Department Archives: Modern Languages and Literatures

Paul Giordano conducted a seminar on “Italian Immigrant Writing in the United States” at the University of Calabria, Italy, in October 2014. This seminar was part of a graduate literature course that focused on the writings of Italian emigrants living outside of Italy. Giordano’s contribution to the seminar dealt with works of prose and poetry […]

Mónica Cruz, a student in the Department of Modern Languages, wins the "Iris N. Spencer Poetry Awards". Among winners, she is the only one from the state of Florida. Mónica’s poem “Raíces” was published in The Early Years, West Chester, PA: Story Line Press, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-9785997-5-1. A significant fact is that Mónica’s poem was […]

While some UCF students prepare for Halloween festivities, UCF Spanish professors conjured up their own version of a traditional Mexican celebration usually honored after the spooky holiday. The Dìa de los Muertos festival returned to Colbourn Hall for its second year Wednesday, Oct. 29, and was sponsored by the UCF Modern Languages and Literatures department. […]

Alla Kourova recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of State. The award, worth nearly $100,000, is part of the US-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program. Kourova’s project is called “Getting Closer: A Cross-Cultural U.S.-Russian Project Focusing on Teaching Foreign Languages to U.S. Students and Blind/Visually Impaired Students in Russia.” The Peer-to-Peer program expands direct contracts […]

On August 1, 2014, Keith Folse delivered the Opening Plenary at the 9th Annual Summer Teachers’ Conference in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. He also led a workshop on teaching English as a foreign language. Folse’s trip was sponsored by the Instituto Guatemalteco Americano with support from the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala.

Alla Kourova was invited to speak at a number of prestigious institutions in Russia and the U.S. this summer. She conducted a workshop at Moscow State University based on her current monograph. She also led a seminar at Russia’s largest publishing house and was keynote speaker during a roundtable discussion at the University of Finance […]

“Traces of History”, a project involving Francisco J. Fernández-Rubiera, received a $1.1 million grant from the Research Council of Norway. The project, led by Christine Meklenborg Salvesen of the University of Oslo, will investigate why certain traits in a language remain unchanged for centuries while others disappear. The researchers will focus on the development of […]

Alla Kourova is the winner of multiple faculty awards this spring. Most recently, she was honored for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at both the college and university level. Kourova received the 2014 University Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award. Previously, she was one of four college-level winners from the Arts & Humanities. UCF’s Office of Academic […]

Paolo Giordano, Neil E. Euliano Distinguished Professor of Italian and Italian American Studies, was invited to a conference/workshop at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center titled “Transcending Borders, Bridging Gaps: Italian Americana, Diasporic Studies, and the University Curriculum.” Eighteen professors of different disciplines, nine from the United States and nine from Italy, participated. The event was […]

During the fall semester, students in Yilaisa Seijas’s Spanish 1120 and 1121 courses created holiday cards in Spanish to send to women and men serving abroad. Custom greeting cards were mailed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations. Seijas’s students were recognized by the president and co-founder of For the Troops, an organization that sends care […]