Zakaria Fatih, modern languages, linguistics and intercultural communication, has been selected to the editorial staff of the French Review, the journal of the American Association of Teachers of French. After serving two years as the Assistant Editor, he has been promoted to the position of Review Editor (section: Culture and Society). The French Review “has the largest circulation of any scholarly journal of French and Francophone studies in the world.”

Fatih also recently published an article titled: “The Aesthetics of Fragmentation, or a Way to Read El Maleh” in Expressions maghrébines: Revue de la Coordination Internationale des Chercheurs sur les Littératures Maghrébines. The article is an attempt to read analytically the complex fiction of Jewish Moroccan author Edmond Amran El Maleh, who is also referred to as the James Joyce of Morocco

Associate Professor Denis Provencher interviewed Eric Fassin discussing his lead essay from the special issue of Contemporary French Civilization on Marriage Equality in France (Vol 39.3 (2014)). “Interview with Eric Fassin: Au-delà du mariage/Marriage Equality in France.”  H-France Forum, Dec. 2014.

On November 2, 2014, Associate Professor Elaine Rusinko received the John Mihalasky Humanitarian Award from the Carpatho-Rusyn Society. According to its description, “The Mihalasky Award honors those who have dedicated themselves to the cause of Rusyn culture, heritage, and humanitarian aid.”

Ana María Schwartz Caballero, Associate Professor of Spanish and Second Language Education, was honored with the 2014 NFL Hispanic Heritage Leadership Award at the September 28th Ravens versus Carolina Panthers game at M&T Bank Stadium (September 28, 2014). For more information, click here.

Denis M. Provencher co-organized the international symposium, Queer Québec, as part of the biennial American Council of Québec Studies (ACQS) in Montreal, Canada in October 2014. He and co-organizer Dr. Charles Batson (Union College), will guest edit two special issues of the journal Québec Studies (Liverpool UP), on the symposium’s theme, which will appear in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Dr. Provencher also published a new article: “Stepping Back from Queer Theory: Ethnography, Language, and Sexuality in French Cultural Studies.”/French Cultural Studies/ 25.3/4 (2014): 408-417. This essay is part of the 25th-anniversary special issue of the journal French Cultural Studies on the state of the field and Dr. Provencher’s essay is featured in the last section, which points to future directions in the field.

Dr. Provencher received $1,500 from The Graduate School at UMBC Mini-Grant Program, to organize a series of cohort-based writing workshops for the students enrolled in the M.A. in Intercultural Communication. The workshops will address writing an M.A. scholarly paper, writing in the discipline, and resume & cover letter development and will be held in February 2015.

On December 7, the UMBC Russian Club presented an evening of Russian song, cuisine, and fashion to promote cross-cultural understanding and to look beyond recent news headlines of strained diplomacy between the United States and Russia. The event was held in the University Center Ballroom, with support from the Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication (MLLI) department, the Russian Embassy, and the Russian Center for Science and Culture.

The event received news coverage from Russia Beyond the Headlines and Voice of America (article in Russian). Russian instructor Vira Zhdanovych and Elena Volosina ’15, MLLI, brought the event to UMBC to bring awareness to Russian culture and were featured in the news coverage along with MLLI Associate Professor Steven Young.

“I believe that the real culture of a nation, you can’t learn by watching the news or only paying attention to politics, but by talking to real people, eating food, listening to music,” said Volosina, president of the UMBC Russian Club. “From this conversation comes a deeper cultural understanding. This is how you introduce your culture to outsiders.”

In Voice of America, Zhdanovych and Volosina expressed the hope that “they have been able to initiate a new tradition to strengthen the mutual understanding of peoples through culture and beauty(translation).”

Fashion designer Evgenia Luzhina-Salazar headlined the evening and presented a collection of her work. The event featured musical interludes from the UMBC Russian Chorus, the Lada Children’s Theater, singer Victoria Sukhareva and Russian composer and virtuoso guitarist Sergey Kirichenko.

The ballroom was filled with UMBC students, faculty, and staff, as well as many people from off-campus, including representatives from the Russian Embassy and Russian Center for Science and Culture.

To read “Maryland university highlights connection with Russia in cultural evening,” click here. To read the article in Voice of America, click here (article in Russian).

Note: Randianne Leyshon, the author of the Russia Beyond the Headlines article, graduated from UMBC in 2009 with a B.A. in MLLI, magna cum laude.

MLLI Associate Professor Sara Poggio, as the co-chair of the International Immigration Section of the Latin American Studies Association, will organize a pre-conference for the Latin American Studies Association Congress titled, “International Migration,” at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel in Chicago on Wednesday, May 21. This complete day event is sponsored by the Office of the Provost at UMBC. Additional information can be found here.

Denis Provencher, an associate professor of MLLI, gave the keynote address at an event series, “Rethinking Homosexuality in Islam”, organized by the College of Arts and
Science at Boston University on April 21. Provencher is currently finishing a new book based on language, sexuality, Islam, and Maghrebi cultures in France. He also participated as a speaker at an event organized by the University of Miami in April honoring the work of the Moroccan writer and filmmaker Abdellah Taďa.

Anna Shields, an associate professor of modern languages, linguistics and intercultural communication, is part of a three-person team that has been awarded a Henry Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) grant for a collaborative reading workshop in 2015.

Shields, along with two colleagues at Cornell University and the University at Albany, were co-organizers of the grant, which was submitted in November. They were awarded $10,000 for the reading workshop, at which they will be studying the historical development of what “literary competence” meant in the Tang dynasty, looking at historical and literary texts from the 7th-9th centuries. The goal will be to produce a set of articles that they can then publish in a single issue of a journal or perhaps as a stand-alone volume.

Three other colleagues from the University of Colorado, Indiana University and Beijing University will also participate, and the workshop will be held at Cornell University in June
2015.

Vivian Ekey ’11, political science and modern languages and linguistics, was recently chosen to be a Rangel Fellow.

The Rangel Graduate Fellowship is a program that aims to attract and prepare outstanding young people for careers in the Foreign Service in which they can help formulate, represent and implement U.S. foreign policy. Each year, the Rangel Program selects 20 outstanding Rangel Fellows in a highly competitive nationwide process and helps support them through two years of graduate study, internships and professional development activities, and entry into the Foreign Service.

Ekey will be earning an M.A in Latin American Studies and International Economics at the Johns Hopkins SAIS Bologna school.

Alex Onischuk ’07, modern languages and linguistics, was named the director of Texas Tech University’s chess program on July 30, according to an article in The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

The Ukraine-born grandmaster was captain of UMBC’s chess team, during a period in which the team won four consecutive national championships from 2002 to 2006. Texas Tech’s team are also champions, winning the President’s Cup for the second consecutive year this year.

Onischuk, currently ranked third in the country among chess players, released a statement saying, ““I am thrilled to be selected as head coach of the defending national collegiate championship chess team at Texas Tech, and I hope to use my national and international chess experience to help the Texas Tech chess team successfully defend its championship.”