News and events

  • International journalist offers interview tips to Spanish students

    Students in SPAN 1F90 welcomed Julio César Rivas, foreign correspondent to Canada with Agencia EFE, to their class Wednesday, March 16. Rivas shared his tips and techniques for effective interviews in preparation for interviews students will be doing with native Spanish speakers as a class project. Rivas shared from his experience of more than 30 years as a journalist in the Americas and Europe, where he has covered events including the armed conflicts in Guatemala and El Salvador, the Zapatista uprising in Mexico, and a broad range of economic, social, political and cultural affairs. In addition to working for Agencia EFE, the largest Spanish language newswire service, Rivas is also the co-founder of Lattin magazine, an online news site dedicated to the Hispanic population in Canada. Rivas is pictured offering pointers to students Lisa Carvalho and Kayla Hoyos Lewis, who will be interviewing their grandmothers for the project. The class will be sharing their completed projects in a presentation April 6 and Rivas will work with a student to publish their work in Lattin.

  • “Gender Treachery Against the State: The Political Function of Popular Film in the Fiction of Manuel Puig” Talk by Dr. Erin Redmond

    Redmond talk 15 March

    As part of the Diaspora Speaker Series

    Hosted by the Hispanic and Latin American Studies Program (Dept. of Modern Languages, Literatures & Cultures)

    Gender Treachery Against the State: The Political Function of Popular Film in the Fiction of Manuel Puig

    Talk by Dr. Erin Redmond

    15 March 2022

    Online -13:00pm – 14:15pm

    This is a virtual presentation.

    This is a virtual presentation. Please join us at: NEW LINK:

    https://teams.microsoft.com/registration/FRGudvwe8kqlNuKyRDrxoA,XyR7mI6NzEOUEd1_vBNozQ,O7AaaVuKoUSgoKTyb-wHJQ,yJVn4PTOh0WMUokBw-2UbA,Y4gnfNTxy0u2lFjnP-NADQ,zQp0u4_7E0K3wx2ATxrORg?mode=read&tenantId=76ae1115-1efc-4af2-a536-e2b2443af1a0

    This talk will focus on the ways in which alternative constructions of gender and sexuality emerge through dislocations of U.S. and European films to small-town Argentina in the 1930s and 1940s in the case of Traición and to the 1970s Buenos Aires prison cell in which most of Beso’s narrative unfolds. Although a number of critics have positioned homosexuality in Puig’s fiction as a form of rebellion against political authoritarianism, I argue that in keeping with Puig’s own views, these texts offer a more radical challenge to the heteronormative ideologies of both mass culture and the repressive state through their principal characters’ refusal of binary-based terms.

    Dr. Erin Redmond received her Ph.D. in Hispanic Literatures from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. She completed her B.A. in Women’s Studies and History at the University of Toronto. Her research and teaching interests include questions of gender and sexuality in fiction and film from Argentina, Brazil and Cuba.

    Contact information: Dr. Irene Blayer Iblayer@brocku.ca // Dr. Cristina Santos csantos@brocku.ca

  • New publication – Image and Imagery series

    Small Walker Press                                                                     Salon für Kunstbuch 

    Brock University, Canada                                                             Vienna, Austria 

     

     

    Image and Imagery series 

     

    Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures 

    Brock University, Niagara Region, Canada 

     

    L’impact du numérique : textes/images en littérature et dans les arts 

    Engaging with Digital Texts/Images in Literatures and the Arts 

     

    https://dr.library.brocku.ca/handle/10464/15575 

     

    Les nouveaux outils numériques continuent de transformer la pensée des artistes et auteur.es, ainsi que leur façon de s’engager dans la création. Au cours des dernières décennies, les avancées technologiques ont permis de concevoir et de développer de nouvelles pratiques en littérature et dans les arts, avec pour résultat d’innombrables créations innovantes. Les outils numériques rendent possible un meilleur accès aux textes littéraires et facilitent des interactions complexes entre la littérature et les autres arts. De même, les arts visuels et autres ont conçu de nouvelles intégrations du texte dans leurs réalisations. Ces nouvelles pratiques ont changé notre discours visuel et textuel. 

     

    New digital tools continue to transform the way artists and writers think about, engage with, and create works. In the last decades, advances in technology have facilitated the design and writing process, allowing the creation of countless virtual renditions of concepts or works. Digital tools have impacted the traditional literary world, opening access to a variety of digitized texts and enabling increased interactions with other art forms. In turn, visual and other creative arts have conceived new integrations of text within their medium, all of which has impacted and changed our visual and written discourse. 

     

    Comité éditorial / Editing committee 

    Carmela Colella, Tamara El-Hoss, and Catherine Parayre 

     

    Contents 

     

    Introduction 

     

    Pratiques artistiques / Art Practices 

    L’art traditionnel du tissage à l’heure du numérique / Aicha Nairi 

     

    De l’écran d’ordinateur au data mining : art numérique et techno-féminisme dans les œuvres de Lynn Hershman Leeson / Marie-Laure Delaporte 

     

    Exil et technologies numériques : les nouvelles modalités de production et de réception des œuvres / Ann Valérie Epoudry 

     

    Arts littéraires / Literary Arts 

    « Data is Beautiful. » De la data visualization à la data poetry / Barnabé Sauvage

     

    La littérature en expansion : la LittéraTube de Tálata Rodríguez et Mariano Blatt / Gianna Schmitter 

     

    Expositions / Curating  

    Les musées numériques et virtuels, vers un renouveau esthétique, expérientiel et formel du milieu expographique / Laure Le Vaillant 

     

    Modalités et défis de l’expérience patrimoniale en réalité virtuelle : réflexions autour du corps recevant / Léa Dedola 

     

    Perceptions / Réception / Reception 
    Paradoxe du jugement esthétique 2.0 / Théodora Domenech 
     

    Experiencing Art in the Age of COVID-19 / Leanne Unruh 

     

     

    Np.  

     

    ISBN 978-1-990208-06-5 

     

    Catalogage avant publication de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada 

    Titre: L’impact du numérique : textes/images en littérature et dans les arts / dir. Carmela  

       Colella, Tamara El-Hoss et Catherine Parayre = Engaging with digital texts/images in literatures  

       and the arts / ed. Carmela Colella, Tamara El-Hoss and Catherine Parayre. 

    Autres titres: Engaging with digital texts/images in literatures and the arts 

    Noms: Colella, Carmela, éditeur intellectuel. | El-Hoss, Tamara, éditeur intellectuel. | Parayre,  

       Catherine, 1966- éditeur intellectuel. 

    Description: Mention de collection: Image & Imagery | Comprend du texte en anglais. 

    Identifiants: Canadiana 20210366192 | ISBN 9781990208065 (PDF) 

    Vedettes-matière: RVM: Art numérique. | RVM: Littérature numérique. | RVM: Images numériques dans l’art. | RVM: Littérature et technologie.

    Classification: LCC N7433.8 .I47 2021 | CDD 776—dc23 

  • CFP – Storytelling: Trauma, Resistance, and Remembering

    Call for Papers

    Storytelling: Trauma, Resistance, and Remembering
    2nd Global Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference
    Sunday 10th July 2022 – Monday 11th July 2022
    Athens, Greece

    Conferences

  • CFP – Testimony: Memory, Trauma, Truth, Engagement

    Call for Papers

    Testimony: Memory, Trauma, Truth, Engagement
    3rd Global Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference
    Friday 8th July 2022 – Saturday 9th July 2022
    Athens, Greece

    Conferences

    Categories: Colloquia, News

  • SCLA Virtual Hour

    The graduate program Studies in Comparative Literatures and Art invites prospective students to join SCLA’s Virtual Hour on Wednesday November 24, 2021 (2:00-3:00 pm).

    Microsoft Teams Meeting:

    Join on your computer or mobile app
    Click here to join the meeting

    Join with a video conferencing device
    172330346@teams.bjn.vc

    Video Conference ID: 113 291 548 1
    Alternate VTC instructions

    Categories: News, Other events

  • The Studies in Comparative Literature and Arts program at Brock University invites proposals for its graduate symposium to be held March 5th, 2022 on the theme of “Pressures.”

    The Studies in Comparative Literature and Arts program at Brock University invites proposals for
    its graduate symposium to be held March 5th, 2022 on the theme of “Pressures.”

    The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has compounded many of the everyday pressures we live with.
    For young people in particular, symptoms of anxiety and depression stemming from uncertainty,
    and insecurity have risen dramatically, even with the partial reopening of the world’s economies.
    In Weariness of the Self Alain Ehrenberg writes about the increasing rates of depression in
    contemporary societies, and attributes thisto the constant pressure to “measure up.” In The Burn
    Out Society, Byung-Chul Han explores the paradox of individual freedom in late capitalist society
    where discipline has been internalized and transformed into a subject’s constant self-pressuring
    to perform and achieve.
    Nevertheless, pressure is often the catalyst for creation. The “need for” can be triggered by a
    variety of pressures from within artists (their drives and psyches) as well as from their lived
    environments. This can vary from trauma and psychological problems to oppression from
    authority that distort and control writers, artists, and other creatives. The literature of
    displacement caused by war offers an example of creation under collective pressure. Can art be
    created in the absence of pressure? What other aesthetic and artistic trends can be traced back
    to times of cultural pressure? How does aesthetic production respond to current global
    pressures? Which artistic responses are being created out of our needs to respond to pressure
    and traumas of the past?
    Socially conscious artists are responding to a growing planetary catastrophe. While society faces
    growing pressure from an existential crisis requiring a global effort to avoid environmental
    destruction, we ask what contributions are being made by artiststo the cause today? Sound artist
    Kevin Curtis Norcross addresses the problematic nature of working within the Anthropocene
    through his “sound works,” for example. How affective is art in increasing and mobilizing public
    awareness? Are there aesthetic responses from the Indigenous cultures of Canada that offer new
    perspectives for settler-colonial society?
    Finally, pressure as a generative source can be into extended to an array of discussions, both
    actual and potential. There are ways in which pressure, as a physical phenomenon, is productive.
    A diamond, for example, only begins to form under 725,000 pounds of pressure per square inch.
    Conceptually, obligation can take the form of the pressure to decide, resulting in action. In both
    cases, pressure is the catalyst for the transformation from one form to another. Pressure, then,
    is not static, but a continuous exertion of force against an object or boundary. There is a spatiotemporal element to pressure, as it moves through time and space in both an actual and/or
    virtual way. The concept of pressure as a hermeneutic object opens questions such as: Is pressure
    ever completely released? Does pressure create something come from nothing? In what
    circumstances does pressure lead to freedom?

    Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
    – Societal vs individual pressure
    – The pressure to perform
    – Depressurizing
    – Tangible and intangible pressure
    – Pressure of productivity / productive pressure
    – Pressures and social media
    – Pressures on/of the environment
    – Geological pressure
    – “Under Pressure”
    – Discipline and pressure
    – Releasing pressure and the carnivalesque

    Please send abstracts of 200-250 words maximum along with a 50-word bio to pressures2022@gmail.com by 15 December 2021

    Categories: Colloquia

  • Display Case Contest

    Contest sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures (MLLC): 

    All students are welcome to find the answers to the following questions, which are based on the posters on display both in the library near the Ask Us desk and in the Thistle corridor outside of the library!

    1]  Find a composer and provide his name, as well as the name of one of his compositions.

    2] Find a Surrealist painter and provide his name, as well as the title of one of his paintings.

    3] Find a philosopher who was also a prolific author and provide his name as well as one of his famous quotes.

    4] Find one of the most well-known symbols of an ancient Empire and state what it represents.

    Hint: each image is located in one of the four language groups on the posters respectively.  You may use a search engine as an aid.

    The first correct respondent will receive a cash credit on their Brock card!  Please send your responses to: dbielicki@brocku.ca by Friday, October 15.

     

  • Haiku Contest!

    Submit a “Haiku” in English that expresses how you feel about the language(s) that you are studying in MLLC! Please include your Haiku within the body of your email to dbielicki@brocku.ca by Thursday, Oct. 7. Winners will receive cash credit on their Brock Card!

    Although a Haiku is an unrhymed poetic form consisting of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively, we will adhere to a (much) looser structure!  Purists are welcome to follow a stricter format.

    Sample:
       Travelling the Globe
    Exploring, Laughing, Learning,
    Simply to Grow

    K. M-Fotovat

    Please include your permission to post your poem in a public space.

     

  • MLLC Meet and Greet

    Meet and Greet-2021-final