News & Events Archive

News

Prof. Emiro Martínez-Osorio has published an article on Colonial Latin American literature:

"Imitación o Subversión?" La representación de heroínas indígenas en las Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias." Cuadernos de Literatura. Vol. 14 – Núm. 28 / Julio - Diciembre de 2010.

For information about this article: www.javeriana.edu.co/revistas/Facultad/literatura/cuadernos/

Welcome Professor Emiro Martínez-Osorio who joined the Spanish Program in July 2011

We are happy to announce that Dr. Emiro Martínez-Osorio became the newest faculty member of the Spanish and Portuguese Studies Section at the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics on July 1, 2011. We welcome such an amicable person and an outstanding scholar and educator in colonial/pre-modern Hispanic literature and Spanish language and culture.

Dr. Emiro Martínez-Osorio received his PhD in Colonial Spanish American Literature from the University of Texas at Austin (2009), for which he wrote a thesis was entitled "The Poetics of Demonization: The Writings of Juan de Castellanos in the light of Alonso de Ercilla's La Araucana." He earned an MA in Spanish Literature from the University of Georgia in 1993 and a BA in Philosophy and Religion from Piedmont College. His publications cover such literary topics as seventeenth-century colonial Spanish-American literature and its contacts with Portugal and contemporary Colombian literature.

Since 2009, Dr. Emiro Martínez-Osorio has been an Assistant Professor at Sewanee: the University of the South, in Tennessee, where he has taught literature and language courses, such as a survey course in Latin American culture and civilization; an Introduction to Latin American Literature; a course on the Latin American Novel; an Introduction to Hispanic Literature; beginning, intermediate and advanced Spanish; and Accelerated First year Spanish; and Medieval Spanish Literature. You can view his current profile at: http://spanish.sewanee.edu/facstaff/martinez-osorio/

Prof. María Figueredo has published an article on the Canto Popular Uruguayo

"Canto de madre": la revuelta femenina a flor de piel en el Canto Popular Uruguayo del dúo Washington Carrasco y Cristina Fernández". Cuadernos de Música, Artes Visuales y Artes Escénicas. Vol. 6 - Núm. 1 / Enero - Junio de 2011: 53 - 64.

The article may be downloaded.

Entre Voc/zes is now accepting submissions for its 5th Edition - deadline: Dec. 5

Deadline: Dec. 5 at 4pm

It is a call to embrace your roots and "reach for the stars". It is a year to both be nspired, and to inspire others. The goal for our 5th years' theme is to motivate those who will someday follow in our footsteps, as those before us have done.

Raíces al cielo/Raízes ao céu, calls upon each one of us to remain grounded in our origins, while breaking free of the shackles of limitation and achieving success.

* The submitted art piece that best describes our theme will be chosen as the cover.

**All work MUST BE submitted IN PORTUGUESE a/o SPANISH with an autobiography, {Poetry (max. 30 verses), Stories and essays (max. 2 pages single space)} at entrevoces@gmail.com. Assistant provided if needed.

New Spanish Courses

The Spanish program has two new courses!

AP/SP 4000 6.0 - Advanced Spanish Grammar & Composition
This course is a great option for students looking to increase their knowledge of Spanish grammar and to perfect their writing skills in a variety of registers, both invaluable skills for those considering related professional development or graduate studies (first offered Summer 2010; next time to be offered: TBA).

AP/SP 4810 3.0 - Otherness in Spanish Literature & Film
In this new course to be offered by Prof. Shanna Lino, students will begin with a theoretical study of Otherness in order to then examine how Spanish identity has been formed in opposition to Others (religious, ethnic, linguistic, regional, etc) through the analysis of a variety of literary and filmic texts from the Middle Ages to the 21st century (to be offered Winter 2011).

Entre Voces Magazine 4th Edition - Deadline for Submissions Jan. 14, 2011

Click for Call for Submissions

Prof. Michol Hoffman's new book on Salvadorian Spanish in Toronto

Salvadorian Spanish in Toronto (Munich: Lincom, 2010) offers an investigation of linguistic and social constraints on three variables (syllable- and word-final (s), syllable-initial (s) and word-final (n) in the Spanish of Salvadorian youth living in Toronto, Canada. Both final (s) and final (n) have been investigated extensively in many varieties of Spanish. However, most of these analyses have focused on Caribbean varieties. This study presents a multivariate analysis of (s) and (n) in Salvadorian Spanish, a lesser-studied variety. Furthermore, these speakers are members of Toronto's diverse Spanish-speaking population, represented by many regional and social varieties in an English-dominant context.

For more information on Lincom.

Recently, Prof. Hoffman's work on the relationship between linguistic variation and ethnic identity in Toronto English, a project that is co-research with Prof. James Walker, also of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics at York University has been covered in local media.

For an article published in the National Post on how distinctive speech forms identity, click here.

Prof. Hoffman's and Prof. Walker's interview with Mary Ito on CBC One's Fresh Air.

Dr. Alejandro Martínez's new book: Realismo, representación y realidad

Realismo, representación y realidad (Madrid: Pliegos, 2009) explores the problems of knowledge and relative truth, issues which are inseparable for understanding realism. The book deals also with the values of realism from the point of view of modernism and with the different trends in contemporary, literary and philosophical criticism, and its stands vis-à-vis the current crisis of knowledge. It also provides insights into the possibility of exploring new ways of writing and reading realism.

The book is available to download.

Events

April 4 & 5, 2012: Find out if you qualify for a Certificate of Proficiency in the Spanish Language!

Oral tests for the Certificate of Proficiency in Spanish will be administered only on Wednesday, April 4, 10:00-1:00 and Thursday, April 5, 1:00 –4:00, in Ross South 538. Each candidate is tested individually, and the test lasts approximately 20 minutes.

Candidates for the Certificate must first complete as soon as possible an application form, available at the DLLL office (Ross South 561). Then please contact Kasia Mastek, the Undergraduate Program Assistant (kmastek@yorku.ca 416-736-2100 Ext. 88719), to book your time for the oral proficiency test. Appointments will be booked on a first come, first served, basis.

March 19 - April 6 ::: Advising Period

The schedule for the advising period (from Monday March 19 to Friday April 6, 2012) for the section of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, is as follows:

Spanish and Portuguese Studies:

Professor Maria Joao Dodman: Mondays from 10:30 to 12:30.

Spanish:

Professor Maria Figueredo: Tuesdays, 12:30-1:30pm.

Professor Shanna Lino: Mondays 1-2pm, Tuesdays 3-4pm and Wednesdays 2-3pm.

Professor Emiro Martinez-Osorio: Thursdays from 10:00 to 1:00.

To book an appointment, please contact Bessie Andreopoulos, Faculty Secretary at the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, Ross S561.
Tel: 416 736-5016
Email: bessiea@yorku.ca

Tuesday, March 13: Omen, Punishment or Path to Revolution? Earthquakes in the Mexican Cultural Imaginary

Berenice Villagómez, Coordinator of Latin American Studies, University of Toronto

Time: 5:30-7pm
Location: 305 Founders College, Senior Common Room

Synopsis

This lecture will explore the conceptualization of natural disasters, particularly earthquakes, in the cultural imaginary of Mexico. Drawing from theoretical approaches to trauma and solidarity, it will focus on how natural disasters have been interpreted as pivotal points in the construction of a national community or strategically denied a role in the history of the development of a strong civic society. The lecture will consider examples ranging from the pre-Columbian communities of central Mexico to the earthquake that nearly destroyed Mexico City in 1985.

Biography

Berenice Villagómez is the Coordinator for the Latin American Studies program at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on Mexican literature of the 20th century, and has explored issues of memory, trauma and history in Latin American economic and ecologic disaster narratives. She is currently completing two projects: Mexico en sus Revoluciones, a co-edited volume on the commemoration of the Mexican Bicentennial celebrations and a monograph on the literature derived from the Mexico City earthquake in 1985. Her edition of a previously unpublished manuscript by distinguished Dominican writer Pedro Henríquez Ureña, México o el hermano definidor, (in collaboration with Néstor Rodríguez) is forthcoming this Spring from El Colegio de México.

Wednesday March 7, 5:30pm - Entre Voc/zes Literary Magazine Launch

Created by and for York University students, the fifth edition of Entre Voc/zes Literary Magazine, which can mean "between voices" or "among voices", will launch in Founders College Assembly Hall, Keele campus on March 7, 2012 at 5:30pm. The evening will include live readings of some of the original works, dynamic musical performances, an exhibit of the original artwork and a small reception.

Entre Voc/zes, a trilingual magazine, publishes original works of poetry, prose and visual art that were either inspired by the Hispanophone and Lusophone worlds or were composed originally in Spanish or Portuguese and also translated into English. The magazine is a student-run public forum that provides a safe place for York students and alumni to present and discuss their original work in order to stimulate their own and the York community's participation in higher learning through co-curricular interaction. For its fifth edition, the magazine chose as its theme, "Raízes ao Céu / Raíces al cielo". We hope that you'll join us for a very entertaining and rewarding cultural evening. For more info, click here.

Tues. Nov. 22, 5:30-7:00pm ::: Entre Voc/zes - Tertulia de Chocolate

Join us for a conversation about literature and enjoy hot drinks and treats

Date: Nov 22, 2011
Time: 5:30 - 7:00pm
Location: DLLL Lounge (in front of Ross South 592)

Thurs. Nov. 17, 2011 ::: Study abroad - Info Session

Info Session.

Study abroad in a Spanish-speaking country while earning credits toward your degree!

Date: Nov. 17, 2011
Time: 1-2:30pm
Location: South 562 Ross

Friday Nov 4, 2011 ::: Spanish Lecture Series - Romance cotidiano: History, Presence and Interpretation of Boleros in Mexico.

Dr. Gustavo Martín, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Synopsis:
This talk encompasses a general review of the history of bolero in Mexico from the 19th Century to the present day. It comprises various readings of the significance of bolero in the daily lives of Mexicans and considers the melodic qualities of bolero songs as well as the various ways in which they have been interpreted in that country.

Biography:
Mexican cellist Gustavo Martín is a chamber musician and educator. He has played in the main Mexican concert halls, as well as in auditoriums in the United States, Canada, Germany, Bulgaria, Italy and Japan. Among his ten albums that focus on Mexican concert repertoire, are Canto de Estío, comprising music for cello, guitar and piano, and Muy cerca, with music for cello from Mexico and Brazil. He has also recorded Mexican music for string quartet (with the String Quartet of Mexico City) for Deutsche Welle (Germany), is member of Croma ensemble, and has played with members of La Fontegara. He was a founding member of the Coghlan string trio and Ensamble Acústico Arcana.

Gustavo Martín studied at the National School of Music (UNAM) with Enrique Marmissolle and Ignacio Mariscal. He completed his postgraduate studies at the Carnegie Mellon University with Anne Martindale-Williams and David Premo. He obtained his PhD in interpretation from the UNAM with a research focused on Mexican music from the 20th Century for cello and piano.

Gustavo Martín has composed scores for two plays and his catalogue of compositions includes works for various chamber ensembles and vocal productions. In 2005, he was granted the National University Award for Young Academicians (DUNJA) in Arts Teaching. He is exclusive artist of Urtext Digital Classics and is full-time career professor at the National School of Music, UNAM, teaching cello and chamber music.

For more information on the Spanish Lecture Series contact Shanna Lino at slino@yorku.ca

October 18, 2011 - Entre Voc/zes Pizza Night

Revista Literaria Entre Voc/zes invites you to Pizza Night

Come to find out more about:

Who we are?
What we do?
How to join us?

Date: Tuesday October 18
Time: 5:30pm
Location: SC218

Mexican Cultural Attaché Explains Mexican Scholarships Available for Students - Sept. 20 at 4pm

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico offers 15 scholarships, in more than 70 universities, in around 30 cities, for study or research at the master's, doctoral or postdoctoral level in almost all fields. For more details, attend an information session on Tuesday, September 20 at 4:00pm in SC 302. For further details, click here.

Take an advanced literature course during the Summer - Spanish Prose of the Golden Age

AP/SP 4350 - Spanish Prose of the Golden Age

For the first time, the Spanish Program will be offering an advanced literature course during the Summer Session in order to allow students to progress more quickly through their programs and/or to ensure that all degree requirements can be met in a timely fashion before graduation.

Professor Ellen Anderson's course covers important aspects of Spain's intellectual life during the Golden Age. While most of the texts to be read are works of literature, some are expository works which reflect religious, philosophical and political ideas of the period. Prerequisite: AP/SP 2200 6.00. Course credit exclusion: AP/HUMA 4151 3.00. PRIOR TO FALL 2009: Prerequisite: AS/SP 2200 6.00. Course credit exclusions: AS/HUMA 4151 3.00, AS/SP 4350 6.00.

Interview dates for Spanish Proficiency Certificate: April 6 and 12, 2011

For those interested in attaining a Spanish Proficiency Certificate, interviews will be conducted:

April 6: 11:00am-1:00pm (Ross Building South, 562)
April 12: 11:00am-1:00pm (Ross Building South, 538)

Applications for the Certificate must first be filled out in the Main Office of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics (open Mon-Fri, 8:30am-3:30pm) by Fri., April 1, 2011. Upon completion of the Certificate Application, students will be contacted in order to book their exact interview time.

Before applying, please ascertain that you have completed the necessary prerequisites.

March 14 to Friday, April 1 -- Advising Period for Students in the Spanish Program

To make an appointment, please contact Marina Smeriglio, Faculty Secretary at:

416-736-5016
smerigli@yorku.ca
Ross South 561 (office open 8:30am-3:30pm)

The following professors in the Spanish Program are available for advising.

Professor Ellen Anderson (Ross South 503):
Mondays: 1-2pm
Wednesdays: 1-2pm

Professor María Figueredo (Ross South 575):
Tuesdays: 11am-12pm
Wednesdays: 1-3pm

Professor Michol Hoffman (Ross South 504):
Wednesdays: 12:30-1:30pm
Thursdays: 12:30-1:30pm

Professor Shanna Lino (Ross South 505A):
Mondays: 1-2pm
Wednesdays 3-4pm

March 28 - "Humberto Ak'abal and New Indigenous Literature in Guatemala"

by Dr. Rita Palacios (California State U.)

Spanish Lecture Series:

"From Resistance to Nation Building: Humberto Ak'abal and New Indigenous Literature in Guatemala".

Synopsis:

In recent years, Guatemala, like other Latin American countries, has witnessed the emergence of Indigenous cultural movements like never before. This has been accompanied by the production of a new literature, written by and for Indigenous people in an effort to re-articulate Mayanness, re-write history, and promote active participation in the Guatemalan nation project.

Contemporary Maya poet Humberto Ak'abal produces a uniquely Maya literature that contests dominant ladino culture and advances the Maya cultural project by locating his poetry outside of the Western canon and drawing from Maya culture, language, and oral tradition.

Biography:

Dr. Rita Palacios's work examines the production of a contemporary Indigenous literature in Guatemala. Currently she is working on a book manuscript entitled Indigenousness and the Re-construction of the Other in Contemporary Guatemalan Indigenous Literature.

The project deals specifically with the negotiation of Maya ethnicity as a paradoxical mark of Guatemalan identity, as seen through literary and cultural texts written by contemporary Indigenous authors in an effort to articulate a cultural project that is clearly discernible from dominant mestizo narratives. This research (as well as much of her subsequent work) is framed by a postcolonial feminist literary criticism in which intersections of gender, race, ethnicity and class can be accommodated.

March 16 - Entre Voczes Literary Magazine Launch

Created by and for York University students, the fourth edition of Entre Voc/zes Literary Magazine, which can mean "between voices" or "among voices", will launch in Founders College Assembly Hall, Keele campus. The evening will include live readings of some of the original works, dynamic musical performances, an exhibit of the original artwork and a small reception.

Entre Voc/zes, a trilingual magazine, publishes original works of poetry, prose and visual art that were either inspired by the Hispanophone and Lusophone worlds or were composed originally in Spanish or Portuguese and also translated into English. The magazine is a student-run public forum that provides a safe place for York students and alumni to present and discuss their original work in order to stimulate their own and the York community's participation in higher learning through co-curricular interaction. For its fourth edition, the magazine chose as its theme, "new arms and letters". A new take on the early-modern Iberian concept of the ideal man, who brandished his sword as well as his quill, the theme invited artists to consider the potential of both to resolve conflict in our contemporary world. The result is a 50-page magazine filled with creative literary texts and images that interpret conflict and its solutions in a multitude of ways.

More info

Feb 15 - "Rethinking the Historiography of Argentinean Popular Music"

by Illa Carrillo Rodríguez

Spanish Lecture Series

From: 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Location: 303 Founders College
Contact: Shanna Lino

The ideas of "complicity" and "resistance" have played a crucial role in the retrospective ethical and aesthetic valuation of cultural responses to Argentina's last military dictatorship (1976-1983). The specific question of popular musicians' resistance to, or collaboration with, the military authorities is one that pervades academic and journalistic accounts of the political and social functions of Argentinean popular music in those years.

While my work draws on the information and debates put forth in this literature, it endeavors to complicate and move beyond the ethical terms that articulate these debates. Such an approach seeks to prise the cultural and political history of Argentinean popular music from the grip of an epic of resistance and, in doing so, to enlarge the scope of analysis to include cultural practices and objects that have been largely ignored in the field of popular music studies, either for their perceived aesthetic uncouthness or for their political complicity (presumed or real) with the dictatorship.

Biography:

Illa Carrillo Rodríguez is a PhD candidate at the Doctoral School of Plastic Arts, Aesthetics and Art Sciences of the University of Paris 1 (France).

She has done research on the political and cultural history of Argentina's "New Song" and "National Rock" movements. Her most recent essay on Mercedes Sosa's recorded work and performance personae was published in Argentina.

Illa's research also focuses on processes of heritage production in popular music and on embodied forms of performance that have had a crucial function in the enactment of cultural and political memory in contemporary Argentina. Her research interests include scholarship on the discursive genealogy of the fields of folklore and popular culture and its role in the articulation of national, regional, and generational identities in the Americas.

Jan 28 - "En medio del invierno está templada/el agua dulce desta clara fuente"

Authority and Imitation in sixteenth century Spanish Imperial Epics

Time: 5:30 - 6:30pm
Location: Ross Building S 562

The Spanish Program in the Department of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies welcome you to a lecture by Dr. Martínez-Osorio (U. Texas)

Jan 26, 2011 - Xul Solar, a Poetics of Inclusion

Dr. Mario Boido, University of Waterloo

Spanish Lecture Series

From: 1 - 2:30pm
Location: 305 Founders College (Senior Common Room)
Contact: Shanna Lino

Over the course of the last two decades Argentine avant-garde artist Xul Solar (1887-1963) has become a paradigmatic figure in Latin American art. In this presentation I will examine the artist's relationship to pre-Columbian cultural and artistic traditions as well as his sophisticated use of verbal representation in his paintings to outline a poetics of inclusion that drives his artistic vision of universal communion.

Through the productive incorporation of the figure of Kukulkán, the mythical creator of the Maya calendar, and the foundational Nahua myth of Nanahuatzin, which tells the story of the creation of the Fifth Sun and the world we currently live on, I will show how Xul Solar rethinks the notion of Latin American art to give the previously excluded Mesoamerican tradition a central place in Latin American Art History.

I will then situate this notion within the framework of word/image interaction in the artist's work to better understand his multidisciplinary, multicultural creative paradigm. This will make it possible to appreciate how Xul Solar brings together a vast array of knowledge drawn from the most diverse sources, filters them through language and pours them into visual representation to give shape to an artistic project of radical inclusivity.

Biography:

Mario Boido obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and is currently Associate Chair, Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Waterloo.

He has published articles on word and image studies and the Latin American Avant-Garde movements. Dr. Boido is currently undertaking a study of how fiction-through literature and visual arts- is helping to shape Argentina's historical memory of the genocide committed during the country's Dirty War (1976-1983).

Nov 15, 2010 -- Entre Voces Pizza Night

Mexico in its Revolutions - International Conference - Sept 30 - Oct 2, 2010

More than 30 renowned scholars from six different countries will meet at Glendon College of York University and at the University of Toronto to discuss issues related to Mexico's social, cultural, historical, and aesthetic revolutionary movements and practices from the 16th century to the present. This trilingual conference (Spanish, English, French) will be an interdisciplinary venue for reflection on those "Mexican revolutions" taking place at the margins of the nation's dominant narratives and which, even if anonymous and lacking heroes or glory, have confronted the Mexican status quo and its power structures in one way or another: aesthetic and artistic revolutions, social revolutions, urban revolutions, racial, sexual and gender revolutions, as well as revolutions waiting to happen and still to come.

Prof. María Figueredo will be contributing to this conference and will present on Friday, October 1, from 16:35 to 18:15. Prof. Figueredo's presentation is titled "Revueltas: poesía y cuerpo en performance vital de Frida Kahlo a Nadia Prado" and will be delivered in Glendon Hall's Ballroom as part of a panel titled "Representaciones: de lo verbal a lo visual." Students, scholars and members of the general public are welcome to attend.

For further details and the complete conference program, please visit: www.mexicoensusrevoluciones.ca