“Genres of Anticolonialism” by Prof. Yogita Goyal

In her talk, Prof. Goyal argues against influential narratives of failed states and failed genres to rethink the valence of anticolonial visions of revolution amid the pervasive sense of crisis and collapse that attends our time. Yogita Goyal is Professor of African American Studies and English at UCLA and the author of Romance, Diaspora, and Black Atlantic Literature (2010) and Runaway Genres: The Global Afterlives of Slavery (2019), winner of the René Wellek and Perkins Prize. 

On Thursday, November 2 at 5:00pm in the Lauinger Library Murray Room.

“Destiny, Tradition, Choice” with Dr. Emily Wilson

On January 24, 2024 at 6pm in Gaston Hall, Georgetown will host a lecture by Emily Wilson of the University of Pennsylvania as part of the Thalia Potamianos Lecture Series sponsored by the Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. This will be the second of a three-lecture series entitled Myth, Magic, and Mystery of the Ancient Greeks: Exploring the Connections to Contemporary Culture. The subject of the Gaston Hall lecture will be “Destiny, Tradition, Choice”. All are welcome, but pre-registration will be required. For up-to-date information, please visit ascsa.edu.gr.

Wilson’s new English translation of the Iliad was published by W.W. Norton in early October.

Le festin des mots: un déjeuner-causerie avec Kim Thúy

Award-winning author Kim Thúy will give a talk in the Arrupe Multipurpose Room on November 17 from 1-2:30 pm.

Viktoria Tkaczyk presents “Shaping Tongues, Ears, and Brains: Disciplines of Language Planning around 1900”

Soundtracks: A New Global Perspective on Sound Studies is a series of lectures presented by the Georgetown University German Department, and organized by  Dr. Mary Helen Dupree.

The next lecture will be Friday, November 10, 2023 from 1-2pm in ICC 462. Viktoria Tkaczyk of Humboldt Universität, Berlin will present: Shaping Tongues, Ears, and Brains: Disciplines of Language Planning around 1900

“Radical Dante, Abolitionist Dante”

By Dr. Dennis Looney of the University of Pittsburgh, emeritus

On October 31st at 3:30 PM EST on Zoom.

Carrying the Lantern Through Difficult Times: Contemporary Artists Illuminating Dante’s Path

Professor Saiber will discuss the influence of Dante’s Alighieri’s Divine Comedy on the work of such artists as Kat Mustatea, Maru Ceballos, and Kasumasa Chiba.

Sponsored by Georgetown’s Ignatius Seminar and Global Medieval Studies Program.

On November 14th, 5pm, at Healy 104.

Ukraine in Twentieth-Century Russophone Russian Poetry

On Tuesday, November 15, Oleg Lekmanov, Visiting Researcher at Princeton University, will speak on “Ukraine in Twentieth-Century Russophone Russian Poetry” (in Russian) at 5:00 pm in ICC 462 (organized by Prof. Fedorova).

Susana Arins

On November 3rd, Galician Writer Susana Arins presents her work. Sponsored by the Spanish Embassy and SPPO. Held from 4-6pm in ICC 450.

Ahmed Naji

"Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison"

On November 14, 2023 at 5pm at Poulton 230.

“The War and the Fate of Ukraine’s Nadazov Greeks”

On November 16, at 6pm in Healy 103, the Modern Greek Program will host a lecture by Professor Tetiana Liubchenko, who will be making a presentation on Ukraine’s Nadazov Greeks entitled “The War and the Fate of Ukraine’s Nadazov Greeks”.

Classical Arabic Poetry Workshop

On November 16-17, 2023 from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM at Poulton 230.

Featuring academics and poets from Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, King Abdulaziz University, American University, and the University of Pennsylvania

"Continuities and Transformations: Practice and Performance in the Classical Arabic Poetic Tradition"

Arabic Poetry Workshop Keynote by Ali al-Nahhabi on "Continuities and Transformations: Practice and Performance in the Classical Arabic Poetic Tradition"

On November 16, 2023 at 5:00 PM.

Arabic Studies Social Circle

A biweekly event (every other Wednesday) for graduate students. 12:30 to 2pm Poulton 200.

A monthly event (first Tuesday of each month) for all Georgetown students and faculty. 2:30 to 3:30pm, Poulton 200.

Arabic Department Dessert Drop-In

Biweekly French coffee hour

The next coffee hour in the McCarthy Room (ICC 425, at 1pm) will be November 10.

Throughout the academic year:  a series of lectures on new research in Sound Studies

These events are organized by Prof.

Mary Helen Dupree.

"The 'Rhetorical Turn' in Islamic Intellectual History: Quranic and Hadith Commentary from the Mamluks to the Mughals"

Held on October 12, 2023 as part of the Islamic Studies Lecture Series.

Ayman Shihadeh: "Toleration and Skepticism: A Case from Premodern Islamic Thought"

Held on September 14, 2023 as part of the Islamic Studies Lecture Series.

A Conversation with Samanta Schweblin

A Conversation with Samanta Schweblin (Argentine Writer) and a Creative Writing Workshop was held on September 18-20.

Aula de Flamenco Class: History and Music

Held on October 4th.

“Todo lo que aprendimos de las películas”

Award-winning book presentation by María José Navia (SPPO PhD, 2016), Writer and Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Held on October 6th.

Professor Juan Ryusuke Ishikawa  on Japanese-Brazilian poetry

“Enraizando poesía:  Una breve trayectoria del haiku/haicai en Brasil”

The poetry that Professor Ishikawa discussed was shared in Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish versions.  The talk itself was primarily in Spanish but the subsequent conversation and Q&A may be in any combination of Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

Dr. Ishikawa is a Professor at California State University, Fullerton.  He is also a professional translator of literature from Spanish into Japanese.

Held on October 16th.

Brazil in Transition

The “Brazil in Transition” Conference was co-sponsored by: Center for Latin American Studies, Georgetown Americas Institute, Americas Forum, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Department of Government, Department of History, and Faculty of Languages and Linguistics.

Held from October 19-20.

“Writing Empire: Roman imperial space in the letters of Cicero”

Presented by Catherine Edwards, Professor of Classics & Ancient History

Birkbeck, University of London

Held on October 24th.

Le “Non” des femmes

How can humanities scholars productively contribute to public debates on current issues? With her recent book, Le “Non” des femmes (Paris, Le Seuil, 2022), Dr. Jennifer Tamas from Rutgers University (NJ) has received unusual attention outside academia; on Wednesday, Oct. 25, she shared her experience and perspectives in an interactive discussion with faculty members.

Paris is Not Dead

A discussion and a book signing with Cole Stangler, author of Paris is Not Dead: Surviving Hypergentrification in the City of Light (The New Press, 2023), occurred in October. This event was co-sponsored by the Department of French and Francophone Studies.

Dissent, Disagreement, and Difference: Understanding Conflict within German Studies

German Graduate Students hosted a research conference on October 21st, 2023.

"46k tasks and counting: Reconceptualizing exposure-track L2 Spanish in the US."

Presented by Indiana University Professor Laura Gurzynski-Weiss (SPPO PhD, 2010).  Co-hosted by  SPPO/LING Departments. Held on October 13th.

Quartiers Lointains

How can we best exist in societies that our both ours and yet other? How to best navigate institutions that are not always equipped to deal with the issues we face? How to find mystical or rational remedies to heal our wounds? These are questions that traverse the African diasporas. The transformations that exile, having to adapt to new cultures, sickness, or pain subject us to are often minimized and rarely represented on the screen. Captured in documentary, animation, and fiction short films, our seventh season shines a light on these

physical and psychic metamorphoses.

“Creating a Culture of Access” with Dr. Amy Kenny

The German Department sponsored a workshop for faculty and graduate

students of the FLL on “Creating a Culture of Access” with Dr. Amy Kenny on

September 29, 2023. More than 14% of Georgetown undergraduate students, 10% of Georgetown graduate students, and 26% of adults in the US identify as disabled. The workshop held on September 29, 2023, was designed for faculty and grad students who want to make their classroom and department more accessible and inclusive, and want practical guidance on how to do so. Together, we explored how to create a culture of access by discussing best practices and language about disability. Led by Dr. Amy Kenny of the Disability Cultural Initiative, this workshop moved beyond individual compliance and into curating a community where disabled students, peers, and colleagues can thrive.

“The Differences ‘Racial’ Intermarried History Makes for Understanding Hitler’s Rule” with Professor Nathan Stoltzfus

As part of a poster display and a thematic unit of the signature “Text in Context: Reading Germany”-course, the German Department welcomed Prof. Nathan Stoltzfus from Florida State University who presented on “The Differences ‘Racial’ Intermarried History Makes for Understanding Hitler’s Rule” on September 22, 2023.

The German Campus Week “Give Us Our Husbands Back” exhibition in ICC Galleria

The German Campus Week “Give Us Our Husbands Back” exhibition in ICC Galleria focused on the 1943 Rosenstraße protests when German women demanded that their Jewish husbands detained by the Nazis would be released. Dr. Stoltzfus’ talk investigated the significance of the history of ‘racial’ intermarriages for understanding Nazism in several ways, beginning with the everyday practice of defiance among non-Jewish partners he has interviewed. It explored whether the everyday defiance of intermarried Germans represents possibilities which were available to ‘ordinary Germans’ generally. It also considered whether any characteristics of Hitler’s rule of the Reich appear more clearly through the specific study of the history of intermarriages. Prof. Stoltzfus is Rintels Professor of Holocaust Studies at Florida State University and a co-founder of the Rosenstraße (Civil Courage) Foundation.

“’My Own Atlantis’ and Environmentalism in Russian Comics” with Professor José Alaniz

In October, the Department of Slavic Languages hosted a talk by Professor José Alaniz, Professor of Slavic Languages at Washington University, titled “’My Own Atlantis’ and

Environmentalism in Russian Comics” (organized by Prof. Gorski).

“Russian Culture Fights its Cooptation (the case of Nikolai Gogol)”

Professor Olga Meerson presented her research in a lecture titled “Russian Culture Fights its Cooptation (the case of Nikolai Gogol)” as part of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative “Faculty Work in Progress” on October 25 at 2:00 pm (ICC 462).

The Department of Italian Studies hosted the 10th edition of Premio Eccellenza Italiana

On October 14, 2023 the Department of Italian Studies hosted the 10th edition of Premio Eccellenza Italiana led by Prof. Massimo Lucidi, Fondazione E-Novation, and organized by Prof. Donatella Melucci.

This event celebrates the Italy of Merit and Talent, Stories of Resilience, of Sustainability but also of Courage, of Vision of Italians entrepreneurs and professionals around the world.

The Award Ceremony has been held in the official and institutional presence of the Italian Embassy (in fact, since the First Edition, the Prize has been sponsored and supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), while the Nominations have been held in different cities around the world (Miami, Paris, Montreal, Milan, Naples) and on dedicated days at institutional venues (Chamber of Deputies, Senate of the Republic, Hall of the Palace of Parliamentary Groups, Farnesina).

Monody in Euripides: Character and the Liberation of Form in Late Greek Tragedy

Claire Catenaccio’s Monody in Euripides: Character and the Liberation of Form in Late Greek Tragedy was published by Cambridge University Press. Claire spent the 2022-23 academic year on a leave with a non-residential fellowship from the Center for Hellenic Studies.

The Moralized Ovid

Justin Haynes’ The Moralized Ovid, which he edited and translated together with Frank T. Coulson of Ohio State, was published in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series.

Epigraphical Habit: The Epigraphic Cultures of Greece, Rome, and Beyond

Inscriptions and the Epigraphical Habit: The Epigraphic Cultures of Greece, Rome, and Beyond, co-edited by Catherine Keesling and

Rebecca Benefiel of Washington and Lee University (Brill). This volume was inspired by the Third North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy held on the Georgetown campus

in January 2020.

Touching Beauty: The Poetics of Kim Thúy

Milena Santoro and Jack Yeager, eds. Touching Beauty: The Poetics of Kim Thúy. McGill-Queen’s UP, 2023.

Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy

Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden, eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, Revised Third Edition, (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, June 2023).

Uncommon Wrath

Josiah Osgood recently did a podcast with Stoa Conversations about his 2022 book Uncommon Wrath.

He also did an interview with Georgetown News this fall about the Roman Empire.

Classics : Provost’s Distinguished Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor Lingxin Zhang

Provost’s Distinguished Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor Lingxin Zhang (Ph.D. Johns Hopkins 2021) specializes in ancient Egyptian languages and cultures during the Graeco-Roman

period (3rd century BCE – 4th century CE). Her research uses written records and material cultures to reconstruct the early scientific, divinatory, and medical practices in ancient Egypt. She is particularly interested in approaching these data through the lens of critical gender theories and post-colonialist studies. For her dissertation and forthcoming book, she collaborated closely with the Carlsberg Papyri Collection at the University of Copenhagen and G. Vitelli Papyrological Institute to offer a critical textual edition as well as analytical discussions for two women’s astrological manuals from Roman Egypt. Besides her philological background, Lingxin participated in the archaeological excavations at the Precinct of Mut (2017-2019) and the Precinct of Montu at Karnak (2020).

Spanish and Portuguese: Assistant Teaching Professor Sebastián Patrón Saade

Sebastián Patron Saade is joining the Department of Spanish and Portuguese as an assistant teaching professor. Patron Saade graduated from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and has worked at the University of Oxford, the University of Missouri and Korea University, where he spent the last 7 years.

Patron Saade has worked on Portuguese and Angolan literature, particularly with the works of António Lobo Antunes, Lídia Jorge, Hélder Macedo and Pepetela. His new research project involves the trans-pacific cultural and literary exchanges between East Asia and Latin America. Particularly, he is interested in Latin American writers that have lived or written about East Asia in the first few decades of the 21st century. The corpus he is analyzing includes novels by Andrés Felipe Solano, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Bernardo Carvalho, Santiago Gamboa and Paulina Flores.

Spanish and Portuguese: Assistant Teaching Professor Jéssica Rodrigues Poletti

Jessica Rodrigues Poletti is joining the Department of Spanish and Portuguese as an assistant teaching professor. Rodrigues Poletti completed her Ph.D. in Spanish literature at the University of California, Davis, where she also earned a certificate in second language acquisition. She holds an M.A. in international communication and cooperation from the University of Milan, and a B.A. in modern languages and literatures from the University of Parma.

Rodrigues Poletti’s research explores the significant changes in LGBTQ+ rights and social perception of sexual minorities that took place in Spain in the last two decades, reflected in lesbian-themed Spanish cinema. Her research interests are, but are not limited to, Spanish and Latin American cinema directed by women, film studies, feminist studies, women writers in the Hispanic world; transnational studies, LGBT+ and queer studies and second language acquisition. She enjoys visual arts and cinema, and combines her passion for the image as an amateur analog photographer.

Classics : Assistant Teaching Professor Andrew Merritt

Assistant Teaching Professor Andrew Merritt’s (Ph.D. Cornell University 2023) role as a teacher, primarily of Greek language, texts, and culture, is informed by his research-based interest in providing students with the insights of historical and comparative linguistics both into the Classical languages themselves and into the development of the cultures within which speakersunderstood and made sense of their world. His research, involving nominal morphology and

Homeric Philology, is chiefly dedicated to uncovering these modes of thought by identifying the systematic relationships of word-families in Greek, Latin, and its Indo-European relatives. He enjoys learning from and sharing with all students and colleagues the fruits of research pertaining to our understanding of ourselves as echoic inheritors of various ancient worlds.

Spanish and Portuguese: Assistant Teaching Professor Sacramento Roselló-Martínez

Sacramento Roselló-Martínez (G’11) is joining the Department of Spanish and Portuguese as an assistant teaching professor. Roselló-Martínez earned her Ph.D. in Spanish literature and cultural studies from Georgetown University in 2011. Subsequently, she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the Danish National Research Foundation at the University of Southern Denmark. Roselló-Martínez was a lecturer at Aarhus University and University of Copenhagen and, since 2021, she has been a teaching fellow in hispanic studies at Durham University in the United Kingdom.

Roselló-Martínez’s work intersects between medieval/early modern studies and contemporary medievalisms, Iberian Studies and gender and sexuality. Roselló-Martínez has also been engaged in the culture and creative industries through her work with NGOs and cultural organizations as advocacy and outreach coordinator and working with DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) projects. In this capacity, her team was recently awarded an Erasmus + grant to design a professional development program for foreign artists addressing advocacy, access and active inclusion.