French & Italian

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Student News

On May 29, 1999, Rachel (Thyre) Anderson and Bruce Anderson (ABD, French linguistics) were married at an outdoor ceremony in Brown County State Park. Their marriage is the first, to their knowledge, between two graduate students currently in the department. Bruce defended his dissertation proposal, titled "The Interpretive Correlates of Adjective Position in Native and Non-native Grammars of French," under the direction of Barbara Vance. Bruce also presented a talk related to his dissertation at the 30th annual Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages. This semester, he has been working at the Creole Institute for Albert Valdman. He is managing a database of Haitian Creole that will be used to make bilingual Haitian Creole-French and Haitian Creole-English dictionaries.

Kris Coburn (ABD, French linguistics) was married to John Holtman in Seattle on June 26, 1999.

In August 1999, Julia Davis successfully defended her dissertation on French liaison, under the direction of Barbara Vance.

Margaret Dempster (ABD, French literature) plans to write a dissertation on female characters in a handful of 18th- and 20th-century French and Canadian novels, specifically in regard to the way in which they are punished for their treacherous deeds. For this year's GSO colloquium, she delivered a paper titled "Le Bonheur." This summer she is returning to St. Brieuc as director of the IU Honors Program. She also enjoyed teaching two continuing studies courses, French Culture and Cuisine and French for Travellers I. She looks forward to teaching again in the continuing studies program.

Laura Dennis-Bay (ABD, French literature) is a Future Faculty Teaching Fellow at IU East. She is a visiting lecturer of French and Spanish. She is also teaching Spanish for the Richmond Police Department. At the SE17 conference in Lexington, Ky., she delivered a paper that represents a section of her dissertation: "Perrette, or Where Sexuality and Sorcery Meet in Sigogne's Stances satyriques contre l'ollivastre Perrette." She hopes to defend her dissertation this summer.

Marta (Weingartner) Diaz (ABD, French literature) had a baby girl on Jan. 8 Carys Maria Diaz. Carys is a Welsh name and is pronounced like "Paris." Marta and Bruce Diaz are very happy, but totally exhausted.

In November 1999, Chad Langford (ABD, French linguistics) successfully defended his dissertation proposal. After serving as a visiting lecturer of French, he will be moving to France next year.

In fall 1999, Heather McCollough (ABD, French literature) had the good fortune to receive a Preparing Future Faculty Grant, which allowed her to serve as an assistant instructor to Michael Berkvam in his course Women's Writing in French: From 1945 to the Present. She also served as co-director of la Maison française. The French House's big semester finale was a dinner at Bloomington's Le Petit Café, where about 55 French enthusiasts enjoyed a great evening. She has an article forthcoming in Romance Notes on Marceline Desbordes-Valmore and another one on Cocteau, which has been accepted by Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature.

Kathleen O'Connor published an article, "On the Role of Segmental Contrasts in the Acquisition of Clusters," in the IU Working Papers Series, Vol. 1, Optimal Green Ideas, last summer. In August 1999, she began a new appointment as a predoctoral fellow on the NIH-funded Learnability Project, directed by Judith Gierut and Daniel Dinnsen. She passed her PhD exams in September and officially became ABD in December 1999. She presented a paper titled "Prerequisites to Cluster Acquisition" before the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in San Francisco. All of her presentations and articles represent her work on the acquisition of consonant clusters.

Joseph Price, MA'99, (PhD candidate, French linguistics) published two book reviews in the French Review: "St. Barthlémy: Une énigme linguistique by R. Chaudenson and Louis Calvet" and "Atlas linguistique de l'Acadien maritime by Louis Péronnet et al."

Daria Roche (ABD, French literature) presented two conference papers this year: "'Anywhere Out of This World': Geography and Dreams in L'Enfant chargé de songes" and "Linguistic Weapons and Corporeal Vulnerability: Language and the Body in Marie Cardinal's Autrement dit." Along with 24 other graduate students, she was chosen to participate in a three-week workshop on teaching and technology at the Center for Educational Technology at Middlebury College in July 1999. With Rosemary Lloyd, she co-authored the exhibition at the Lilly Library for the "Women Seeking Expression: France 1789-1914" conference.

Dennis Rodgers (ABD, French literature) presented a paper titled "Savage Silence(d): Diderot's Supplément au voyage de Bougainville" at the University of Western Ontario's Silence and Ill-communication Literature Conference. His paper represents the first steps toward a dissertation on the uses of savage sexuality by Enlightenment writers. He will be going to Strasbourg on the departmental exchange this fall.

Kelly Sax (ABD, French linguistics) presented a paper titled "Acquisition of Stylistic Variation by American Learners of French" at the NWAVE conference in Toronto. This paper represents an important component of her dissertation research. She will also be participating in the three-week workshop on teaching and technology at the Center for Educational Technology at Middlebury College this summer.

Amelia Tundo (ABD, Italian) has been in Italy since June 1999 on a fellowship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was renewed for one more year. She is doing research on the art of memory during the Renaissance in Southern Italy, and she has already translated L'Arte del Ricordare by G.B. Della Porta. She gave a talk titled "Memoria ieri ed oggi: L'arte del Ricordare di Della Porta ed Internet" before the Società Teosofica Italiana in Naples. In her spare time, she has visited several archaeological sites including Cuma and Baia and has written some poetry.

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Last updated: June 12, 2000
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