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.

December 9, 2022

December 8, 2022

CHARCUTERIE NIGHT

With the French and Francophone Studies UDRS

November 14, 2022

Italian Studies presents:

Documenting Black Italy

This lecture will host film director and activist Fred Kuwornu. He will discuss how Black representations are shaping and changing Italian Culture at large. Having worked on successful documentaries and films about Diversity in Italy, he will present various artists' work and his latest research on Black Italy. 

November 10, 2022

October 6, 2022

A conversation with Brandeis Alum and Waltham Middle School Teacher:

María Mendiola Tovar

Please join us as María Mendiola Tovar (BA '20 & MAT '21) talks about her academic journey and how she used her minor in French and Francophone Studies in her career, teaching Middle School French and Spanish in the Waltham Public Schools.

Brought to you by your FREN UDRs

September 29, 2022

Un film di Pif: La mafia uccide solo d'estate

Presented by Brandeis Italian Studies.

April 28, 2022

Celebrating Brandeis 75: A Multicultural Community

Watch the finalists in the Language Video Competition

Multilingual (with English subtitles). Created by second-semester language students.

Presented by World Languages and Cultures Committee and Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences.

April 6, 2022

Explore our programs and fall classes, get help with registration in WorkDay, and talk with a representative from Study Abroad!

Masks and green passports required. 

March 29, 2022

Indigenous Rights in Francophone Canada

• The colonization of “Le Nouvelle France”

• The treatment of indigenous peoples in Canada

• Artistic works of first nations and inuit peoples (music and film)

Materials in French and English: all welcome!

March 23, 2022

In celebration of women’s history month

With piano accompaniment by Alyssa Zylberger | Shiffman 219

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

Presented by Hispanic Studies.

March 3, 2022

A commedia dell’arte workshop with actress/drama instructor Chiara Durazzini.

JOIN THE TROUPE! All are welcome no matter what language you are studying! For students not currently taking Italian, please RSVP with an email to Professor Monteleone.

Presented by the Italian Studies Program.

March 4, 2022

YOUR SICILIAN ADVENTURE AWAITS

Virtual Info Session with Q&A

Applications to the program are now open!

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!

December 2, 2021

Explore our programs and spring classes, get help with registration in WorkDay, and talk with a representative from Study Abroad! Masks and green passports required. 

November 19, 2021

YOUR SICILIAN ADVENTURE AWAITS
Virtual Info Session

Meet with Mariagrazia La Fauci (Trinacria Artistic Director) & Iyvon Edebiri (The Parsnip Ship Artistic Director, IIM in Italian Studies Brandeis '13) to learn more about the program for summer 2022.

Through an exciting collaboration between Brandeis University’s Interdepartmental Program in Italian Studies and Trinacria Theatre Company, develop your Italian language skills while learning about company management, community engagement, intercultural exchange, and so much more... all with a group of international artists in a small, rural Sicilian village.

We are particularly keen to provide this opportunity for BIPOC students and others belonging to groups 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!

This is a great opportunity to meet fellow students interested in Italian studies and engage with an Italian film together. Co-curricular actives like these are are a very important part of the Italian curriculum and we encourage you all to attend!

• Screening of La kryptonite nella borsa (2011) — Sept. 23, 2021
  
• L'accabadora — Oct. 21, 2021
• La felicità è un sistema complesso — Nov. 18, 2021
  

November 12, 2021

Italian Studies at Brandeis Presents:

Italian activist/writer Rapper Amir Issaa 
Vivo per questo — Potere alle parole 
I live for this
Please read his bio in Italian or English.

November 4, 2021

October 19, 2021

Please join the minor in Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation (CAST), Hispanic Studies, Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies (LACLS), and Theater Arts, for an online workshop of Under the Skin, a new one-person play about the artist and human rights activist Claudia Bernardi’s life growing up in Argentina under a military junta, and her subsequent work digging up the past. This presentation is hosted by Professor María J. Durán as part of her course, Latinx Theatre: Politics, Performance, and Social Change and is funded in part by the Dean's Research Fund.

Under the Skin
A new play by award-winning playwright Catherine Filloux 
Performed by Mercedes Herrero
Directed by Elena Araoz
Commissioned by INTAR (Lou Moreno, Artistic Director; Paul Slee Rodriquez, Executive Director)

September 10, 2021

April 21, 2021

Muralism and Community in the United States

The Romance Studies Department, the Mandel Center for the Humanities, and the Department of Fine Arts at Brandeis University invite you to participate in a panel, open to the public, on contemporary muralism and the legacy of Mexican muralism in the United States. Please join us in this timely discussion with contemporary muralist artists Cornelio Campos, Cedric Douglas, and Rosalia Torres-Weiner. This event will be held in English. 

Please see more information about panelists below.

• Modern yet traditional and deeply personal, the paintings of Cornelio Campos illustrate some of the harsh realities of immigrating to America and highlight deep-seated political issues that contribute to Mexican immigration. Born in Cherán, México, he resides in Durham, N.C., and has exhibited extensively in N.C. and beyond, including Washington, D.C., and Bogatá, Colombia. He immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager, a journey that influences many of his paintings. Vibrant colors, iconic American symbols, and intricate geometric patterns define his works as do the glimpses of his Purepecha culture he shares throughout his work.

• Born in Boston, Cedric “Vise1” Douglas received a BFA from MassArt. His first experience with public art was writing his name creatively on abandoned spaces. The founder and creative director of The Up Truck, a mobile art lab designed to engage underserved Boston communities, Douglas is widely recognized for his large-scale murals and portraits and is highly regarded by a broad range of audiences. Douglas's public art project, "Street Memorials," takes a hard look at racial injustice and its deadly impact on the black community, while “The People’s Memorial Project” requires we rethink the future of memorials and monuments. Photo credit: Nick Surette

• 
• Rosalia Torres-Weiner is an artist, activist and community leader. Her work is featured in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum and has been exhibited widely. Her public murals celebrate the rich history of her native Mexico and the changing demographics of the US-American South. She uses her art to document social conditions and raise awareness about issues affecting immigrant communities, including family separation, racism and overcoming stereotypes. Through her Red Calaca Mobile Art Studio, a 24-foot "Art Truck," she takes the arts directly to people in under-served immigrant communities.

March 3, 2021

PASSION AND FURY IN THE GHETTO
Crossings of Cultures in Jewish Venice

A Zoom lecture with Professor Shaul Bassi
Associate Professor of English Literature
Ca' Foscari University in Venice, Italy
Director, Beit Venezia - A Home for Jewish Culture

Lecture will be in English

Co-sponsored by the Zoom Guest Lecture Series of the Mandel Center for the Humanities and the Interdepartmental Program in Italian Studies.

March 11, 2021

Co-sponsored by the Hispanic Studies Program

I. America and the Crypto Jewish Presence: Reclaiming the Legacy of SepharadHBI Project on Latin American Jewish & Gender Studies

Panelists:

• Ron Duncan Hart, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist, author and filmmaker. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Crypto-Jews: The Long Journey (2020).
• Mary Morris, author of author of Gateway to the Moon (2019), was awarded the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters for Vanishing Animals & Other Stories. Her many novels and story collections have been translated into Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish and Japanese. 

Co-sponsors: Brandeis Near Eastern & Judaic Studies, Hispanic Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies

II. The End of Iberian Jewry and The Beginnings of a Sephardi Diaspora: Through the Eyes of Women

Feb. 22, 2021HBI Project on Latin American Jewish & Gender Studies
Join LAJGS for a mediated conversation between Edith Scott Saavedra, author of The Lamps of Albarracín (2019), and Spanish historians Lucía Conte Aguilar and Miguel Angel Motis, as they discuss the feminist experience of the Inquisition and end of Iberian Jewry, as well as the revival of Spain’s Jewish heritage in the present day. 

Moderated by Dalia Wassner, Ph.D. Director, HBI Project in Latin American Jewish & Gender Studies

Panelists: 

• Edith Scott Saavedra, author of the historical novel The Lamps of Albarracin/Los Candiles de Albarracin (2019).
• Lucía Conte Aguilar, Ph.D., lecturer at the Humanities Department and the Hispanic and European Studies Program at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. 
• Miguel Ángel Motis Dolader, Ph.D. Professor of Communications and Social Sciences, University of San Jorge de Zaragoza and author of Vivencias, emociones y perfiles femeninos. Judeoconversas e inquisición en Aragón en el siglo XV (2020). 

Co-sponsors: Brandeis Near Eastern & Judaic Studies, Hispanic Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, J-Lats Princeton

This program is made possible with generous support from the Ostrowicz Lilienthal Foundation for Jewish Education.

February 11, 2021

Masks on Screen
An interactive Commedia dell’Arte workshop
Featuring actress and drama instructor, Chiara Durazzini
All are welcome no matter what language you are studying!

Presented by the Italian Studies Program, Brandeis University

November 30, 2020

An exciting screening of short films created by students in HISP 193B, Representation and Film Style: Latin American Cinema.

You'll have a front row seat as they explore and experiment with directing, lighting, sound engineering, camera technique, and digital editing!

November 18, 2020

A performance manifesto based on lessons learned in San Antonio free health clinics and New York acupuncture schools; from the treatments and consejos of curanderas, abortion doctors, Marxist artists, community health workers, and bourgie dermatologists.

FEATURE EVENT: Your Healing is Killing Me by Virginia Grise

Part performance, part lecture, part writing workshop—this event is unprocessed and gluten and guilt free. Co-sponsored by the Department of Romance Studies, The Latin American and Latino Studies Program, and the Minor in Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation (CAST).

FOLLOWED BY: Open Session of ENG 170b: Contemporary Theatre with Virginia Grise

About the artist: From panzas to prisons, from street theatre to large-scale multimedia performances, from princess to chafa – Virginia Grise writes plays that are set in bars without windows, barrio rooftops, and lesbian bedrooms. Her play blu was the winner of the 2010 Yale Drama Series Award and was recently published by Yale University Press. Her other published work includes The Panza Monologues co-written with Irma Mayorga (University of Texas Press) and an edited volume of Zapatista communiqués titled Conversations with Don Durito (Autonomedia Press). She is a recipient of the Whiting Writer’s Award, the Princess Grace Award in directing and the Jerome Fellowship. Virginia holds an MFA in Writing for Performance from the California Institute of the Arts and is the Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Cara Mía Theatre in Dallas, Texas.

Sponsored by the Department of English and co-sponsored by the Minor in Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation (CAST).

November 13, 2020

Explore our programs and spring classes in French and Francophone, Hispanic, and Italian Studies. Meet our professors, talk about our majors, figure out which course to take next—and grab a hot chocolate and a snack on the way out! Hope to see you there! (with your mask, of course, and socially distanced)

November 11, 2020

What does the BLM movement tumbling Columbus statues across the US have in common with anti-racism protests in Italy in favor of the removal of the statue of former colonial soldier Indro Montanelli? They are both questioning the constitutive nature of discrimination in modern democracies by looking at past forms of exploitation. This talk’s transnational reading of practices of oppression from imperial conquest to anti-immigration policies offers useful tools to critically understand social inequalities across time and space.
 
Teresa Fiore is Inserra Endowed Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies at Montclair State University (New Jersey, USA). The recipient of several fellowships (De Bosis, Rockefeller and Fulbright), she has been Visiting Assistant Professor at Harvard University, NYU and Rutgers University. Her book "Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies" (Fordham University Press, 2017) received the 2017 AAIS Book Prize and the 2019 Gadda Prize (Runner Up) and is forthcoming in an Italian edition in 2021. She co-edited a special section about the migration ‘crisis’ in the Mediterranean (Journal of Modern Italian Studies). Her articles on migration to and from Italy linked to twentieth- and twenty-first-century Italian literature, theatre, music and cinema have appeared in both journals and edited collections (Routledge, Palgrave, Bompiani, Le Monnier-Mondadori, Liverpool University Press). She is currently working on a research project about food practices at the time of the Allied Landing in Sicily during WWII and on an initiative linked to teaching Italian language and culture to Spanish speakers.  She directs a program of interdisciplinary events about Italian culture in a transnational perspective.
 
Hosted by the Brandeis Italian Studies Program and co-sponsored by School of Arts and Sciences Cocurricular Fund.

October 28, 2020

An Independent Interdisciplinary Major (IIM) offers students the opportunity to pursue a self-designed course of study with the support of Brandeis faculty members and the approval of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. Join us to learn more about the process and benefits of creating your own major to see if an IIM might be right for you!

During our discussion, you'll be able to ask questions and hear from the IIM coordinator, Undergraduate Departmental Representatives, and current IIM majors and faculty advisors.

If you have any questions, please contact Katy McLaughlin, IIM Coordinato.

Italian Studies Program Presents:

14 Ottobre

September 24, 2020

Featuring: Smetto Quando Voglio

Please join us for a night under the stars! Italian snacks provided, bring your own towel to sit on. Social distancing and masks required.

Questions? Contact nsimonetti@brandeis.edu.

Presented by the Italian Studies Program.

May 28, 2020

The Romance Studies faculty and staff enjoyed celebrating the Class of 2020's accomplishments at our virtual mini-celebration and we look forward to the in-person event in spring 2021.

Students interested in learning more about our course offerings, majors, and minors before Early Registration attended the following virtual gatherings:

• “Looking forward to the Fall with French and Francophone Studies” was held via Zoom April 14, 2020, with Professors Harder, Theobald, Nenciu, and Randall.
• “Looking forward to the Fall with Hispanic Studies Faculty” was held via Zoom April 13, 2020.
• “Looking forward to the Fall with the Italian Instructors” was held via Zoom on April 14, 2020.

In addition, our HISP UDRs, Becca and Haley held advising sessions via Zoom on April 14 and April 20 for students with any questions about classes, professors, or balancing their schedule while meeting major requirements.

March 4, 2020

Come read Belgian comics and eat yummy French cookies and speculoos with the UDRs and Professor Theobald!

Presented by French and Francophone Studies.

Feb. 24, 2020 | Shiffman 219

A commedia dell’arte workshop with actress/drama instructor Chiara Durazzini

JOIN THE TROUPE! All are welcome no matter what language you are studying! 

Presented by the Italian Studies Program.

January 23, 2020

Thomas Conners (PhD candidate, University of Pennsylvania)

Reading Manuel Muñoz’s collection of short stories The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue (2007), this talk moves beyond canonical interpretations of the lone queer Latino. Instead, it rethinks Latinx subjectivity as an assemblage of things, spaces, and people connected by feelings of loss and loneliness—by a mood sustained by places (like borders and roads) and objects (such as love letters and fake social security cards) that the text refuses to present in explicitly ethnic, racial terms. Reading for affects in this way both responds to a mainstream tendency to essentialize Latinx identity as it broadly signals ways of conceiving Latinx subjectivity and its possible collectivities rooted in contingent feeling rather than racial or sexual identity.

January 22, 2020

María J. Durán is a Florence Levy Kay Fellow in U.S. Latinx Cultural Studies and lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Brandeis University. She is also affiliated with the Latin American and Latino Studies Program. She received her doctoral degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2019, and her research interests include Latinx Studies, Latina feminisms, and theater for social change.

Durán’s current project theorizes a politics of mourning in the works of Chicana/o playwrights. Investigating how mourning is used as a tool for dissent, she argues that public mourning by Chicanas and Mexicanas in response to structural instances of violence leads to the rise of their political consciousness and agency. In this talk, Durán introduces her project, taking Chicana Marisela Treviño Orta’s play, Braided Sorrow, as her exemplary text. After enumerating the broad features of the politics of mourning, she pauses to explain the figure of La Llorona, whose various incarnations in popular culture often paint her as a traitorous figure condemned to eternal mourning.

Durán then focuses on the reimagination of La Llorona in Orta’s play and the play’s literary treatment of femicide in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, delineating how Mexicanas reject the privatization of mourning; question whose losses “count”; and demand both responsibility and accountability from state authorities. Durán concludes with a close reading of one passage that illustrates the affective dimensions of public mourning. 

January 21, 2020

Interested in studying abroad? Don’t miss I Love Study Abroad Week, Jan. 20-23, a week-long series of events highlighting global opportunities and preparing students for the upcoming Feb. 13 study abroad deadline (for anyone interested in studying abroad fall 2020, spring 2021) and the March 19 summer 2020 deadline.

Cafe Latin America, Jan. 21, Mandel/Olin-Sang Connector

Co-sponsored by Hispanic Studies; stop by to learn about program opportunities in Latin America and enjoy free coffee and snacks!

January 16, 2020

Jennifer Caroccio Maldonado is finishing a PhD in American Studies at Rutgers University-Newark. Her research interests include Latinx culture & literature, U.S. cultural production, graphic novels, and women of color feminist theories. Her project, Latinx Comix: Graphic Memoirs and Comic Biographies as Counter History, uses a content analysis of four key graphic narratives, by and about Latinx individuals, to investigate the connections between subjection formation, memory, and trauma.

She was a 2017 Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar and Presently she a Henry Rutgers Graduate Fellow. In January 2019, she won a course re-design grant from the Lumina Fund for Racial Justice and Equity. Most recently, she won First Place and People's Choice at the 2019 3-Minute Thesis competition at RU-N. She has presented at multiple regional and national conferences, like The American Studies Association, the Latino Studies Association and the Puerto Rican Studies Association. Her public criticism and essays are found online at The Establishment, Bold Media, MNT Comics, and The Huffington Post.

November 19, 2019

The World Languages and Cultures Committee with generous support from the  Division of Humanities, the Provost and the Dean of Arts and Sciences, invite all members of the Brandeis Community (students, faculty, and staff) to experience and celebrate the linguistic diversity of Brandeis during the "I'm Global Week 2019."

The Mega Language Lunch will feature individual language tables for speakers of the following languages - Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish. If you speak one or more of these languages, please join us at this event. You can stay for a few minutes or for the entire hour. If you speak several languages, you can visit multiple tables! No matter your level of proficiency, you are welcome! The only rule is NO ENGLISH! Please speak only the language of a specific table (tables) during your visit (you will take a mini language pledge before entering the room).

There will be a buffet lunch for the first 10 people who register for a particular table. Please note that priority is given to undergraduate students. You are welcome to bring your own lunch or share the small desserts and snacks provided at the language tables. While we do not guarantee that you will be able to get free food at the event, we hope you will come to celebrate and support language diversity at Brandeis.

November 21, 2019

La felicità è un sistema complesso

Sept. 19, 2019 | Golding 101

The Startup: Accendi il tuo futuro 

Oct. 16, 2019 | Mandel G03

Il Padre D'Italia

Nov. 21, 2019 | Golding 101

October 29, 2019

Edoardo Albinati is a novelist and screenwriter who lives in Rome. His novel Svenimenti won the 2004 Viareggio Literary Award, and The Catholic School won the Strega Prize in 2016. For the last twenty-five years, he has worked as a teacher in Rebibbia, the largest prison in Rome.

Presented by The Italian Studies Program at Brandeis University and the Consulate General of Italy, cosponsored by the Mandel Center for the Humanities.

October 17, 2019

Apéro–Tapas–Aperitivo–Petiscos
'Happy Hour' with appetizers, desserts, and soft drinks!

Meet faculty, UDRs, and students from our Romance Studies areas: French and Francophone, Hispanic, and Italian Studies. Speak with representatives from Study Abroad, Hiatt Career Center, the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program, the IIM, and ROMS student groups and clubs, too! There will be a raffle, appetizers, soft drinks, and international desserts!!!

September 18, 2019

From the Hispanic Studies UDRs Haley Director, Albert Gutierrez, and Rebecca Weydt: We are so excited to invite you to our Meet the Majors (and minors) event! Hope to see you there!

September 16, 2019

Are you a sophomore or junior proposing your IIM this semester? Come to our event on to get feedback on your proposal and learn more about the proposal review process.

April 16, 2019

Language Video Competition
Multi-lingual (with English subtitles)
Created by second-semester language students.
Presented by World Languages and Cultures Committee and Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences

April 16, 2019

In 1927, the first Hollywood-owned and operated cinema in France, Le Paramount, opened in Paris. Over a decade later, Le Paramount’s director, manager, chief projectionist, secretaries, and ushers were all enlisted in a clandestine operation to use the formerly American movie house as a base of French Resistance activities under Nazi occupation. “Hollywood and the French Resistance” examines the history of why and how Hollywood began operating cinemas around the world — from Sao Paulo to Sydney — and how Le Paramount became first a symbol of that cultural and industrial expansion after World War I and then a monument to the work of Hollywood’s (ex-)employees during World War II. Employing wartime newsreels, archival images, and contemporaneous accounts, this talk will reanimate a forgotten history while recounting the many ways in which the war interrupted Hollywood’s international expansion and decimated the offices, cinemas, and lives of its global workforce.

Co-sponsored by the International Global Studies Program, the Department of Romance Studies, and the American Studies Program at Brandeis University.

April 3, 2019

Refreshments will be available before the screening. Opening remarks from Professor Servino, Professor Monteleone and the Italian Studies Undergraduate Departmental Representatives.

Presented by the Italian Studies Program.

March 27, 2019

Equatoguinean writer Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel embarked on an unexpected hunger strike in February 2011 to protest against the repression of civil liberties in Equatorial Guinea. Exiled now in Barcelona, Spain, Ávila Laurel continues using his literary work to denounce the second dictatorial regime established in Equatorial Guinea since 1979.  

Located in the Gulf of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea is the only African country that has Spanish as its official language. Since independence in 1968, two consecutive dictatorial regimes have impacted the country with a long history of diasporic movements among a people that strives to escape arbitrary rulers.

The literature of Equatorial Guinea represents the voice of those silenced in a country marked by the opacity of information, lack of freedom of expression, and violation of human rights. Ávila Laurel's latest book, "The Gurugu Pledge," is a novel dedicated to the migrations of Black Africans to Europe, and offers a vision of an extended phenomena resulting from decolonization and dictatorships.

The author's talk will be in Spanish, and it will be introduced and interpreted into English by Carolina Nvé Díaz San Francisco (Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice, Boston University).

This event is sponsored by the Ethics Center and cosponsored by African and African American Studies, the English Department, and Romance Studies. Questions? Contact ethics@brandeis.edu 

March 21, 2019

Meet faculty, UDRs and students from our Romance Studies areas: French and Francophone, Hispanic, and Italian Studies. Speak with representatives from Study Abroad, Hiatt Career Center, the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program, and ROMS student groups and clubs, too! 

March 20, 2019

a commedia dell’arte workshop with actress/drama instructor Chiara Durazzini

JOIN THE TROUPE! All are welcome no matter what language you are studying! Presented by the Italian Studies Program

March 10, 2019

All members of the Brandeis community are invited to an international evening of dancing and fun that will feature performances by various campus dance groups, brief dance lessons, international dance music, and various languages studied and spoken at Brandeis. Formal attire, costumes or national dress are encouraged, but NOT required. You can ask someone to dance in different languages, learn about world dances, acquire a few new words, and get dance lessons! Dancers of all levels and non-dancers are all welcome!

February 27, 2019

Brandeis Italian Studies Program hosts pizza and a movie!

February 13, 2019

Orquidea Morales is currently the César Chávez Postdoctoral Fellow in the program of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Morales received her PhD in American Culture at the University of Michigan. Her work on border violence, Latinx media, and Chicana feminism has been published in journals such as Label me Latina/o and the Utah Foreign Language Review. She is currently working on her book manuscript entitled "Border Horror: Death and Filmic Genres in South Texas and Northern Mexico."

February 7, 2019

Sebastián Pérez is the current Gaius Charles Bolin Dissertation Fellow in Latina/o Studies at Williams College and a PhD candidate in American Studies at Yale University. He is at work completing his dissertation entitled "Beyond Borinquen: Images and Their Afterlives in the Puerto Rican Diaspora, 1970-Present." Sebastián teaches classes on Latina/o/x New York and Caribbean diasporic cultural production and locates his scholarship at the intersections of Puerto Rican Studies and Visual and Cultural Studies. You can find his writing in the forthcoming anthology Critical Diálogos In Latino and Latina Studies out with NYU Press in 2019 and in Art in America Magazine.

January 31, 2019

Andrea Delgado is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema, and Media at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her book project, "Indelible Practices of Hope: Worldbuilding in 1990s Los Angeles," explores literature, film, theater, and cultural practice to analyze the alternative worlds built by communities of color in the wake of increasingly neoliberal policies at the end of the 20th century. Currently, Andrea is a UW Graduate Opportunity and Minority Achievement Program Presidential Dissertation Fellow and a Summer 2019 Andrew W. Mellon Fellow for Public Projects in the Humanities at the UW Simpson Center. Her Mellon-supported public scholarship project is titled “Captured on VHS: Personal Narratives Situated in History.”

November 14, 2018

"Hotel Splendid" is the intimate and profound story of an African community that lives in an Italian tourist hotel turned into an emergency camp for refugees.

Co-sponsored by Italian Studies, Mandel Center for the Humanities, and I am Global Week.
Free and Open to the Public

“Unlike many other films about migrant crisis, "Hotel Splendid" is not sensationalist, journalistic, superficial or propagandistic. Speaking as an anthropologist, this documentary touched me as human being learning about other people beings.” — Peter Ian Crawford, anthropologist

CANCELED — stay tuned for rescheduled date
SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO IN 19th-CENTURY ITALY: JEWISH MUSICAL COMPOSITION IN THE AGE OF ITALIAN FASCISM

A concert with Eleonora Carapella, pianoforte, and Maurizio Cadossi, violino. Music composed by Leone Sinigaglia and Aldo Finzi. Refreshments will be served at a reception following the performance.

Co-sponsored by the Italian Studies program, Department of Computer Science, Mandel Center for the Humanities, and the Department of Music.

April 20, 2018

This is an annual one-day event with five speakers, organized around a single novel. Each year, the conference will have a dual focus: both on a particular novel and on the theoretical and scholarly questions it raises. This year's theoretical and critical topics unfolded around the question of Science Fiction and its relationship to other canonical and non-canonical fiction. 

With grateful acknowledgement to the Brandeis sponsors: the Dean of Arts and Sciences, Department of English, Department of Romance Studies, Department of German Russian and Asian Languages and Literature, and History of Ideas Program

April 17, 2018

Presented by the Foreign Language Oversight Committee and the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences

March 27, 2018

"Clinica de Migrantes" is a medical drama about a year in the life of Puentes, one of the only health clinics in the U.S. involved in the politically controversial practice of providing healthcare to undocumented immigrants. By law, illegal immigrants cannot obtain health insurance, and receive no regular medical treatment. At Puentes, a team of volunteers led by Dr. Steve Larson attend to an ever-growing population of housekeepers, prep cooks, and construction workers. Many come to Puentes after being turned away at other hospitals. Full of unforgettable patient-doctor interactions and human portraits, Clinica de Migrantes tells the story of America's true untouchable class and of the heroic few who reach out to help them. For more information on the film visit Third Party Film's website.

Co-sponsored by Latin American and Latino Studies and the Department of Romance Studies

March 12, 2018

Exclusive screening of a 35mm copy of a classic film, "Kiss of a Spider Woman," which is the story of political imprisonment during a military dictatorship in a Latin American country. But it is also a story about the emergence of queer identities, and about the power of film and storytelling.

Sponsored by the American Studies Program, the Latin American and Latino Studies Program, and the Department of Romance Studies, and made possible by the generosity of David Weisman, Sam Weisman, and the Motion Picture Division of the Library of Congress

February 27, 2018

Speaker: Kim Potowski, Associate Professor and Director of the Spanish Heritage Language Program University of Illinois at Chicago

The U.S. has the second largest population of Spanish-speakers in the world after Mexico.

• What are some of the principal characteristics of Spanish as it is spoken in the U.S.?

• Is “Spanglish” a positive or a derogatory term?

• Is a single U.S. Spanish dialect likely to emerge?

• What are the best ways to encourage Spanish development among heritage speakers?

Sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, Latin American and Latino Studies Program, the Linguistics Program, and the Department of Romance Studies

February 8, 2018

A Commedia dell'Arte Workshop with actress and drama instructor Chiara Durazzini and multi-instrumentalist/Renaissance musician Dan Meyers

November 30, 2017

Speaker: Dr. Marcela Vignoli

Marcela Vignoli es Profesora en Historia y Doctora en Humanidades por la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, realizó su estancia posdoctoral en la Universidad de San Pablo, Brasil. Es investigadora asistente del CONICET y docente de Metodología de la Investigación Histórica en la carrera de Arqueología de la UNT. Es autora de Sociabilidad y cultura política. La Sociedad Sarmiento de Tucumán, 1880-1914 (Prohistoria, 2015) y de varios artículos publicados en revistas de la especialidad, nacionales e internacionales. Es titular de un PICT financiado por la Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica. Desde una perspectiva de género estudia la historia socio-cultural de Tucumán entre fines del siglo XIX y primeras décadas del siglo XX.

Fall 2017 Screenings:

Padroni di Casa
Oct. 25, 2017

La città ideale
Nov. 15, 2017
As part of I Am Global Week 2017

EX
Nov. 29, 2017

Opening remarks from Professor Servino, Professor Monteleone and the Italian Studies Undergraduate Departmental Representatives.

Presented by the Italian Studies Program and the Italian Consulate of Boston

November 16, 2017

Aviva Chomsky is Professor of History and Coordinator of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Salem State University. Her current research weaves together labor and environmental histories, focusing on a region of Colombia where Indigenous and Afro-descended peoples have long evaded state control. Today they face an onslaught of extractivist projects, and changing legal and social meanings of race and ethnicity in the context of continent-wide movements for plurinationalism and alternative visions of economic development. In Spanish. 

Co-sponsors: Anthropology, Colombia Vive Boston, Environmental Studies, Hispanic Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, and I am Global Week 2017

March 29 and Nov. 9, 2017

"La Buena Vida/The Good Life," is an award-winning documentary about the forced displacement of Wayúu villagers from Tamaquito in the forests of northern Colombia. Confronted by the encroachment of the vast and rapidly expanding El Cerrejón coal mine, the villagers fight to save their way of life against a global backdrop of rising energy consumption driven by the pursuit of growth and affluence. In Spanish and Wayuunaiki with English subtitles. 

Co-sponsors: Anthropology, Colombia Vive Boston, Environmental Studies, Hispanic Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, and I am Global Week 2017

November 3, 2017

Speaker: Héctor Hoyos, Associate Professor of Latin American literature and culture, Stanford University

This talk presented a new reading of a relatively understudied work by the Nobel-prize winning author. Focusing on the role of human rights discourse to mend the nation's social fabric, Hoyos tackles the question of whether elite historiography or class struggle predominate in García Márquez's rendering of the deeper causes of narcotrafficking. Consideration is given to the potential role of this sui generis non-fiction work within genre-codified fictions of the drug trade and its aftermath.

Cosponsored by Comparative Literature and Culture, Hispanic Studies, and Latin American and Latino Studies

October 16, 2017

Speaker: Alessandra Di Maio, PhD, University of Palermo

Co-sponsored by the Italian Studies Program, the Department of African and Afro-American Studies and the Mandel Center for the Humanities

September 28, 2017

Hosted by the French and Francophone Studies Program at Brandeis University, presented in collaboration with the Délégation du Québec of Boston, and the French and Francophone Club of Brandeis.

A Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program sponsored by the Chief Diversity Officer, Provost, and the Dean of Arts and Sciences, Heller, and IBS.

April 25, 2017

Presented by the Foreign Language Oversight Committee and the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences

April 5, 2017

Film #5: nessuno me puo giudicare

Opening remarks from Professor Servino, Professor Monteleone and the Italian Studies Undergraduate Departmental Representatives.

Presented by the Italian Studies Program and the Italian Consulate of Boston

April 7, 2017

This was a friendly competition among high school students created to motivate and to spark interest in learning Italian. Each participating high school created a skit, a song, or other form of expression in Italian about the topic chosen by the organizing committee.

Presented in collaboration with and sponsored by the Massachusetts Italian Teachers Association (MITA), a chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) New England

April 5, 2017

Avi Chomsky is Professor of History and Coordinator of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Salem State University. Much of her recent work focuses on northern Colombia's coal industry and the forced displacements of Indigenous and Afro-descended peoples it has caused.

March 28, 2017

A talk with Daniele Balicco

Balicco is a Lecturer in Theory and Critical Studies at the EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) of Paris and at the IED (European Institute of Design) of Rome.

Sponsored by the Italian Studies program in collaboration with Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies at Montclair State University

March 6, 2017

Speaker: Maurice Samuels, Betty Jane Anlyan Professor of French & Chair of French Department, Yale University

Samuels will be visiting Brandeis to talk about his latest book, "The Right to Difference — The Jews & French Universalism."

Co-sponsored by the Department of Romance Studies, the Tauber Institute, the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Martin Weiner Fund

March 2, 2017

A Commedia dell'Arte Workshop with actress and drama instructor Chiara Durazzini

January 30, 2017

A Talk by Alice Kaplan, Yale University

Albert Camus's "L'Etranger" has been best-seller for so long, we forget it was ever anything else. But literary classics are made, not born: though "The Stranger" was a book very few readers understood or appreciated when it was published in 1942, it became a household name — a regular on lists of the great books of the 20th century. Alice Kaplan delved into publishers' archives to uncover a a key episode in "L'Etranger's" career: the first translation of the French novel into English, in the United States and in England, four years after its publication — in 1946, when the war in Europe had been over for only a year. This is a tale of two cities, involving an author, his publishers, his translator, and his readers and reviewers.

Co-sponsored by the Mandel Center for the Humanities and the Department of Romance Studies

December 5, 2016

A lunch talk with Professor Shaul Bassi, Associate Professor of English Literature at Ca' Foscari University in Venice, Italy and Director of Beit Venezia — A Home for Jewish Culture. 

Co-sponsored by the Mandel Center for the Humanities and the Italian Studies program

November 16, 2016

Film #2: Corpo Celeste

Opening remarks from Professor Servino, Professor Monteleone and the Italian Studies Undergraduate Departmental Representatives. 

Presented by the Italian Studies Program and the Italian Consulate of Boston

November 3, 2016

A lecture by Fred Kuwornu, an African Italian film maker and activist. He will be presenting his last video "Blaxploitalian 100 Years of Blackness in Italian Cinema."

Co-sponsored by the Italian Studies Program, the Department of African and Afro-American Studies, and the Department of Romance Studies. A Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program sponsored by the Dean of Arts and Sciences and Provost.

October 5, 2016

Relations between religions and the French State (in French)

Speaker: Béatrice de Gasquet

Co-sponsored by French and Francophone Studies and the International and Global Studies Program

September 27, 2016

Speaker: Professor John Slater, UC Davis

Sponsored by Hispanic Studies, Department of Romance Studies, Mandel Center for the Humanities, and the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences

September 15, 2016

A Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program sponsored by the Dean of Arts and Sciences and Provost. Co-sponsored by all Humanities departments, the Mandel Center for the Humanities.

May 2, 2016

Co-sponsored by the American Studies Program, CAST Minor, Creative Writing Program, Department of English, Department of Politics, Department of Romance Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies Program, Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts, with the support of the Gordon Center for American Politics and Policy. 

April 14, 2016

Professor Paloma Duong, Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies, MIT, will discuss youth culture and digital media in Cuba.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Romance Studies and the Latin American and Latino Studies Program

March 9, 2016

With actress and drama instructor Chiara Durazzini

February 29, 2016

Join the French Business & Lifestyle Club for a night of superb entertainment, featuring performances from your fellow students, as well as from special guest stand-up comedians Michael Sehn & Marina Rollman!

February 10, 2016

Sponsored by the Italian Consulate of Boston

November 30, 2015

Yoshua Okón, Artist Talk

Yoshua Okón is a Mexican artist whose videos blur the lines between documentary, reality, and fiction, creating sociological examinations that ask viewers to contemplate uncomfortable situations and circumstances.

November 17, 2015

Sponsored by the Italian Consulate of Boston

October 13, 2015

Sponsored by Latin American and Latino Studies