de Isabel la Católica).

The award, which is given for significant contributions to Spain and its culture, will be bestowed on behalf of the King of Spain at a ceremony at the Spanish embassy in Washington, DC.

For information on Hispanic Issues you can follow this link: http://cla.umn.edu/hispanic-issues

To Give Voice to the Silent Tragedies of War

To Give Voice to the Silent Tragedies of War: Associate Professor Luis Ramos-Garcia is featured for his work organizing scholarly and artistic events to bring top-notch theater groups and internationally recognized scholars to Minnesota.

For more than 20 years, Luis Ramos-Garcia has visited war torn countries in Latin America, traveling among shantytowns, engaging with the people, only to return with their stories, bringing to life their experiences through theater. In so doing, he hopes to draw attention to often poorly understood tragedies—tragedies that can seem far removed from everyday life in America. But the fact is, they're not.

Read more at  Driven-to-Discover.umn.edu/content/Luis-ramos-garcia

Public Lecture - Eduardo Lalo, University of Puerto Rico

EDUARDO LALO (PUERTO RICO)

University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras

Rómulo Gallegos Prize

 

Friday, April 22, 2016

Folwell Hall 108, 3:00-4:15 pm

“El Caribe gris: la escritura en el colonialismo profundo.”

Introduction: Frances Matos-Schultz (Puerto Rico)

Discussion: Salvador Raggio (Perú)

Closing: Luis A. Ramos-García (Perú)

 Lecture Description: z.umn.edu/lalo

2016 Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Conference (UIC)

April 6th, 7th & 8th

9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

1210 Heller Hall

The UIC will take place on April 6th, 7th & 8th and will include presentations in a variety of languages.

Faculty, staff, and students are invited to join us for the Fourth Annual Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Conference (UIC), hosted by the Departments of Asian Languages and Literatures, German, Scandinavian and Dutch, French and Italian, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, and the Institute for Global Studies.

The program is online at z.umn.edu/2016UICProgram

History of the search for children born in captivity or illegally appropriated during the last military dictatorship in Argentina

Lecture and Skype Discussion

Dr. Mariana Herrera Piñeiro

Director of the Argentine National DNA Data Bank

April 4, 2016

125 Nicholson Hall

11.15 am

3rd Annual Graduate Student Conference - "Exchange and Collision"

"Exchange and Collision"
March 25-26, 2016 

 We welcome the public to the following events

Keynote Speakers

Patrick Dove, Professor, Indiana University 

Friday, March 25th

3:30pm, 140 Nolte Center

“The Secret of the World: Globalization, History and Modernity in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666”

Almeida Jacqueline Toribio, Professor, University of Texas at Austin

Saturday, March 26th

 4:00pm, Folwell 112

"La Mancha (negra?) del plátano: Language and self-/other-ascribed identity"

Film Screening

Colombian documentary

Testigos de un etnocidio Memorias de resistencia
(Witnesses to Ethnocide: Memories of Resistance)

Friday, March 25 at 6:30 pm Nolte 140. 

Maryanne Williams, department advisor, receives the John Tate Award

We would like to congratulate our department advisor, Maryanne Williams, on receiving the John Tate Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising. The John Tate Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising is named in honor of John Tate, Professor of Physics and first Dean of University College (1930-41). The Tate Award serves to recognize and reward high-quality advising at the University of Minnesota. It calls attention to the contributions that academic advising and career services make in helping students formulate and achieve their intellectual, career, and personal goals. By recognizing professionals for their outstanding commitment to students, the Tate Award celebrates the role that academic advising and career services play in the University’s educational mission.

The passing of Russell Hamilton

Russell Hamilton, 2nd from left

 

We are saddened to announce the death of RUSSELL HAMILTON, former Professor of Portuguese in our department. He passed away over the weekend in his sleep after a two-week bout with pneumonia. 

In 1964, Professor Hamilton joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota where he spent the next twenty years. He was one of the founding members of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies which previously had been designated as a Department of Romance Languages.

In 1984, he went to Vanderbilt University as Dean of the Graduate School. Throughout the sixteen years he served as Dean, he was able to teach an occasional course and maintain a research agenda until he retired in 2004. After his return to Minneapolis which he and his wife, Cherie, consider “home”, Russell contributed again to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies by teaching an occasional course and giving lectures to graduate and undergraduate students. In 2007, he was one of the academics recognized with the Medalha do Vulcão by President Pedro Pires of Cape Verde. 

There will be a symposium in honor of his legacy this coming October. Details will follow at a later time.