News-Draft

APR 7, 2017

Italian Ph.D. graduate student, Caitlin Schaer, was recently interviewed about the Cinetica Italiana film series on WORT.  You can listen to the full interview here.

 MAR 7, 2017

FRIT faculty and programs featured in recent Badger Herald article that discusses the benefits of non-native vs. native foreign langauge instructors.

 

JAN 11, 2017

• Congratulations to Lauren Goodspeed who is the recipient of a 2017 Campus-Wide TA Award for Innovation in Teaching. Thank you for your contributions to the French program at UW-Madison, Lauren, and kudos on this well deserved recognition!

 

DEC 14, 2016

• Congratulations to undergraduate Italian student Harrison Glazier who was recently awarded a Ciao! Scholarship to study abroad in Italy next semester! Harrison will study at the Bocconi Institute in Milan and is working towards a certificate in Italian and a major in Business.

 

DEC 7, 2016

• Congratulations to French graduate student Sarah Forzley whose article titled, “Silence and movement in Malika Mokeddem’s L’Interdite” will be published in the journal Chimères! The electronic version will be available here on December 12!

 

NOV 22, 2016

• Together, FRIT faculty, staff, and students collected 132 food items and 55 articles of winter clothing! All items will be donated to local charities. Sincere thanks to everyone who participated!

 

NOV 2016

• The FRIT Climate Committee is sponsoring a new charity initiative called FRIT Gives Back. Help us collect non-perishable foodstuffs and winter clothing through Monday, Nov. 21. More info.

 

OCT 20, 2016

• Interested in studying abroad in Italy next semester? There is a NEW $1,000 CIAO scholarship available. Apply by November 15, 2016!

 

OCT 11, 2016

• New Study Abroad Program in Rabat, Morocco! Apply by January 27 for summer program. Check it out here!

 

AUG 25, 2016

• FRIT is hiring Student Office Assistants for fall. Apply here. 

 

AUG 25, 2016

• ‘Bilinguals are More Attractive, Say 71% of Americans.’ Read the CNN article here.

 

AUG 16, 2016

• ALUMNI CONVERSATIONS: Douglas Lechner, Department of Defense Education Activity. Class of 2012. Read the interview here. 

 

AUG 1, 2016

• ALUMNI CONVERSATIONS: Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist, Class of ’95. Read the interview here.

 

JULY 25, 2016

• JOB OPPORTUNITY: the Department of Defense Educational Activitiy is seekingtwo French immersion teachers to work at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe NATO Base, American Elementary School near Mons, Belgium. More information. 

MAY 5, 2016

• On April 27, Sara Mattavelli, Ph.D. Candidate in Italian, was inducted as a Future Faculty Partner of the UW-Madison Teaching Academy in recognition of commitment to excellence in teaching and learning and deep interest in higher education.

 

APRIL 22, 2016

• Congratulations to Swetha Saseedhar an undergraduate major in French who has just been awarded a 2016-17 Wisconsin Idea Fellowship! Click here to read our interview with her.
• The UW-Madison Department of French and Italian would like to congratulate Professor Aliko Songolo, who was recently chosen for the 2015 Culture for Service Award at Goshen College. This award is given annually, and honors alumni who have made lifelong commitments to service in their local communities and beyond.
  Songolo, a 1968 graduate of Goshen College, was recognized both for his professional achievements, and his work with populations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For along with his dedication to the promotion of African literature, Professor Songolo has generously shared his time and talents with organizations such as Congo Progress, the Central Africa Initiative, and the Congo Basin Forest Partnership.
  Please help us congratulate Professor Songolo for this outstanding accomplishment. For more information, visit Goshen College’s website.
• We would also like to congratulate Professor Aliko Songolo, who recently received the African Literature Association’s 2016 Distinguished Member Award during the organization’s national conference in Atlanta. The award was given in recognition of Professor Songolo’s numerous contributions to the field, including his outstanding dedication to teaching and scholarship over the course of his career. Additionally, Professor Songolo has supported the organization in many capacities, and has served twice as its President.
  Along with celebrating Professor Songolo’s achievements, this year’s ALA conference featured contributions from a number of UW-Madison French alumni. Subha Xavier served as was instrumental in the organization of the conference, which also included two panels honoring Professor Songolo, chaired by Alessandra Benedicty. Joining them were panelists Molly Kreuger Enz, Christian Flaugh, Sage Goellner, Scott Lyngaas, and Trésor Simon Yoassi, all of whom completed their doctoral work at UW-Madison.
  Please join us in thanking Professor Songolo for his ongoing commitment to the promotion of Francophone African literatures.
• On Friday, April 15th, Québecois filmmaker Christian Laurence visited UW for the PFMP’s annual déjeuner du printemps, where he screened his short documentary, Du Hockey Propre : La petite histoire d’un film culte.

 

APRIL 8, 2016

• Nevine EL Nossery has published an article entitled “The Fictionalization of History in Maissa Bey’s Entendez-vous dans les montagnes” in The Journal of North African Studies 21.2, 2016.

 

MAR 4, 2016

• On February 12th, Dennis Looney (Professor in the Department of French and Italian Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh) completed his visit to UW-Madison with a lecture on Dante in African-American Culture.
• On February 24th, Prof. Jelena Todorovic, Prof. Heather Willis-Allen & Lauren Goodspeed, and Redouane Khamar presented their latest research at the monthly Department Research Seminar. This new tradition, established only last Fall, has quickly made a positive impact on the collegial research culture here in the Department of French & Italian at UW-Madison.

 

DEC 18, 2015

• Ph.D. student Caitlin Yocco-Locasio has been working on a book chapter for an edited volume that will be published in Spring 2016. Her chapter is called “Trash that Connects: The Everyday Rhizome of Cédric Klapisch’s Paris” and the volume is titled Sustainability and the City: Urban Poetics and Politics. The book will be published by Rowan & Littlefield Publishers’ Lexington Books division as part of their Ecocritical Theory and Practice Series.
• Professor Ullrich Langer has published a book entitled Lyric in the Renaissance : From Petrarch to Montaigne (Cambridge University Press) ; he has also published two articles : one entitled “Moral Admonishment, Amorous Conflict : How to Avoid Severing the Connection” in the NASSCFL and another, entitled “Le départ de Cassandre, l’orgueil de Ronsard et la mort de Laure” in Méthode.

 

11/27/2015

• Professors Florence Vatan and Anne Vila are working on a special issue of L’Esprit Créateur entitled “l’Esprit (dé)réglé: Literature, Science, and the Life of the Mind in France, 1700-1900.”
• Assistant Professor Jennifer Gipson won the Nineteenth-Century French Studies’ Larry Schehr memorial award  for the best junior faculty essay on November 7, 2015. Her essay is entitled “The Newspaper vs. the Storyteller: Phantasms of Orality and the Quarrel of the roman-feuilleton.”
• Ph.D. student Ryan Schroth has an article coming out in March 2016 in The French Review, entitled “Le Sacrifice de l’écrivain homosexuel: Entretien avec Abdellah Taïa.” He recently taught “The African Storyteller Online” for the Department of African Languages and Literatures. Ryan also serves as a peer counselor for the Outreach LGBTQ Community Center and also is one of their Board of Directors.

 

11/06/2015

• On November 6th, Prof. Philippe Desan (University of Chicago) presented a talk on Montaigne at the French House entitled “Montaigne : un parcours politique et littéraire”.

 

11/04/2015

• Undergraduate leaders in our French program have launched a new Undergraduate Student Advisory Board, otherwise known as ‘The French Ambassadors.’  This ‘French club of the new millenium’ is focused on deepening engagement between our undergrads and department faculty, staff and alumni, with a special interest in networking, career planning and innovation in French Studies.  Their next meeting highlights students studying French and STEM fields, who will lead discussion about how to integrate French into their study of those fields.  Faculty mentors Gilles Bousquet (Department Chair) and Andrew Irving (Director, French House) advise the group.
• Assistant Professor Joshua Armstrong is working on a book tentatively titled Globally Positioned Prose: Planetary Occupations, Place and Contemporary French Literature. The book explores how contemporary French experimental literature attempts to forge meaningful relationships with local geographies in an age of accelerated globalization.
• Dr. Ritt Deitz (Director, Professional French Masters Program) has founded the First Annual Wisconsin Round Table on French and Francophone Studies, which brought professors of French from college and university campuses across Wisconsin to Madison on October 16, to discuss current issues in French studies and in the profession. Presenters at the first Round Table included Assistant Professors Vlad Dima (UW-Madison) and Virginie Cassidy (UW-La Crosse).
• Assistant Professor Vlad Dima’s first book, Sonic Space in Djibril-Diop Mambety’s Films, is forthcoming in 2016 with the University of Indiana Press. He is currently working on a second book project, titled The Beautiful Skin: Clothes, Soccer and Fantasy in West African Cinema, 1964-2014. In line with his many academic interests, Vlad is extremely excited to begin offering a new, large enrollment course in translation next semester: “Life after Life: Ghosts, Vampires, and Zombies in French Pop Art.”

 

Fall 2015

• The Department of French and Italian is very excited to introduce its new Undergraduate Certificate in Italian! Interested undergraduates can take 15 credits of intermediate and advanced Italian coursework in order to qualify. Seven qualifying courses will be available in Fall 2015.