Department of Romance Studies

April 25, 2023

Watch the finalists in the Language Video Competition

Multi-lingual (with English subtitles). Created by second-semester language students.
International desserts and popcorn!
Presented by World Languages and Cultures Committee and Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences.

April 24, 2023

Stop by for raffles, snacks, and soft drinks!

Explore our programs and fall classes in French and Francophone, Hispanic, or Italian Studies, get help with registration in WorkDay, and talk with a representative from Study Abroad!

April 20, 2023

Come eat some charcuterie from Italy, France, and Spain and learn more about Romance Studies!

Hosted by the French, Italian, and Hispanic Studies UDRs 

Thursday, April 13th, 2023
9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Olin-Sang 101

The 5th annual Italian Day - Giornata dell’italiano for secondary school students of Italian in Massachusetts. The “Giornata” represents a significant opportunity for colleges and universities to showcase their Italian programs and connect with high-school students and faculty.
 

This year's focus is: VIAGGIO IN ITALIA. Participating schools are invited to create a short type of performance (skit, song, interview, impersonation, narrative, advertisement, etc.) in Italian about traveling to or in Italy. Each school’s performance will be considered by a panel of judges, who will vote for the three most outstanding ones.

For more information, contact Nicole Chalifoux.

Hosted by the Italian Studies Program at Brandeis University, presented in collaboration with the Massachusetts Italian Teachers Association (MITA), a chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) New England.

April 4, 2023

Film screening and discussion with its producer, Luisa De La Ville

This is a story of three children, which has both a bad and a good ending. By the end of the documentary, the falling apart — socially, economically and politically — of their country, Venezuela, has terrible consequences for them. And yet, it also ends well because three children from an impoverished neighborhood learn how to play an instrument masterfully, and despite all the worsening conditions that they endure, nobody can take away their discipline and joy in playing music. 
 
The screening will be followed by a post-film discussion with producer Luisa De La Ville. Her work with this movie is a story of perseverance in itself. De La Ville fought to follow these children for ten years, to find a replacement for extinguished funds and reduced filming teams, and to edit the 500 hours of hard and interesting work into 82 minutes. 

This event is in English and open to the public. 

Co-sponsored by Hispanic Studies and Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies.

March 27, 2023

Please join us for a film screening of Porpora (2021), followed by a conversation with Porpora Marcasciano, a leader, an actress, a writer and with producer Vittorio Martone.

Presented in Italian, with English translation available.

Film Synopsis: The battles of '77, the crazy Roman nights, political commitment. On a road trip, the leader of the trans movement, Porpora Marcasciano, relives her political and humanistic education alongside Vittorio, a witness from a new generation. The journey towards her southern hometown is an exploration to discover the effects of that period on the present, between intimate stories and encounters with historical figures from the trans movement and the "femminielli" community of Naples.

Sponsored by the Italian Studies Program; The Edie and Lew Wasserman Fund; and Film, Television and Interactive Media.

March 24, 2023

Brandeis/Trinacria Theatre Company Management Internship
YOUR SICILIAN ADVENTURE AWAITS
Virtual Info Session with Q&A

We are particularly keen to provide this opportunity for BIPOC students and others that have been historically underrepresented in both Italian studies and the performing arts industry. Financial assistance available to selected candidates by the Italian Studies Department of Brandeis University.

For more information about the internship, please visit Internship in Sicily on the Romance Studies website or  the Trinacria Theatre Company's website. Thank you!

March 15, 2023

Hispanic Studies and Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies present:
Annual Latina Poetry Night, in celebration of Women’s History Month
With Cuban musicians: Laura Espinal & Yamiel Isaac on voice and guitar 

This is a bilingual event and open to the public. For more information, please contact Professor Zoila Castro.

March 2, 2023

A discussion (in French) with Brandeis student Simon Botbol. 

• L'héritage culturel et le mode de vie Manouche ont-t-ils une place dans la France du 21ème siècle ?
• L’échelle actuelle de l’antitsiganisme Français est-elle due à une haine maladive ou basée sur du concret ?
• L’aménagement d’aires d’accueil est-elle la responsabilité du contribuable Français ?

Sponsored by the French and Francophone Studies Program.

February 28, 2023

JOIN THE TROUPE!

With actress/drama instructor Chiara Durazzini and multi-instrumentalist/Renaissance musician Dan Meyers

All are welcome no matter what language you are studying!

Presented by the Italian Studies Program.

February 6, 2023

Isaac Canton is a PhD candidate in Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. His work examines the intersection between modern and colonial Mexico and Latin America from an interdisciplinary perspective that brings together cultural history, material culture, and sound studies. In “Anachronic Fictions,” he analyzes how modern and contemporary Latin American authors have delved into colonial archives in order to reconceptualize the past and reimagine the present. What do artists and writers achieve by revisiting colonial archives? To what extent do colonial struggles help us dig into modern and contemporary concerns? How do the fictional works that interact with colonial archives affect and intervene in our current understanding of the past?

Presented by the Department of Romance Studies (ROMS) and the Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies (LACLS) Program.

February 2, 2023

Sponsored by the FREN UDRs.

February 1, 2023

Gustavo Herrera Díaz is a PhD candidate in Latin American Literature and Culture at The Pennsylvania State University. He holds a BA in Spanish and Classics from Universidad de La Habana and an MA in Spanish Literature from Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include Classical reception in Latin American literature, Latin American theater, media and performance studies, and Afro-diasporic cultures in Brazil and the Caribbean. His scholarly articles have appeared in Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, The Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Revista Universidad de La Habana, and Aletria: Revista de Estudos de Literatura, among other publications. His most recent research focuses on the intersection of Classical Greek and African cultural systems as they appear in Latin American performances.

Presented by the Department of Romance Studies (ROMS) and the Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies (LACLS) Program.

January 30, 2023

Born in Mexico City, Alejandra Vela-Martínez graduated in Hispanic Literatures at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM (2013) with a thesis on the discursive construction of authorial identity of the 19th-century Cuban author Mercedes de Santa Cruz y Montalvo, Condesa de Merlin. She has an MA in Hispanic Cultural Studies from Columbia University (2015) and a PhD in Latin American Literature from New York University (2021). She has published various articles that analyze the relationship between archives, memory, and gender, particularly related to the construction of the Latin-American Literary Canon. Her doctoral dissertation, “Newsstand Feminism: Cursi Aesthetics in Mexican Women’s Periodicals,” which she is now turning into a book manuscript, revolves around women's magazines published between 1940 and 1980 in Mexico. She traces the way in which discourses, that would later be called feminists, were inserted in the periodical press, and how these spaces considered as strictly feminine, have been ignored or disregarded in literary research precisely because they are considered "women's things." She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the UNAM, working on a critical edition of columns by Rosario Sansores.

Presented by the Department of Romance Studies (ROMS) and the Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies (LACLS) Program.

January 27, 2023

Say My Name Workshop

Angelica Maria Aguilera

Join us for a spoken word presentation, poetry workshop, and an open mic night, focusing on topics surrounding latinidad, machismo, womanhood, and immigration.

Co-sponsored by LACLS, Hispanic Studies, CAST, Brandeis Library, and Creative Writing.

January 25, 2023

Latin American Rap and the Poetics of Community Writing

Charlie Hankin holds a PhD from Princeton in Spanish and Portuguese and a Master of Music in Violin Performance from the University of Oregon. His book "Break and Flow: Hip Hop Poetics in the Americas" will be published in July 2023 by the University of Virginia Press (New World Studies Series). Charlie has also recorded violin and co-produced albums with Latin American hip hop artists, including the Cuban album Sentimientos desafinados, which was nominated for a CubaDisco music award in 2017. A new book project, tentatively entitled "Music-Literature Crossings: Race and Sound in the Caribbean," considers the political and racial implications of the cross-pollination between writing and sound. Charlie is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Colby College.

Presented by the Department of Romance Studies (ROMS) and the Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies (LACLS) Program.