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Dear Friends of CMLLC:

I t’s a pleasure to be writing to all of you again. You’ll find a lot of good news about faculty and students who are being recognized for their work, both teaching and scholarship.

We also have had the good fortune to welcome five new faculty members this year, Assistant Professors Alina Cherry (French), Felecia Lucht (German), and Abderrahman Zouhir (Arabic), as well as Lecturers Lakhdar Choudar (Arabic) and Max Goldman (Classics). There is also, alas, less good news as well—the resignation of Spanish Professor Helene Weldt-Basson, who has taken a new position at Michigan State, and the retirement of

French Professor Don Spinelli. We wish them both well.

CMLLC is closer to being a single department than it was a year ago. More policies are in place, as is a committee structure which recognizes both the unity of the entire department and the individuality of the eight areas.

One of the ways in which we balance the whole and its parts is in my annual reminder to you that we have many needs that are not met by the budget allocated

to us by the University. Some of these needs are department-wide and others are more local. We are grateful to everyone who contributes to CMLLC and its sub-areas; we use the funds to support students through scholarships and cultural events we could not otherwise afford, and to support faculty travel and both research and special teaching needs. Within the newsletter (p. 11) is a contribution form and information on how to learn about our various endowments and other funds which are supported by our alumni and friends.

So, again, welcome to the Newsletter and please do keep in touch! We are including alumni news this year for the first time and look forward to expanding that section of the newsletter. I can be reached at [email protected] or through the CMLLC office at 313 577-3002 – I’d love to hear from you! n

a publication of the WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OFCLASSICAL AND MODERN LANGUAGES , L ITERATURES , AND CULTURES

and THE COLLEGE OF L IBERAL ARTS & SC IENCES

Fall 2010www.clas .wayne.edu/ languages

What’s inside…

Welcome from the Chair

World Talk

Wayne State University Board of Governors

Richard Bernstein, chair; Tina Abbott, vice-chair; Debbie Dingell, Eugene Driker, Diane L. Dunaskiss, Paul E. Massaron, Annetta Miller, Gary S. Pollard, Allan Gilmour, ex officio

Abderrahman Zouhir

Margaret.Winters

Very sincerely,Margaret E. Winters, Professor and Chair

2 Slavic News

4 Italian News

6 Higuero Publishes Book

8 Higgins Awarded University Research Grant

10 Student Receives Schindler Scholarship

WS-7109 CMLLC Newsletter.indd 1 9/17/10 4:12 PM

This past year the Slavic community and friends participated in a variety of events combining the efforts of the Slavic faculty, the Slavic Club and a newly formed Slavic Learning Community. In September, the Slavic Club had a booth at WSU’s 39th Annual Global Festival where, as a fundraiser, they sold Polish food donated by the Polish Village Café of Hamtramck. In October, the Slavic Learning Community and the Slavic Club hosted pizza parties prior to the screening of the movies “Little Moscow” and “Perestroika.” These films, together with a Polish documentary “Generation ’89,” were part of a team-taught course, “Cinematic Reflections of Communism and Its Aftermath,” led by Professor Lisa Hock, to acknowledge the significance of the year 1989 for Europe and the world. The next event, organized by the Slavic faculty, was a juried art and poster competition, “REVOLUTIONS OF 1989,” which explored the 20th anniversary of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. After the competition, visitors mingled at the exhibit in the Adamany Library and viewed the participating entries.

The Slavic Learning Community also sponsored visits to the University of Michigan to attend a speech by former Polish President Kwasniewski and to attend the Copernicus Lecture in October. With the advent of the holiday season, students

conducted a successful clothing and toy drive for orphanages in Russia and Poland, and celebrated Wigilia, a Polish Christmas Eve dinner at the Under the Eagle Restaurant in Hamtramck. Later in February, students were introduced to “Maslenitsa” (Russian “Butter Week”) at a blini (Russian pancake) workshop. Two new Polish films (“Bull Rush” and “How Much does the Trojan Horse Weigh?”) were shown in February and March as part of the Foreign Language Technology Center Film Nights. Also in March, a large group of Slavic Learning Community students attended a performance of Chekhov’s play “Uncle Vanya” by the St. Petersburg Maly Theater in Ann Arbor. The Slavic program also hosted its annual Pysanky/Pisanki Egg-Decorating Workshop, which brought together participants of all ages to enjoy this classic art form.

The activities of the 2010 winter semester ended with a Russian card party (“Durak”) and dinner at the Russian restaurant The Fiddler in April. In May, a group of WSU students left for a two-week long study abroad program in Poland. This program, now in its fifth year, offers short trips to neighboring Germany and Slovakia, and has become a mini-tour of Central Europe.

Photos from some of the events can be viewed online at http://www.clas.wayne.edu/slavic/ and clicking on “Photo Album.” n

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World Talk

By Ruchi Naresh

WSU’s Foreign Language Technology Center (FLTC) provides instructional technology resources for faculty and students in the Department of Classical

and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (CMLLC) and the English Language Institute (ELI). These resources include computer labs, multimedia equipment, a digital language lab, an editing suite, a recording studio and satellite television.

Sangeetha Gopalakrishnan, FLTC Director, explains, “We also provide a variety of services to faculty. For example, we put audio material and video material online for faculty. A lot of materials that go with the course textbooks are online. So that is very different from what it was 15 years ago.” With a course management system like Blackboard, faculty are now able to create an entire course online.

Although the center has grown over the years and the number of people using the resources has increased, there is still only a part of the faculty population that integrates technology in teaching. Gopalakrishnan says that “it’s not the technology that drives the use, it’s the pedagogy that drives the use. The instructor is the one that decides if he or she wants students to experience a more student-centered learning environment. Emerging technologies greatly facilitate the creation of such

learning environments.” Sandra Hobbs, CMLLC assistant professor and recipient of

the President’s Award for Teaching Excellence, is an active user of FLTC services and has noticed a positive difference in her teaching and in student outcomes. Hobbs spoke about utilizing MP3 files within blackboard, which are created by students to improve their French pronunciations. She said, “Now, instead of having only two and a half hours a week to speak French with each other, we can exchange files over the Internet and thereby increase the amount of exposure to the language.”

The graphics and multimedia materials used for Hobbs’ culture classes have improved the learning experience. During a class on Quebec culture, Hobbs referred to the importance of a hockey player. She showed video clips of his game and footage of the riots that occurred during his suspension. “It makes it more emotionally compelling to see the human factor rather than just reading about it on a page,” Hobbs observed.

The relationship between the FLTC and CMLLC has provided many benefits for faculty and students. Gopalakrishnan says that “a lot of this technology is allowing students to learn anywhere, any place, at any time. Students like having the flexibility and it enables them to engage with the content more often. It also allows them to take greater ownership of their learning.” n

Technology Supports Language and Culture

Slavic News


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World Talk

In March 2010 the Department of Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures hosted the annual spring meeting, workshop, and awards luncheon of the

Michigan Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG). More than 30 Michigan high school teachers of German came to Manoogian Hall for a workshop about “Active and Interactive Learning in the Language

Class” conducted by Professor Robert DiDonato from Miami University of Ohio. Professor DiDonato is co-author with Monica Clyde and Jacqueline Vansant of the popular college textbook Deutsch: Na Klar! an Introductory German Course and Fokus Deutsch: An Introduction to German Language and Culture, a 36-episode German language course for college and high school classrooms and adult learners. This year’s workshop again was followed by an AATG Awards Luncheon at the Towers cafeteria for teachers, students and their parents. With nearly 100 people in attendance, winners of the AATG National German Exam were announced and prizes awarded. 25 students were recognized for their outstanding achievement in German language studies at Clarkston Junior High School, Detroit Country Day School, Grosse Pointe North High School, Grosse Pointe South High School, International Academy of Macomb, Northville High School and Troy High School. The annual workshop for high school teachers of German is made possible by the Uwe K. Faulhaber Endowment for Applied German Studies. n

Faulhaber Workshop Draws High School Teachers & Students to WSU

High school students who participated in Faulhaber Workshop

By Ruchi Naresh In the past year, hundreds of Wayne State students have participated in Study Abroad programs and had life-changing experiences. Kelli Dixon, director of the Study Abroad program, said, “Whether students are interested in a cultural experience that will reframe the way they see the world, improve their language skills, or simply earn credits toward a degree outside of the classroom, students can find a program that will fit their needs.”

The Office of Study Abroad and Global Programs has been at Wayne State University for seven years. Beginning with a handful of programs, it now offers more than 35 programs to its students. As the summer approaches, the office enters into its busiest time,

with two-thirds of study abroad students traveling in a variety of programs to Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas.

With support from CMLLC, Dixon is particularly pleased to reintroduce two programs that will allow students to study Arabic language and culture in the Middle East and North Africa. An agreement with the American University in Cairo and the Lebanese American University in Lebanon will support the endeavor. “It’s been almost ten years since we’ve had a program like this, and students are very excited about this opportunity,” Dixon said.

Study trips to China and Japan present a unique set of opportunities for study abroad participants. Students may spend up to two weeks with host families in

China and Japan, visiting various cities and regions while becoming immersed in contemporary language and culture.

“The trip to Xalapa, Mexico” said Dixon, “provides a once-in-a lifetime experience to study Spanish, while at the same time enjoying a cultural immersion, improving language skills and knowledge about Latin American culture.” This year the study abroad program is also offering home stay, faculty-led and semester programs in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Russia, Belize, Brazil and the United Kingdom among other countries.

Dixon hopes that these programs continue to support personal, academic and professional goals for language students and assist them in becoming global citizens. n

Travel and Learn with Study Abroad Programs


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World Talk

By Yelena SukhoterinaFrench Professor Michael J. Giordano’s The Art of Meditation and the French Renaissance Love Lyric was published in February by University of Toronto Press. This 1056-page book is a complete examination of 16th century French poet Maurice Scève’s most famous work, Délie, objet

de plus haute vertu. Délie is a collection of 449 love poems dedicated to one lover.

Délie’s poems not only portray the relationship between two people, but connect them to the philosophy of love itself. Giordano finds Délie similar to Christian meditation. He reasons

that, written at a time when science was overshadowing faith and religion, Scève’s love poems were actually a way to debate human values.

Richard Sieburth in the Department of French at New York University has called Giordano’s book “the single most important monograph on Scève to have appeared in several generations...After this book, Scève will not be read in quite the same way again.”

Previously, Giordano wrote an article on Délie titled Scève’s Délie: The Imprese, Mythological Periphrasis and the Style of the Individual Dizain. It was published in 1996 in Emblematica: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies. A year earlier Giordano published an article that analyzed the poetry of another 16th century French writer, Joachim du Bellay. He also wrote an article on French writer Noel du Fail for the Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. n

Giordano Publishes Landmark Work

By Holly Dentico

T he Italian Program kicked off the 2009-2010 academic year with a celebration of the Week of the Italian Language. The program enjoyed a theatrical performance

of Luigi Pirandello’s Il berretto a sonagli in December, and welcomed the Italian Film Festival USA back to the Detroit metro area at the end of April and beginning of May.

The Week of the Italian Language is a worldwide event promoted since 2001 by the Italian Foreign Ministry in collaboration with the Accademia della Crusca. It entails an exploration of Italian language and culture by way of a theme which the Ministry chooses each year. The theme of the Ninth Annual “Settimana della Lingua” was Italian creativity in the arts, sciences and technology. At WSU, Laura Fabbri Schneider organized a full-day conference dedicated to the topic, featuring presentations on Pythagoras, Archimedes of Syracuse, the Italian language, and Professor Raffaele De Benedictis’ lecture on Italy’s maritime republics. The Dante Alighieri Society, in collaboration with the COMITES and the NOI Foundation, also organized events for the Week of the Italian Language, and one of these took place at Wayne State. Internationally-acclaimed sculptor Sergio De Giusti, whose work adorns the Italian Heritage Room in the General Lectures building, discussed the influence of Italian art on Detroit and the United States. Musician Pino Marelli performed at the end of the presentation.

At the end of the fall semester, Tonino Corsetti’s advanced Italian class performed a play by Luigi Pirandello, Il berretto a sonagli. The outstanding performance featured actors Nora Jarbou, Nicolina Taylor, Stefano Tremonti, Elisa Gatliff, Holly Dentico and Carl Scott, as well as a special appearance by Corsetti. The group delighted the crowd with their lively interpretation of Pirandello’s comic play.

The Italian Film Festival USA returned to the Detroit metro area this year and featured an expanded program and new screening locations. Wayne State, the University of Michigan, and the Detroit Film Theatre continued to host screenings, and Macomb Community College and Henry Ford Community College also became festival locations. This year’s festival was held April 29 through May 9, with an opening night screening of Giuseppe Tornatore’s Sicilian epic Baarìa held at the DFT. The closing night featured the film Marcello Marcello at the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts.

The Italian program also hosted an awards ceremony recognizing outstanding Italian students and volunteers. The Italian program was sad to say farewell to Laura Fabbri Schneider, who moved from the Detroit area in December. Her work as the Italian language program coordinator was outstanding. Laura’s energy, enthusiasm, and creativity are missed by her colleagues, and her extraordinary teaching is missed by the students. n

Italian News


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World Talk

In May 2006, Candy Beutell Gardner received her PhD in Modern Languages (German, French and

Spanish) from Wayne State University. Her dissertation, Infinite Optimism: Friedrich J. Bertuch’s Pioneering Translation (1775-77) of Don Quixote, addressed Bertuch’s seminal 1775 translation, which was the first relatively complete German rendition based solely on the original Spanish text. Her work examined various aspects of Bertuch’s effort to cross the divide between Spanish and German cultures, including how he foreignized and domesticated elements like names, money, foods, measurements,

exclamations, and customs. Her work also addressed the novel’s religious references, profanities and vulgarities, as well as Cervantes’s unique sentence structure and abundant use of present participles.

Since defending her dissertation, Gardner has continued to be involved in the academic world, teaching German at WSU and English in China. She also presented her dissertation at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association conference in Calgary and at the Northeast Modern Language Association conference in Boston. Also, she has written articles for an encyclopedia of folk and fairy tales edited by Professor

Donald Haase. In January of this year, her dissertation was published by VDM, a German publishing house. Says Gardner: “I will be forever grateful to the professors in our department—for the guidance, support, and encouragement they offered me. They were instrumental in every success I achieved.”

In 2009, Dr. Gardner and her husband completed the endowment of the Candace Beutel Gardner Endowed Scholarship Fund, designed to assist graduate students majoring in German, French, or Spanish. The first scholarship was awarded this year to Mandata Gjata, a graduate student in French. n

Alumna Candy Beutell Gardner Defends Dissertation, Endows Scholarship

Professor Jose Rico-Ferrer gave a talk in March at the Humanities Center. “Poetic Friendships: The Case of Boscán & Garcilaso” was an early draft of a presentation he gave to the Kentucky Foreign Languages Conference in Lexington, KY on April 15. Boscán’s and Garcilaso’s literary productions take the form of various collaborations, such as

Garcilaso’s help with Boscán’s translation to Castilian in 1534 of The Book of the Courtier, by Baldassare Castiglione. This was followed by Boscán’s self-published edition of his poems in 1543, together “with some of Garcilaso’s works,” as the title reads. This presentation focuses on the role played by their constant friendship in their literary activity. By

analyzing the use of certain elements on filia in their writings, a more precise understanding of the dynamics of their friendship can be reached. In fact, their relationship has a “writerly” character manifested through multiple poematic references and their mutual literary collaboration. n

Rico-Ferrer Gives Talk on Poetic Friendships

CMLLC’s Michele Valerie Ronnick poses with Peter J. Hammer, Director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights, after delivering her invited lecture, “Black Classicists, Black

Lawyers and Some Detroit Connections,” at the Spencer M. Patrich Auditorium at Wayne State University’s Law School on April 13, 2010. n

Ronnick Delivers Invited Lecture

Photo by M.J. Murawka


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World Talk

L eisa Kauffmann, Assistant Professor-Spanish, has been awarded a University Research Grant for 2010. Kauffmann’s grant will support work on sections

of her book project comparing two Nahua histories of the pre-Hispanic past written after the Spanish conquest. While the Annals of Cuauhtitlan is usually considered more traditionally Nahua than the Historia de la nacion chichimeca, because it is written in Nahuatl in a traditional pre-conquest format, her analysis steps back from a comparison of authenticity to examine what the works share in common as histories written by the conquered rather than the conquerors. By looking at the texts’renditions of events, and their presentations of Nahua and Christian views of the origin of the universe and of calendar time, she shows how the histories reflect their colonial context. Although very different from one another,

both works take full advantage of both Christian and Nahua rhetorical traditions, using them purposefully to resist colonial viewpoints and to preserve a memory of aspects of the Nahua cultural heritage (including the writing of history itself) threatened by the colonial system. n

Leisa Kauffmann Awarded University Research Grant

As has been the case in previous books written by Francisco Javier Higuero, Narrativa Del Siglo Posmoderno: De Valle Inclán a Susana Fortes (Madrid:

Ediciones del Orto, 2009) reveals a profound thematic content, enriched

with postmodern approaches toward existential problems, conflicts and situations expressed in most of the relevant novels published in Spain during the 20th Century. The stories narrated in these novels are presented from different phenomenological perspectives and show signs of the postmodern condition, as explained in the philosophical production of Jean-François Lyotard. One of the main characteristics of such a condition is the

abandonment of temporal dimensions related not only to the past but also to the future. Both dimensions are overcome and the consequence of this tragic abandonment favors the consideration of a temporal present, identified with the only empirical reality that could be verified in accordance to actions and events portrayed critically throughout the critical discourse of Narrativa Del Siglo Posmoderno. n

Higuero Publishes Book

Basma El-Bathy, a Graduate Teaching Assistant and Phi Beta Kappa recipient, recently presented a paper, “Reform in the Name of God: the Ideal Woman as Constructed in Egyptian Religious TV Show,” at the 2010 World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies in Barcelona, Spain. Her study analyzed the impact of the interaction between the interpretation

of the Islamic shari’s laws and the role of the contemporary popular media on young Egyptians’ religious attitudes and understandings in regard to women’s rights and potential. El-Bathy was also a participant in the recent NMELRC Arabic Teacher Training Workshop at the University of Texas (Austin). n

Basma El-Bathy Presents Paper


Guy Stern, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, has authored a book titled Arno Reinfrank which appears in the series “Judische Miniaturen,” ed. Hermann

Simon (Berlin: Hentrich und Hentrich, 2009). The late Arno Reinfrank was a personal friend of Professor Stern, and

an anomaly among exile writers. The son of a Jewish father, a Holocaust victim, Reinfrank lived in hiding with his mother in the southern part of Germany. Shortly after the war he left Germany and settled in England. He became first known as a poet who used scientific discoveries and phenomena as the material for his lyrics, publishing numerous poems under the umbrella title of “Poesie der Fakten.”

Having written of Reinfrank in earlier articles, Stern devotes his book to a further study of his lyrics, his preoccupation with Jewish tradition,

and the persecution of Jews. Reinfrank, despite leaving Germany, returned time and again, both in his lyrics and prose, to his left-behind homeland. He also interspersed his lyrics frequently with Yiddish expressions and paid tribute to Jewish authors, past and contemporary. Reviews of the book have been favorable.

Professor Stern was recently elected Vice President of the Kurt Weill Foundation and selected as Honorary Chairman of the Archiv Bibliographa Judaica at the University of Frankfurt. n

Eedith Covensky has published two new poetic volumes that blur the boundaries between the poetic form and life. Also Job was a Paradox and Pentagram – Selected

Poems are written in Hebrew and translated into English by Eduard and Susan Codish with the poet’s collaboration.

In Also Job was a Paradox, Covensky uniquely pairs Biblical imagery, the aesthetics of modern European and Israeli poetry, postmodern concepts and aspects of her own life. These elements are shaped in ways that suggest the match between text and experience is nearly impossible. The collection also draws on the poet’s discovery of

images of language in nature, a prevalent theme in her work.Pentagram: Selected Poems references both the five books

included and the five thematic poles seen in Covensky’s work. The five themes of love, solitude, night, longing and the speaker’s quest to define herself are woven throughout the pages. These themes are developed in imagined worlds built upon contradictions and coexisting opposites.

Pentagram contains poems from Variations on a Theme of Albert Camus (2006), Black Rain (2007), True Love (2007), Testimony (2008) and Sea Breeze-Corona Sonnets (2008).

Covensky teaches Hebrew language, literature and Israeli Studies. She has received many honors for her work including the International Poet of Merit award in 1996 and the Editor’s Choice Poet medallion by the International Library of Poetry in 2009. n

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World Talk

Professor Hans-Peter Soder, resident director of the Junior Year in Munich program, has published a book, That Way Madness Lies: Max Nordau on Fin-de-Siècle Genius (High Wycombe: Rivendale Press UK, 2009), about Max Nordau’s critique of modernism. Professor Soder holds a PhD in German Intellectual History from Cornell University. In addition to articles on German romanticism, Nietzsche, Heidegger and postmodernity, Soder has recently explored the impact of globalism on

national literatures in “From Space to Place: The Spatial Turn within the Global Age” (2010), and “The Politics of Memory: History, Biography, and the (Re)-Emergence of Generational Literature in Germany” (2009). Professor Soder is a member of the executive board of The International Society for the Study of European Ideas, and a founding member of The European Network for the Study of Globalization. n

Professor Hans-Peter Soder, J.Y.M. Director

Guy Stern Authors Book on German Exile

Hebrew Poet Publishes Two New Collections


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World Talk

Annie C. Higgins, Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, has been awarded a University Research Grant for 2010. The research her grant is supporting is titled “Tell the Women at the Battlefields: Women and War” and comprises a key chapter of her book project, Exchange and Identity: From Kharijites to Shurat in Early Islam. “Today we tend to think of the Muslim world in patriarchal terms

principally defined by the Sunni-Shia dichotomy. In reality, gender and faith have played far more complex roles since the earliest days of Islamic history,” says Higgins.

The Kharijites, or “Those who exit” as they have been named by those victorious over them and subsequent historians, are

presented as having seceded from the mainstream Muslim polity in the seventh and eighth centuries A.D. However, their self-appellation as Shurat, or “Exchangers” of their mortal selves, challenges this sectarian identification. They derived their name from a Quranic verse which speaks of giving one’s life to please God. The women’s poems engage this commitment and its consequences in battle, with expressions ranging from solidarity to grief to questioning women’s roles in supporting war. Shurat poetry is virtually unknown among western scholars, and rarely approached even in the Arab academic world. Higgins’ work will bring poetry by and for women from the margins of Arabic literary sources in order to reframe our conceptions of women’s roles in shaping cultural expression and social criticism in early Muslim communities. When published, this will be the first study in any language to focus on the poetic oeuvre of this group of women and to use their self-appellation, “Shurat.” n

Annie Higgins Awarded University Research Grant

Professor Raffaele De Benedictis has published an essay on Dante’s Epistola a Can Grande and the allegory of the Divine Comedy that

will appear in the fall issue of Quanderni d’Italianistica, Vol. XXXI,

No.1, 2010. De Benedictis provides a re-assessment of the allegorical topic, original in its kind, which attempts to shed light on Dante’s modes of sign production (modi faciendi signa) and modes of signification (modi significandi) in the Divine Comedy by using the semiotic approach. The main aspect of his essay is that Dante’s allegory is neither entirely in verbis (allegory of poets) nor entirely in factis (allegory of theologians) but

both. According to this new critical position, he challenges previous Dante scholarship and demonstrates how even the allegory of theologians pioneered by Charles Singleton from a semiotic standpoint follows the same signifying process of the allegory in verbis. Also, his approach pursues a type of hermeneutics based on “signifying wholes” aimed at defining the fluid nature of discourse and its semiotic problematization. n

De Benedictis Publishes Essay on Dante

J. Harold Ellens has spent his entire professional career on the interface of the sciences of Psychology and Ancient Classical Studies. The author of 179 volumes and 167

professional journal articles, his most recent publications include three volumes titled respectively The Healing Power of Spirituality, How Faith Helps Humans Thrive (2010); Miracles: God, Science, and Psychology in the Paranormal (2009); and the following single volume publications: Probing the Frontiers

of Biblical Studies (2009); The Son of Man in the Gospel of John (2010); This I Believe (Really?), Honest Faith for Our Time (2010); and The Paranormal as Friend and Familiar (2010).

Ellens has taught classics and humanities at Wayne State University for sixteen years. Now retired, he continues his service to WSU by teaching part-time and conducting scholarly research. He is married, the father of seven children, and a former Presbyterian pastor and U.S. Army Colonel. n

Ellens Publishes Faith Volumes


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World Talk

In October 2009, Professor Roslyn Abt Schindler, the

only child of survivors, self-published a memoir titled (Re)vision of a Life: My Mother’s Holocaust Story. It is, in her words, “among all my scholarly publications to date, the most important and meaningful writing I have done.” The memoir involved a decade of research and writing and a lifetime of memories, experiences, and

reflections. The book follows Goldie Seidner Abt’s life from her childhood and young adulthood in Hamburg, Germany, to her imprisonment in a forced labor camp in Poland (Zbaszyn), to her miraculous departure from Germany in December 1939, to her life in the United States until her death at age 93 on December 21, 2004. Interspersed throughout the text are photographs of family members and places (including Zbaszyn), documents (e.g., birth and marriage certificates, diploma, naturalization papers, passports, etc.), and postwar visits to Germany. Schindler writes: “This memoir is as much about love and tribute as it is about the quest to preserve individual and collective memory. But if it contributes to the latter, if it adds one more unique story to the landscape, then I am happy and grateful. I know that my mother would be.”

Professor Schindler has received many wonderful responses to the memoir so far. Among them are the following (quoted with permission of the authors):

“I had known nothing of the Nazis rounding up Polish Jews in Germany in the late 30’s and shipping them back—or trying to ship them back—to Poland. I also had no idea of the work of Ringelblum other than as the historian of the ghetto. Congratulations on this lovely tribute to your mother.” (Deborah Tannen, University Professor and Professor of Linguistics, Georgetown University)

“Bravo on a splendid and outstanding achievement. The book is a moving tribute to both your parents, particularly, of course, to your mother, and a significant contribution to Holocaust memoirs. You . . . are to be congratulated for having crafted an elegantly written and handsomely designed volume. The book is a beautiful and compelling achievement, lovingly written, and straight from the heart.” (Martin Herman, Professor Emeritus of Humanities, Wayne State University)

“It’s a very engaging book, gemmed with intelligent, insightful, and touching comments. I like the way you connect your mother’s past in Germany, Poland, and America with your life, your late husband’s, your children’s, and your relatives. You told a story or many stories from another perspective of the gut-wrenching atrocities of the Holocaust, a topic touched upon by many, many survivors and their descendants, i.e. from how a survivor lived her life afterwards with great courage, appreciation, elegance, and humor, though haunted by nightmares, regrets, and nostalgia. Maybe that’s why the book is called (Re)vision. This way, we could understand the power of your mother’s life better, from its influence on you and on your beloved ones. I particularly liked the last chapter in which you reflect at the end about your mother saying the ‘Shema’ before her death.” (Haiyong Liu, Assistant Professor of Chinese Linguistics, Chinese Coordinator and Adviser, Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Wayne State University) n

Professor Schindler Writes Her Mother’s Story

Assistant Professor of Francophone and Quebec studies Sandra Hobbs has been awarded the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award is given annually in recognition of superior teaching at Wayne State

University. Associated honors included $2,500 and a citation presented at the Wayne State University Academic Recognition Ceremony held on April 27, 2010.

Professor Hobbs’ research interests

include the intersections between Quebec literature and postcolonial theory, literary resistance in the 1960s, and contemporary immigrant writing in Quebec. n

Sandra Hobbs Wins Excellence in Teaching Award


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World Talk

Since August 2009, Elisabel Vega-Argueta (BA Asian Studies ’09, BFA Art ’05) has been living her dream. Vega-Argueta is participating in the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. After going through a rigorous selection process, she was chosen to go to Fukuoka Prefecture as a Senior High School Assistant Language Teacher. At the school, she designs and delivers innovative lesson plans for oral communications courses. She also helps with English debate, and assists with oral communication classes for children and adults at a nearby school for the blind.

According to her mentor, Professor Isamu Fukuchi, Vega-Argueta’s

involvement with JET combines all aspects of her education and previous work history. “Since this is the only public high school in the prefecture with a fine arts course,” Fukuchi says, “Elisabel’s training in fine arts has been a vehicle for engagement with students.” After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Elisabel devoted two years to full-time community service in the flagship AmeriCorps program “City Year,” mentoring and tutoring young people. The AmeriCorps scholarship she earned allowed her to return to college. “I always felt like I had left something undone,” she said. “I studied Japanese for three years but did not have a degree to show for it.

I was really happy when Asian Studies became a degree-granting program and I was able to finish what I had started. Thanks to the Asian Studies program, my transition to life in Japan has been smooth.”

Elisabel has been keeping a blog that details her time spent with JET. It can be found at http://luckyhill.wordpress.com. When asked about her blog’s name, she explained: “One possible translation for ‘Fukuoka’ is ‘Lucky Hill.’ I created the blog before moving to Japan, so I was just being funny, but I’m glad it turned out to be true. Given how everything I’ve done up to this point has helped me on this new adventure, I feel very lucky.” n

Asian Studies Graduate in Japan Exchange and Teaching Program

Mishchanyn Receives DAAD Study Scholarship

G erman MA student Halyna Mishchanyn has received a prestigious Study Scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to spend a year

in Berlin. She will use her stipend to study at the Institute for Social Sciences at Humboldt University and conduct research on German immigration policy and the integration of high-skilled workers into the German labor market. Her research, which will call on her training in German Studies and economics and her language skills (she speaks Ukrainian, Russian, English, and German fluently), will include coursework, research at a number of archives, and interviews with immigrant workers.

Mishchanyn has been honored before. After a year on the Wayne State University Junior Year in Munich program in 2007-2008, she graduated Summa Cum Laude from Wayne State University in 2009 with dual degrees in economics and German.

In the summer of 2009, Mishchanyn headed to Berlin as the sole North American recipient of a DAAD Internship at the German parliament. With the support of a Graduate Teaching Assistantship, Mishchanyn returned to Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in the fall of 2009 to pursue an MA in German. The students in her beginning German classes and the professors of the graduate courses she is taking all sing her praises, and all wish her well in her coming year in Germany. n

Yelena Sukhoterina has been selected as the 2010 recipient of the Marvin S. Schindler Endowed Scholarship. Sukhoterina, who is pursuing studies in journalisn and German, is a resident of Rochester Hills, MI. The scholarship is in memory of WSU

Professor Marvin S. Schindler, former German professor (1974-94), Chair of Romance and Germanic Languages and Literatures (1974-83), and Director of the Junior Year in Germany Programs (1975-1993, then including Freiburg and Munich). n

German Student Sukhoterina Receives Schindler Scholarship


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T he 8th Annual Classical and Modern Languages Graduate Student Conference was held in the Romanian and French rooms of Manoogian Hall on April 3. The

theme, “Carnival: Merriment, Mayhem and Masquerade,” opened the door for scholarly works that ranged from Rabelais to Caribbean Linguistics to Theater. In addition to participants from Wayne State, presenters came from Eastern Michigan University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Johns Hopkins University. The guest speaker was Professor Tom Conley, Abbot Lawrence Lowell Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Conley’s talk, “An Errant

Eye: Poetry and Topography in the French Renaissance,” was thought-provoking, as he described the process of reading poetry as being like that of reading a map. Each “reading” is a movement from literal to the symbolic. Professor Conley was also generous in offering encouragement and support to the aspiring academics and writers in attendance. With guidance from Professors Kate Paesani and Anne Dugan, the graduate student steering committee (composed of Roxana Zuniga, Katherine Briske Eyda Vaughn, Jaclyn Dudek, Beth Chapman, Julie Koehler, Erin Matusiewicz, Sara Wiercinski, and Sarah Coulson) hosted an exciting and successful event. n

8th Annual Graduate Student Conference a Success

Roxana Guadalupe Zuniga has been awarded the Thomas C. Rumble University Graduate Fellowship for the 2010-11 academic year. Zuniga,

a graduate student in Spanish, is planning to use the award to complete her doctoral dissertation, “Literary representations and interpretations of

La matanza.” Ms. Zuniga’a dissertation advisor is Victor Figueroa, Associate Professor in Spanish. n

Graduate Student Receives Rumble Fellowship

Maria Ramos, doctoral student in Spanish, has received the Edwin Wise Dissertation Fellowship for 2010-11 through the Humanities Center. “She is one of the best researchers in the Spanish area,” according to Professor Francisco Higuero, who

sits on her dissertation committee. Ramos’ study will focus on the Mexican narrative. The Wise Fellowship is awarded in memory of Professor Edwin Wise of the WSU Law School. n

Doctoral Student Maria Ramos Receives Wise Fellowship


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