2005/2006 Newsletter - Romance Languages - University of Oregon

Romance languages
N e w s l e t t e r
U n i v e r s i t y o f o r e g o n · e U g e n e · f a l l · 2 0 0 5
From the Department Head
Barbara K. altmann, Professor of french
Dear friends of Romance languages,
I’m very pleased to be writing
from the chair’s office,
where I have taken over
for a three-year term from
our colleague, Juan Epple.
From this vantage point, I
see even more clearly what
I’ve known all along: this
is a happening place! We
now have over 900 majors
and minors. We graduated
six new Ph.D.s and fifteen M.A.s
this spring, as well as more than 170
undergrads with a degree in one of
our four programs. On the faculty
side, we are losing, with great regret,
David Castillo, associate professor
of Spanish, but we are extending
a warm welcome to three new colleagues
in Spanish, Tania Triana,
Cecilia Enjuto Rangel, and Pedro
García-Caro. We are also fortunate to
have visiting professor Christopher
Weimer for the academic year. As
always, our vibrant teachers and students
have a dazzling array of projects
underway. We are sending more
than two dozen French graduates to
France to work as language assistants
in high schools for 2005–6; our new
study-abroad program in Granada is
up and running; and the university
continues to send more students to
In This Issue
Italy on study-abroad
programs than to
anywhere else in the
world.
To celebrate our productive
and somewhat
unusual combination
of three Romance languages
under the same
administrative roof, we
have decided to host a
meeting of the Romance studies organization
here at the university in
fall 2006. A number of department
members from all sectors are working
on the initial plans and the rest
of us will get involved as this international
meeting takes shape. Watch
this space for more details in next
year’s letter, and please join us when
the conference takes place!
In the meantime, drop by Friendly
Hall some time soon to see the renovations
that are restoring the original
charm of our building. And remember
the international community we
have working, learning, and teaching
in its offices and classrooms. With
every conversation that takes place
in one of our three target languages,
we are living and creating a wider,
more tolerant multilingual world.
Professional activities: Books, articles, lectures, and Presentations ......................... 2
scholarships .............................................................................................................................. 4
rippey award: new fig ......................................................................................................... 5
study abroad: teaching italian in Post-Communist Countries ..................................... 6
Colloquium in Honor of luis verano .................................................................................... 7
send your Donations ............................................................................................................... 8
Williams Grant for
Redesigning Italian
150 and French 150
Gina Psaki, Nathalie Hester, Barbara
Altmann, and Karen McPherson embarked
on an exciting collaboration in
summer 2005. This team of RL faculty
members has received funding from
the Williams Council to redesign two
first-year courses taught in English:
French 150, Cultural Legacies of
France, and Italian 150, Cultural Legacies
of Italy. The goal is to increase
and enhance our broad-spectrum humanities
teaching, to engage a larger
cross-section of students (beyond
those whom we normally teach in the
target languages of RL), and to bring
our strengths as specialists in Romance
languages and cultures into the
general education mission. In order to
move into a lecture-discussion format
without sacrificing quality or studentteacher
contact, the team will explore
different approaches to incorporating
writing, research, and discussion
exercises into the course curriculum.
The redesign also includes the use
of instructional technologies in the
lecture format, the integration of webbased
resources, and the creation of a
bank of portable curricular materials.
Both courses will be team-taught in
fall 2005, which will allow the four
faculty members to continue to work
in close collaboration.

Professional Activities
The Department of Romance Languages is made up of over 100 professors, instructors, and GTFs. At any given time, teachers
and scholars are working on a breathtaking variety of literary and cultural studies, original literary production, active classroom
research, curriculum development, and innovations in language assessment. The products of our labors are presented and
published nationally and internationally. The lists below offer only a sample of activities undertaken during 2004–5.
Books and Articles
Barbara Altmann has in press
An Anthology of Medieval Debate
Poetry (coeditor with R. B. Palmer).
Forthcoming, University Press of Florida.
Françoise Calin has published Les
marques de l’histoire (1939–1944) dans
le roman, Situation 59, Paris: Lettres
modernes Minard.
Juan Armando Epple has published
Microquijotes (anthology editor).
Barcelona: Thule Ediciones, 2005. Also,
The U.S. con otra mirada, Madrid:
Editorial Popular, 2005.
Leonardo García Pabón published
“Sensibilidades Callejeras: El trabajo
estético y político de Mujeres
Creando,” Revista de Crítica Literaria
Latinoamericana (2004), 239–54.
Amalia Gladhart has published “Present
Absence: Memory and Narrative in
Los recuerdos del porvenir,” Hispanic
Review 73 (2005), 91–111. Also “Osvaldo
Dragún,” Latin American Dramatists,
First Series in Dictionary of Literary
Biography (ed. Adam Versényi), v. 305
(2005), 125–137. She also published
“Partial Knowledge: Challenges for Latin
American Theatre Scholarship in the
U.S,” Theatre Journal 56.3 (2004), 452–54.
Evlyn Gould published Engaging Europe:
Rethinking a Changing Continent,
(coeditor with G. Sheridan), Boulder,
Colorado: Rowman and Littlefield,
2005. She worked particularly on the
following articles: “The Idea of Europe: A
Collaborative Pedagogical Project” (with
G. Sheridan), “Europe in the Wake of
the Shoah,” and “Does Baudelaire Read
Adam Smith?” (with G. Sheridan).
Gina Herrmann has published “The
Power of the Living: Oral Testimony
in the Spanish Civil War Classroom”
in editor Noel Valis’s MLA Teaching
Approaches to the Spanish Civil
War. Also, “Between Devotion and
Disillusion: The Communist Memoir in
Spain,” Revista Canadiense de estudios
hispánicos.
2 fall 2005
Massimo Lollini has published the
following articles: “Intrecci mediterranei.
La testimonianza di Vincenzo Consolo
moderno Odisseo,” Italica, 81(1), 24–43;
“Primo Levi’s Testimony, or Philosophy
between Poetry and Science,” in editors
E. Gould and G. Sheridan’s Engaging
Europe: Rethinking a Changing
Continent, Boulder, CO: Rowman and
Littlefield; “‘Padre mite e dispotico’:
Riflessioni sull’eredità culturale e poetica
del Petrarca,” Annali d’Italianistica, 22
(2004), 321–36; “Primo Levi and the Idea
of Autobiography” in editor J. Farrell’s
Primo Levi: The Austere Humanist,
Oxford: Peter Lang, 2004.
Shelley Merello published “In Memory
of Manuel Zapata Olivella,” Spectrum,
fall 2004.
David Wacks published the following
articles: “Ibn Sahula’s Tale of the
Egyptian Sorcerer: A Thirteenth Century
Don Yllán,” eHumanista; “Reading
Jaume Roig’s Spill and Juan Ruiz’s Libro
de buen amor in the Iberian Maqama
tradition,” Bulletin of Spanish Studies.
Freddy Vilches published “Poesía,
mito e historia: Hacia una lectura
viquiana de Neruda,” Magallánica,
Revista de la Facultad de Humanidades
de la Universidad de Magallanes. Punta
Arenas, Chile.
Lectures and Presentations
Robert Davis: “Technology for Content-
Based Instruction in Spanish and
Japanese” (with Greg Hopper-Moore, UO
Center for Applied Second Language
Studies), Content, Tasks and Projects:
Meeting the Challenges of Classroom
Implementation, Monterery Institute
of International Studies, Monterey,
California.
“The Thrill Is Gone: Current and Future
Directions in Second-Year Language
Programs” (with C. Grace and M.
Spring, University of Colorado, C.
Krueger, University of Virginia), Annual
Conference of the American Council
on the Teaching of Foreign Languages,
Chicago, Illinois.
“MOSAIC: Content-Based Instruction
in Spanish and Japanese” (with Greg
Hopper-Moore, UO Center for Applied
Second Language Studies), COFLT Fall
Conference, Portland, Oregon.
“Online Proficiency Assessment:
A Model for Development Across
Languages” (with Madeline Spring,
Univesrity of Colorado), Annual
Computer-Assisted Language Instruction
Consortium, Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“Focus on Output: Using Assessments
to Increase Student Accountability,”
workshop at Cornell University.
“Proficiency Assessment,” workshop at
Pikes Peak Community College, Colorado
Springs, Colorado.
“Testing and Assessment in the Second-
Language Classroom,” McGraw-Hill
2004 Teleconference, October 27, 2004
(satellite broadcast to over 800 university
sites in U.S. and abroad).
“Culture in the Second-Language
Classroom,” workshop at Portland
Community College, Portland, Oregon.
“Teaching Second-Language Reading,”
workshop at Portland Community
College, Portland, Oregon.
continued on page 3

professional activities continued from page 2
Leonardo García Pabón: “La
nueva crítica literaria en Bolivia,”
XXXV Congreso Internacional del
Instituto Internacional de Literatura
Iberoamericana: Fronteras de la literatura
y de la crítica. Poitiers, France.
“La literatura boliviana entre 1850 y
1950,” Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz,
Bolivia.
“Presentación de Memoria solicitada de
Blanca Wiethüchter,” Espacio Patiño, La
Paz, Bolivia.
“Resignación masculina y deseo
femenino en la La quena de Juana
Manuela Gorriti y La Chaskañawi de
Carlos Medinaceli,” Universidad Mayor
de San Andrés, La Paz, Bolivia.
Amalia Gladhart: “Representaciones del
espacio en la obra de Estela Leñero,” XIV
Seminario Internacional, Dramaturgias
Femeninas en la Segunda Mitad del
Siglo XX: Espacio y Tiempo. Centro
de Investigación SELITEN@T de la
Universidad Nacional de Educación a
Distancia, Madrid, Spain.
“Haciendo memoria: cuerpo y religión
en Aprendiendo a morir de Alicia Yánez
Cossío,” 2004 Mountain Interstate
Foreign Language Conference, University
of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.
“Staging Memory: History, Recollection,
and the Body,” South Atlantic Modern
Language Association Convention,
Roanoke, Virginia.
“Between the Public and the Private
Past: Negotiating the Plot,” VI Congress-
Festival on Latin American Theater,
University of Connecticut.
Evlyn Gould: “Reiterating Carmen on
the International Stage,” The Many
Faces of Carmen (musical colloquium),
Washington University, Saint Louis,
Missouri.
“L’Effet Bovary, or Emma Goes to the
Opera,” Modern Language Association,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“Multicultural Turning Points in
European Affairs: From Dreyfus to the
Veils,” University of Oregon European
studies panel.
Massimo Lollini: “Nuove forme e
problemi aperti nell’autobiografia
moderna,” annual meeting of the
American Association of Italian Studies,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
“Autobiografia e secolarizzazione.
Dall’autoagiografia a Cellini,” Round
Table: Literature, Religion, and the
Sacred, annual meeting of the American
Association of Italian Studies, University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
“Italo Calvino e l’esperienza della
Guerra Civile,” L’ombra della seconda
Guerra mondiale sulla letteratura
del dopoguerra, Giornata di Studi
organizzata dalla Sezione di Filologia
Germanica e Lingue e Letterature
Germaniche “Riccardo Rizza” in
collaborazione con il progetto europeo
di Rete Tematica ACUME, Cultural
Memory in European Countries: An
Interdisciplinary Approach, Università di
Bologna, Italy.
“Memorie e scritture della Shoah nell’era
della testimonianza,” Università di
Bologna, Italy.
“Amore e soggetto lirico da Petrarca
al Petrarchismo,” Il Petrarchismo:
un modello di poesia per l’Europa,
Convegno internazionale di studi,
Bologna, Italy.
“Poesia e autobiografia in Primo Levi,”
Forme e storie della poesia italiana,
Congresso Annuale ADI, Università di
Siena, Italy.
“Il Mediterraneo, la Guerra, l’esilio.
Alcune riflessioni sulla figura di
Odisseo in Vincenzo Consolo e Primo
Levi,” annual meeting of the American
Association of Italian Studies, University
of Ottawa.
“Padre mite e dispotico,” Riflessioni
sull’eredità culturale di Petrarca, annual
meeting of the American Association of
Italian Studies, University of Ottawa.
Shelley Merello: “Early Migrations: The
African Connection,” COFLT Annual
Conference, Portland, Oregon.
María Olivares: “Sujetos femeninos,
poder y violencia en La malasangre y
De profesión maternal,” Vioent(ad)os:
Textos, géneros y geografías culturales,
Department of Hispanic Studies, Brown
University.
“Adiós Ayacucho, paradigma de
memoria desde el universalismo y el
particularismo,” VI Conference on Latin
American Theater Today, University of
Connecticut.
David Wacks: “The Fruits of
Convivencia: Casual Collaboration
Between Jewish Readers and Christian
Writers in Medieval Iberia,” 39th
Convention of the Association for Jewish
Studies, Chicago, Illinois.
“Mr. Fox Goes to Paris, or Petrus
Alfonsi’s Animal Ambassadors of the
Andalusi Intellect,” Modern Language
Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“Theorizing Hybridity in Medieval
Iberian Literature,” 40th International
Congress on Medieval Studies,
Kalamazoo, Michigan.
award recipients
We are very proud of the number
of awards received by our faculty
this year. Their dedicated work has
been recognized by the University of
Oregon as well as by other institutions
in the fields of Romance languages
and cultures
Barbara Altmann was promoted to
professor, May 2005.
Evlyn Gould was awarded a UO
Distinguished Professorship, spring
2005.
Karen McPherson was
elected president of the
Conseil International d’Études
Francophones; member of the
comité scientifique of the CIÉF’s
official journal Nouvelles Études
Francophones (NEF).
Leah Middlebrook received a
Faculty Research Fellowship,
Oregon Humanities Center.
Analisa Taylor received the Center
for the Study of Women in Society
Faculty Research Award and was
one of two UO nominees for the new
Summer Research Fellowship.
David Wacks received a Faculty
Research Fellowship, Oregon
Humanities Center; and a Harry
Starr Fellowship in Judaica, Harvard
University Center for Jewish Studies.
Freddy Vilches was awarded a UO
Doctoral Fellowship.
romance languages newsletter

Student
Scholarships
Winners, 2005–6
Thanks to our generous donors,
we have been able to recognize the
academic merits of some of our best
students. These are the recipients of
our departmental competitions:
Emmanuel Hatzatonis Scholarship
Adrianne Hamilton
Catherine Di Gregorio
Francoise Calin Scholarship
Heather Daniel
Jennifer Lee
Lucia Black (alternate)
Helen Fe Jones Scholarship
Janet Gerde
Heather Lellis
Perry J. Powers Scholarship
Kimberly Evans
Jessica Bryan (alternate)
Perugia Summer Program
Scholarships
Joy Root
Jamine Ramig
Kaley Sauer
Monica Metzler (alternate)
Charles H. Stickels Scholarship
Amie Leaverton
James T. Wetzel Scholarship
Roberto Arroyo
Chris Piccici
Visiting musicians Elizabeth Morris and José Seves
performed at the annual awards ceremony, held in
the Alumni Lounge, Gerlinger Hall.
4 fall 2005
Meet our Romance Languages Scholarship Winners!
Roberto Arroyo was born in Temuco,
Chile. He holds a B.A. in painting and
drawing from the Universidad Austral
de Chile, having studied music pedagogy
and violin as well. Roberto has held
numerous exhibitions of his artwork
in the Americas and Europe, and he
has worked as an activist and human
rights investigator in Chile, participating
as a consultant for a team of forensic
anthropologists who searched for the
remains of the hundreds of disappeared
detainees of the military dictatorship
in Chile. He is currently completing his
M.A. in Spanish and will continue in the
Ph.D. program.
Heather Daniel grew up in California
before coming to Oregon. She is finishing
degrees in journalism and French, with
a minor in multimedia design. Her
interests in French include Francophone
literature and cinema. She was a student
in the School of International Studies
in Senegal, where she also volunteered
with a human rights NGO. Her internship
led to fieldwork in seven rural villages
in Senegal collecting information
for UNICEF and other international
foundations.
Catherine Di Gregorio is from Lake
Oswego, Oregon, and plans to graduate
from Oregon with a double major in
Romance languages (Italian and Spanish)
and art history and a minor in business.
She would like to pursue graduate
studies in art history or Italian and
hopes to intern in the Centro Linguistico
Italiano Dante Alighieri in Florence,
Italy.
Kimberly Evans, born in Montana, says
her study in Spain contributed to her
love of the language and its people. She
has served as volunteer tutor for
students from Mexico and Korea.
She is currently a student in the
Robert D. Clark Honors College
at Oregon, planning to graduate
in 2006 with a minor in business
and a major in Spanish. Kimberly
aspires to work as an ESOL or
bilingual immersion teacher.
Janet Gerde was born and raised in
Hood River, Oregon, and entered the UO
in 2004 as a sophomore. She is now a
senior pursuing a B.A. in Spanish and
economics, with a minor in political
science. She will study in Quito,
Ecuador, before graduating in 2006. She
plans to study law and economics in
graduate school.
Adrianne Hamilton is currently a
second year graduate student in the
Department of Art History at the
University of Oregon, specializing
in religious painting of the Italian
Renaissance. In fall 2005, she will begin
dual enrollment in the master’s program
in Italian at the University of Oregon.
She will study at the University of Pavia
in Italy.
Jennifer Lee, originally from
Beaverton, Oregon, plans to complete
a B.A. in French, philosophy, and
political science. The academic year
2005–6 finds her in Lyon, France. Her
interests include the intersections of
French literature and philosophy, the
philosophes, and existentialist literature.
Heather Lellis hails from Grants Pass,
Oregon, and is a double major in
Spanish and business. She plans to
graduate in 2007, then travel and work
in Spain before beginning graduate
studies in international marketing.
Heather is a first-generation college
student and is very excited to have
discovered the world of travel and
language study.
Jack Powers, professor emeritus of Spanish,
presents the Perry J. Powers Scholarship to 2005
recipient Kimberly Evans at the annual awards
ceremony..
continued on page 5

Siena, Italy
scholarship winners continued from page 4
Amie Leaverton is from Portland,
Oregon, and is a student in the Robert
D. Clark Honors College. She plans to
graduate with a double major in Spanish
and political science and a minor in
Latin American studies. She is studying
Spanish in Valdivia, Chile, and will
continue her course work in literature,
human rights, race relations, and
contemporary politics of Latin America.
After graduation, she hopes to join Teach
for America, then attend law school.
Chris Picicci, from Spokane, Washington,
graduated from Gonzaga University with
a double major in Spanish and Italian
studies in 1999 and completed his M.A.
in Romance languages at Oregon in 2002.
He is currently in his third year of the
doctoral program, writing his dissertation
on sixteenth-century Spanish and Italian
epic poetry. Chris has lived and studied
in Italy and Spain, and currently he
teaches Italian language and cinema
classes.
Jasmine Ramig grew up in Portland,
Oregon, and will graduate in 2007 with
a degree in journalism and a minor
in art history. She would like to work
in photojournalism, working for a
newspaper or travel magazine.
Joy Root was born in California and
raised in Oregon. She is planning to
pursue graduate studies in Italian
language and literature in preparation for
a career in teaching Italian.
Kaley Sauer was born in Long Beach,
California, and grew up in Rhode Island.
Her majors at Oregon are art history and
Italian, with a certificate in European
studies. She will study in Perugia, Italy,
this year, and after graduation, she plans
to study architecture and continue her
study of Italian.
Rippey Innovative Teaching Award Supports New FIG:
Antiquité-Modernité
The French 150 course that Barbara Altmann and Karen McPherson are
currently redesigning has also been brought into dialogue with Malcolm
Wilson’s Humanities 101 course to create a new FIG called Antiquité-
Modernité. Wilson, Altmann, and McPherson are recipients of a 2005–6
Rippey Innovative Teaching Award to develop the intersections and articulations
of these two courses within the FIG. Altmann and McPherson
have been working with Petar Leonard, the wonderfully energetic and
creative TA assigned to the FIG, developing course materials and brainstorming
about FIG activities. French 150 will focus on exploring and
exploding cultural stereotypes while examining some of the social and
cultural phenomena most strongly associated with France.
With the support of the Rippey grant, the three faculty members in Humanities
101 and French 150 are also working on finding creative ways
to capitalize on the intersections between the two courses.
Friendly Hall
romance languages newsletter 5

Study Abroad
Teaching Italian in the Peace Corps in Post-Communist Societies
Josh o’Donnell ’00 (italian) won the Dorothy Jane and William Joseph green foreign languages scholarship from the College of arts and sciences. for
summer 2004 he won a scholarship to study advanced italian in gargnano, on the lago di garda in italy.
I couldn’t tell you how much I have
learned in three years as a Peace Corps
volunteer: cultural sensitivity, tolerance,
community development, being
a minority, becoming a teacher—and
more about myself than I am prepared
to divulge—have all been part of the
experience. I have lived and worked
with difficult and apathetic communities,
built lifelong relationships in different
languages, and traveled places I
had always or never dreamed of before.
This enlightening, sometimes frightening,
often frustrating adventure took
me to the Republic of Georgia for two
years, and then to Bulgaria, where I
have lived for the past year.
In May 2001 I arrived with the first
Peace Corps volunteers to serve in
Bakhvi, a small, remote village at the
base of the lower Caucus Mountains in
the region of Guria. I was to teach English
in the village school. Organized
crime blatantly governed and exploited
every aspect of people’s lives. We lived
without running water or electricity;
thievery was rampant and the economic
situation desperate. Families
survived by subsistence farming and
selling what produce they could; my
Italian language class in my classroom in Bakhvi, Republic of Georgia
6 fall 2005
host family sold hazelnuts, lemons,
kiwi, and honey.
As a community we had some successes
there, though there is still
much to be done—mostly in changing
mentalities, building the community,
and working for transparency against
corruption. In Bakhvi our major accomplishments
were to build a school
English library, build a community bee
and kiwi farm for school revenue, and
initiate a huge water system rehabilitation
project. The library and farm are
still running strong and the water project,
two years later, is nearing completion.
My host brother, who spoke little
or no English when I arrived, has won
a scholarship to spend his last year of
high school in America next year.
Teaching Italian in Georgia
As a Peace Corps volunteer, I benefited
from my UO Italian education. I was
able to grasp communicative language
teaching methodologies more easily
than my peers, as I had intensive
experience with those methodologies
as a student. I still use some exercises
from Italian 100- and 200-level classes
in teaching English. It has been easier
for me to learn new
languages as well.
Georgian is a complex
language with
its own alphabet.
Bulgarian is easier,
and I’m really enjoying
learning and
speaking it.
In Georgia I taught
some Italian, too.
Although English is
the most important
foreign language in
both Georgia and Bulgaria, teaching
it can be monotonous. By incorporating
Italian into my curriculum I could
really begin to open up language as a
broad concept of study and opportunity
for my students. My Bakhvi students
of Italian were few: five, in fact.
They called themselves “the Jokers” or
“Giocherebbi” (in Georgian the suffix
-ebbi is the plural marker). The Jokers
were the only students who were
actively learning at the school, and
they were eager for new and interesting
subjects to work on. Amazingly, at 7:30
in the morning in the dead of winter,
without electricity and with half a meter
of snow outside, we were huddled
around a wood stove in my classroom
studying, of all things, Italian language.
Teaching Italian in Bulgaria
Transferring to Bulgaria last spring
[2003] was a big change. At first glance
the country seemed a beautiful, developed,
and progressive country on
the verge of a bright and prosperous
future. As you look a little deeper into
the politics, infrastructure, and direction
of the country, you see that it is
bogged down in apathy and stagnancy.
However, Sofia—a bustling metropolis
with new businesses, qualified young
professionals, and great aspirations to
join the EU—suggests that better days
lie ahead. Nevertheless, Sofia too must
shake off its greatest burden from the
transformations from communism:
its mafia. Throughout Bulgaria are
the classic images of organized crime:
wealthy “businessmen” with big armed
bodyguards in luxury cars. Every few
months, in a rash of killings, the mafia
families’ quarrels are hashed out in
discotheques, cafés, and restaurants
around the capital.
continued on page 7

teaching italian continued from page 6
I live half an hour away in Elin Pelin,
an industrial town. Teaching in our
school is trying. In Georgia, most of
the time neither the students nor the
teachers came to class, but here in Bulgaria
teachers are paid regularly, if very
little ($125 per month), and, generally
speaking, students and teachers come
to school. Yet, disturbingly, among the
students there seems to be a defiant
spirit of nonlearning. The most disruptive
students and general chaos run the
school, and discipline does not exist.
Teachers are powerless and intimidated
by fear of violent retaliation for
a poor grade or any act of discipline.
Kids sit three to a desk and talk while
the teacher presents the lesson. Cell
phones ring constantly. On this battlefield
I am charged with teaching English,
history, and Italian.
Here I teach regular Italian classes, due
largely to two Italian factories in town
and the prospect of future Italian investment
in industry. My English and
history classes (taught in English) are
only slightly better in terms of student
diligence or discipline, students generally
“get” the importance of English for
their future, and many are progressing
fairly well in their English studies.
Decent future employment depends on
reasonable competence in English and
computers. The better students know
this and are striving to master them.
Those who succeed will probably do
well, as they will be the generation to
enter the European Union in 2007 and
should have opportunities that the
present and past generations haven’t
had. Disturbing, nevertheless, are the
many boys who, rather than study,
spend their time cheating and building
the networks and attitudes of thugs.
We can only hope that they’ll be left
without a future in organized crime,
even though right now it seems—from
the flow of new Mercedes and BMWs
through Sofia and Elin Pelin—the most
lucrative of endeavors.
Cervantes Colloquium in Honor of Luis Verano
On May 21, 2005, the Department of Romance Languages, with the cosponsorship
of the Oregon Humanities Center and the Comparative Literature Program,
hosted a colloquium in honor of Luis Verano. The event, titled “Don Quijote
1605–Cervantes 2005,” was held to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the
first publication of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote
de la Mancha in 1605.
The colloquium was an all-day event featuring
keynote participants Anthony Cascardi (University
of California, Berkeley), Edward Friedman
(Vanderbilt University), and James Iffland (Boston
University). By all accounts this was a most successful
and engaging enterprise!
Verano was honored for his decades of mentorship
and teaching; one of his most popular courses
has been SPAN 460, Don Quijote. Juan Epple
read a story by Pía Barros from his 2005 anthology
Microquijotes about “a man who knew too
much about one book,” a clear allusion to Luis’
extensive knowledge of Cervantes’ most famous
work.
Colloquium:
Theory of the
Novel
In winter 2005, graduate
students in RL held a symposium,
The Theory of the
Novel, based on a seminar
taught by Gina Herrmann.
Students delivered papers on
various theoretical approaches,
including those of Bakhtin,
Luckas, and Jameson, that
help us understand representations
of realism in Spanish
novels. Herrmann praised the
students for their “absolutely
nop-notch presentations, easily
worthy of a professional
literary conference.”
Senior instructor Luis Verano
Romance languages
N e w s l e t t e r
University of oregon · eUgene
fall 2005
The Romance Languages Newsletter
is published once a year.
Robert L. Davis, editor
Barbara Oppliger, design
Department of Romance Languages
1233 University of Oregon
Eugene OR 97403-1233
(541) 346-4021
The University of Oregon is an equal-opportunity,
affirmative-action institution committed to cultural
diversity and compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act. This publication will be made available
in accessible formats upon request. Accommodations
for people with disabilities will be provided if requested
in advance by calling (541) 346-4021.
© 2005 University of Oregon CP0905D50538
romance languages newsletter 7

DePARTMeNT OF ROMANCe LANGUAGeS
1233 University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403-1233
Please Consider Making a Gift to Romance Languages!
nonprofit
organization
U.s. Postage
Paid
eugene or
Permit no. 6
Contributions of any size make a real difference. You might wish to contribute to one of our existing named
scholarships. Those awards are as follows:
Françoise Calin Scholarship—supports undergrad and grad students in French, with priority for applicants planning
to study abroad.
Emmanuel Hatzantonis Scholarship—supports Italian studies in Italy with the university’s study-abroad programs.
Helen Fe Jones Scholarship—supports undergrad and grad students who wish to study Spanish in a Spanish-speaking
country.
Perry J. Powers Scholarship—supports undergrads in Romance languages.
Charles H. Stickels Scholarship—supports students intending to become Spanish teachers for study in a Spanishspeaking
country.
James T. Wetzel Scholarship—supports grad students with specific research projects.
Other funds make a great difference in helping the department enhance educational opportunities for our students or
research and instructional resources for our faculty.
Checks can be made out to UO Foundation, Department of Romance Languages, and mailed to the UO Foundation,
PO Box 3346, Eugene OR 97403. Or make a pledge to Romance Languages when you receive a phone call or letter from
the UO Annual Giving Program asking you to make a gift to the university. We invite you to browse the website for the
College of Arts and Sciences (http://cas.uoregon.edu/index.htm) and at the new and improved site for Romance Languages
(http://rl.uoregon.edu). If you have questions or would like more information about any of our programs, feel
free to contact Barbara Altmann at (541) 346-0950 (baltmann@uoregon.edu) or Heidi Shuler, director of development
for humanities, at (541) 346-0044 (hshuler@cas.uoregon.edu).