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Romance Studies Faculty
Chair
Michael Armstrong Roche
Associate Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and Photo
Associate Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street 206
860-685-3128
Associate Professor, Medieval Studies
860-685-3128
Chair, Romance Languages & Literatures
860-685-3128
BA Harvard University
MA Harvard University
PHD Harvard University
Office Hours: Fall2013: Tuesdays and Thursdays 4-5pm or at other times by appointment, at 300 High Street (office#206,tel. 860-685-3128).The best way to reachme is by email at marmstrong@wesleyan.edu.
Research Interests: My recent scholarship has been focused primarily on what are often called Cervantes's "other works," the novels and plays that tend to get overlooked in the long shadow cast by Don Quijote. A book called Cervantes' Epic Novel: Empire, Religion, and the Dream Life of Heroes in 'Persiles' (U of Toronto P, 2009) exploreshow Cervantes's last noveltransforms majorliterary, political, religious, and socialdebates of late 16th- and early 17th-century Spain into narrative art.It looks at the inventive ways Cervantes ironizes romance (especially Heliodorus's Greek novel) and the verse epic tradition (primarily, Homer, Vergil, and Tasso) by pitting them against each other and other genres. And it tracks the novels insistence on finding both its pleasures and its lessons in moral complexity.Persiles is seen to be epic not only in the terms provided by the dominantearly 17th-century reception of the Greek novel or in its allusions, encyclopedic scope and virtuoso patterning but also in its aspiration to embrace all of the author himself--including the overriding desire to entertain.For several years now I have been at work on a book provisionally entitled Cervantes Plays: Ironies of History on the Early Modern Stage. It takes a close look at Cervantes's full-length plays and their imaginative, often experimental, and still-compelling dramatic engagement with key historical debates about Habsburg political mythmaking, Algerian captivity, the gypsy community, the rise of the commercial stage, marriage choice, and women's work. This book has emerged from the Theater Without Borders research collaborative, a group committed to exploring the international and comparative impact of early modern drama, especially--but not exclusively--of England, Spain, Italy, and France (see our website at www.nyu.edu/projects/theaterwithoutborders/index.html). Earlier I was contributing author to the scholarly catalogue foran exhibition I helped organize called Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment, which could be seen at the Prado, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum in NYC (1988-1989). Throughout, I have tried to practice a kind of scholarship that moves fluidly from text to context and back again (reading the text with and against the pressures of the moment and then reading that moment through the lens of the text); that draws on close reading in multiple disciplines (history of literature and art, comparative literature, genre theory, political, social, and economic history, history of ideas and philosophy, theology and religious history, and jurisprudence); and that is informed by textual, historical, and theoretical approaches to literature. Finally, I have looked for ways to bring my scholarly interests to a wider audience, serving--for instance--as general editor of three Let's Go travel guides (Let's Go France 1986, Let's Go California and the Pacific Northwest 1986, and Let's Go Spain & Portugal 1992).
Scholarly Keywords: Cervantes; Spanish (and European) classicaltheater; Spanish and Latin American poetry; medieval and early modern Spanish literature and history (including Latin American colonial, transatlantic, and global perspectives); comparative literature and history (classical, medieval, and early modern European primarily);Goya
Faculty
Robert Conn
Associate Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and Photo
Associate Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street 204
860-685-3109
Spanish Section Head
Associate Professor, Latin American Studies
860-685-3109
Director, Center for the Americas
BA Dartmouth College
PHD Princeton University
Office Hours: F12 Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:15-3:15 pm
Research Interests: Robert Conn is the author of The Politics of Philology: Alfonso Reyes and the Invention of the Latin American Literary Tradition (Bucknell University Press, 2002). At present, he is completing a book-length study of Simon Bolivar that focuses on the ways in which the liberator of South America has been used in different national contexts, with careful attention to the areas of politics, literature, and history. A section entitled "Vasconcelos as Screenwriter: Bolivar Remembered" was published as a book chapter in the collection Mexico Reading the United States (Vanderbilt University Press, 2009).
Scholarly Keywords: Latin America, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela
Andrew Curran
Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and Photo
Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street 203
860-685-3107
Dean of the Arts and Humanities
North College 326
860-685-2706
BA Hamilton College
MA New York University
PHD New York University
Personal Homepage:
http://acurran.faculty.wesleyan.edu/
Scholarly Keywords:
Diderot; History of Science; History of Medicine; Intellectual History; Human Monstrosity in Eighteenth-Century Thought; Representations of Africa in Eighteenth-Century Thought
Publications:
http://acurran.faculty.wesleyan.edu/
Fernando Degiovanni
Associate Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow BioAssociate Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street
860-685-3108
Associate Professor, Latin American Studies
860-685-3108
BA National University of Cordoba
MA University Maryland College Pk
PHD University Maryland College Pk
Office Hours:
Fall12: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:30-11:30 a.m.
Research Interests:
Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Fernando Degiovanni specializes in issues of nationalism, cultural politics and canon formation in Argentina. By focusing on the first popular series of national "classic" authors in early 20th century, his research explores the way in which opposing intellectual projects attempted to build and impose contrasting versions of the Argentine cultural tradition in times of massive immigration and democratic institutionalization. His work has been published in major scholarly journals, including Revista Iberoamericana, Hispam?rica, and Revista de cr?tica literaria latinoamericana.
Octavio Flores-Cuadra
Adjunct Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and Photo
Adjunct Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street 211
860-685-3122
BA Universidad Americas
MA Universidad Americas
PHD University of Pittsburgh
Office Hours:
Monday & Wednesday from 1:30 to 3:00 pm or by appointment
Bernardo Gonzalez
Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and Photo
Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street 202
860-685-3106
BA University Calif Berkeley
MA University Calif Berkeley
MAA Wesleyan University
PHD University Calif Berkeley
Office Hours: Tu: 1:15p - 2:00p; Th 9:00am - 10:00am
Research Interests: Theater, ideology, and public institutions during the Spanish Second Republic Contemporary Spanish Theater
Scholarly Keywords: Modern Spanish literature Modern Spanish theater
Academic Associations: MLA Asociacin International de Hispanistas Editorial board, ESTRENO
Typhaine Leservot
Associate Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow BioAssociate Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
Romance Languages 304
860-685-2386
Associate Professor of Letters
41 Wyllys Avenue 323
860-685-2386
French Section Head
BA University of Caen
MA University of North Carolina
PHD University of North Carolina
Office Hours: Fall 2013: TBA
Research Interests: My first book, _Le Corps mondialise': Marie Redonnet, Maryse Conde, Assia Djebar_ (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2007) deals with the impact of the globalization of the media on the female body in Francophone literatures from France, the Caribbean, and the Maghreb. (Book and e-book available at link provided below + fnac.com + amazon.fr) My second research project analyzes diverse case studies in the Francophone world that redefine Francophone Postcolonial theory. Issues covered include: 1/ Accident and postcolonial subjectivity in Maryse Conde's detective fiction, 2/ Occidentalism in Marjane Satrapi's graphic memoir _Persepolis_, 3/ The veil affair in Quebec, etc. More to come!
Scholarly Keywords: Francophone Postcolonial Studies. (Identity, citizenship, immigration, globalization). Caribbean Studies. Maghrebi Studies.
Publications:
http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=25129
Louise Neary
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and LiteraturesShow BioAdjunct Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures
Downey House 120
860-685-3098
BA Boston College
MA Boston College
PHD University of Illinois Urbana
Office Hours: Spring 2013: M, W: 1-2:30 & by appointment
Scholarly Keywords: The Bilingual Lexicon Second Language Pedagogy
Academic Associations: American Association of Applied Linguists ACTFL
Ellen Nerenberg
Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and Photo
Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street 306
860-685-3087
Professor, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
860-685-3087
Hollis Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures
AB Stanford University
PHD University of Chicago
AM
Office Hours:
By appointment
Research Interests:
Prison Terms (U of Toronto P, 2001, winner of the Howard R. Marraro Prize from the Modern Language Association) concerned the spaces of confinement in Italian narrative between the years 1930 and 1960. Murder Made in Italy: Homicide, Media, and Contemporary Italian Culture (U of Indiana P, 2012) concerns the cultural significance of three post-1989 murder cases. These cases include the serial murders attributed to the "Monster of Florence," the matricide and fratricide case for which Erika De Nardo and Omar F`varo were convicted, and the conviction of Annamaria Franzoni for the murder of her three-year old son Samuele. Body of State: The Moro Affair, A Nation Divided (Fairleigh-Dickinson U P, 2011), a collaboration with two other colleagues, offers a translation of Marco Baliani's acclaimed dramatic monologue about the kidnapping and assassination of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, setting it in the context of critical edition including an introduction, an interview with the artist, and an appendix of reviews of Baliani's 2009 North American tour
Scholarly Keywords:
Twentieth-century Italian Literature, Italian Cinema, Italian Cultural Studies
Academic Associations:
Modern Languages Association, American Association for Italian Studies, American Association of Teachers of Italian
Maria Ospina
Assistant Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and Photo
Assistant Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street 209
860-685-3105
Assistant Professor, Latin American Studies
BA Brown University
MA Harvard University
PHD Harvard University
Office Hours: Wednesdays 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm ; Fridays 10:00 am - 11:00 am
Research Interests: Violence, Drug trafficking and War in Latin America ; Contemporary topographies of jungle : Narratives of youth ; Neoliberalism and its critiques ; Psychoanalysis, sexuality and memory ; Latin American film and visual culture
Scholarly Keywords: Contemporary Latin American culture Colombian literature, film and cultural production Violence, history and cultural memory in contemporary Latin America Political economies of drug trafficking and cultural production Latin American film
Catherine Ostrow
Adjunct Lecturer in Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow BioAdjunct Lecturer in Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street B11
860-685-3097
DIPL Ecole Normale de Berkendale
Office Hours:
Mondays and Fridays 12-1 or by appointment
Ana Perez-Girones
Adjunct Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and Photo
Adjunct Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
Downey House 127
860-685-3095
BA University of Seville
MA Cornell University
Office Hours:
Fall 2012: Mondays 11 -12 p.m., Wednesdays 1:30-3:00, and by appointment
Catherine Poisson
Associate Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow BioAssociate Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street 207
860-685-3094
BA Sorbonne
MA New York University
PHD New York University
Office Hours:
Mondays 2:40pm-3:40pm/ Fridays 9:50am-10:50am, and by appointment
Jeff Rider
Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and PhotoBA Yale University
MA University of Chicago
PHD University of Chicago
Office Hours: By appointment.
Scholarly Keywords: The literature and history of Northern Europe from the mid-eleventh to the mid-thirteenth centuries.
Grants:
Norman Shapiro
Professor of Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and Photo
Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street 212
860-685-3089
BA Harvard University
MA Harvard University
MAA Wesleyan University
PHD Harvard University
Office Hours: F12-MWF 10-11, MW 1:30-2:30 and by appointment
Daniela Viale
Adjunct Instructor in Romance Languages & LiteraturesShow Bio and Photo
Adjunct Instructor in Romance Languages & Literatures
300 High Street 301
860-685-3587
Italian Section Head
MA University of Torino
MALS University of Pennsylvania
Office Hours: ON PARENTAL LEAVE JULY 1, 2013 - JANUARY 1, 2014
Scholarly Keywords: Second language pedagogy; Italian history and culture of the 20th and 21st centuries


