Meet Your Professors

Meet Your Professors

 

Susanna Torrent

Susanna Alles Torrent 

Associate Professor and Associate Chair

Ph.D. Romance Studies, University of Barcelona
M.A. Digital Humanities, École nationale des chartes (Paris, France)
European Diploma in Mediaeval Studies, FIDEM (Rome, Italy)
B.A. Italian Philology, University of Barcelona
B.A. Classics, University of Barcelona (Spain)
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Susanna Allés-Torrent is Associate Professor of Medieval & Early Modern Iberian Studies and Digital Humanities. Her research addresses fifteen-century Iberia and its cultural connections with Italian humanism, life writing, translation studies, textual scholarship, digital editing, and the history and present of digital methods in Peninsular Studies and the Spanish-speaking world. These interests inform several of her publications, as well as her current book project and the digital Archive of Biographical Writings in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia. She has also published widely on the intersection of digital scholarly editions and textual criticism. She teaches Spanish Cultural Topics, Medieval and Early Modern Literature, and several DH courses at undergraduate and graduate levels. She is originally from Spain and one of her favorite places on earth is the island of Minorca where she was born. https://susannalles.com/ 

Research Interests: 

Medieval and Early Modern | Peninsular Studies | Iberian and Italian Humanism | Life Writing | Mediterranean Studies | Translation Studies | Digital Humanities | Scholarly Digital Editions | Data mining and Text Technologies

Recent Publications: 

Allés Torrent, Susanna & Eugenia Fosalba (eds.). Editar el Siglo de Oro en la era digital. Bellaterra: Studia Aurea Monografica, 2024, https://monografies.uab.cat/monografies/catalog/book/sam009

Arce

Bridget Christine Arce

Associate Professor 

Ph.D. Hispanic Language and Literatures, University of California at Berkeley
M.A. Political Science, California State University
M.A. Hispanic Language and Literature, Middlebury College
B.A. Political Science with Emphasis in International Relations & Spanish Literature, University of California at Santa Barbara
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

 

Research Interests: 

Brazilian/Global Lusophone Studies | Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies (including Latinx Studies) | Cultural Studies | Hemispheric Caribbean Studies | Immigration/ Globalization/ Transnationalism/ Diasporas | Latin American Studies | Literary/Critical Theory | Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies | Social Movements and Networks | Women, Gender, Sexuality, and Queer and Trans Studies | 18th-19th Century | 20th-21st Century 

Recent Publication: 

México’s Nobodies: The Cultural Legacy of the Soldadera and Afro-Mexican Women. New York: SUNY Press, Series “Genders in the Global South.” Recipient of Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award, by the Modern Language Association, December 2018.

Steven Butterman

Steven Fred Butterman 

Professor

Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison
M.A. University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.A. University of Colorado-Boulder
Curriculum vitae
Bio:

Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures and Director of the Portuguese Language Program, Steven F. Butterman teaches Portuguese language courses and Brazilian literature and cultural studies in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Miami, where he also directed the Gender & Sexuality Studies (GSS) Program and launched the minor in LGBTQ Studies. While at UM, Butterman has also held visiting professor / scholar posts at Middlebury College, Tulane University, the University of São Paulo (USP), and Unilasalle in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Appointed by the Institute of International Education as 2021-22 U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Brazil, Butterman has delivered over 40 invited talks and keynote addresses at universities throughout Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States and dozens of academic conference presentations throughout the world. Butterman earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2000. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute in 2002 and Summer Seminar in 2010 and a winner of the Brazilian International Press Award, Provost's Excellence in Teaching Award, and the 2004 University of Miami Scholarly and Creative Activity Award, Butterman has published books and articles on a wide range of topics, focusing on transnational LGBTQ+ studies, gender and feminist studies in the cultural contexts of Portuguese-speaking countries. Butterman is the author of Queering and Querying the Paradise of Paradox: LGBT Language, New Media, and Visual Cultures in Modern-Day Brazil, published by Rowman & Littlefield International in 2021, (In)Visibilidade Vigilante: representações midiáticas da maior parada gay do planeta, published by nVersos, in São Paulo in 2012, and Perversions on Parade: Brazilian Literature of Transgression and Postmodern Anti-Aesthetics in Glauco Mattoso, published in 2005 by San Diego State University Press. In addition to his academic work, Butterman also serves regularly as an expert witness on asylum petition cases involving homophobia, lesbophobia, transphobia, and domestic violence in Brazil and other countries.

Research Interests: 

Brazilian/Global Lusophone Studies | Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies (including Latinx Studies) | Immigration/ Globalization/ Transnationalism/ Diasporas | Latin American Studies 

Recent Publication: 
Christina Civantos

Christina Civantos

Professor

Ph.D. Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley
M.A. Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley
B.A. Spanish and Arabic, Duke University
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Christina Civantos teaches Hispanic and Arabic literary and cultural studies of the modern period, with occasional forays into medieval and early modern Iberia (al-Andalus) and contemporary Francophone Studies (Franco-Arab Studies). Her research focuses on Arab immigrants and their descendants in Hispano-America and Spain, South-South relations between Latin America and the Arab world, empire and postcolonial studies, nationalisms, language ideologies, memory studies, and tolerance. Her current research project focuses on cultural and political ties between Cuba and North Africa. She is a past recipient of the UM Provost’s Research Award and an NEH Fellowship. She serves as the Director of the Arabic Studies program at UM. More information can be found here.

Research Interests: 

Arabic and Mediterranean Studies | Latin American Studies | Caribbean Studies | Iberian Studies | French and Francophone Studies | Cultural Studies | Immigration and Diaspora | Race and Ethnicity | South-South relations | Empire | Nationalisms | Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies | Transatlantic Studies | Translation Studies | 19th Century | 20th-21st Century

Recent Publication: 

The Afterlife of al-Andalus: Muslim Iberia in Contemporary Arab and Hispanic Narratives. State University of New York Press, 2017.

Logan Connors

Logan Connors

Professor and Chair
Faculty Director, UParis

Ph.D. Louisiana State University (French & Francophone Studies, Comp. Lit.)
-Pensionnaire scientifique international, École normale supérieure de Lyon
-Visiting doctoral student, Sorbonne Université
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Logan J. Connors is Professor and Chair of Modern Languages and Literatures. He researches French literature and theatrical performance from 1650 to 1815 as well as topics in theatre and performance studies, the history of the emotions, colonial Caribbean studies, and comparative revolution studies. He teaches French and Francophone Literatures from the medieval period to the present as well as graduate seminars on performance studies and professionalization.

He is the author of three monographs: Theater, War, and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France and Its Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2024); The Emergence of a Theatrical Science of Man in France (1660-1740) (Liverpool University Press/Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2020); and Dramatic Battles in Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment/Voltaire Foundation, 2012); and of a critical edition of Pierre de Belloy’s Le Siège de Calais(Modern Humanities Research Association, 2014). He has published over thirty peer-reviewed book chapters and journal articles in venues across North America and Europe. He is currently on the Advisory Committee of PMLA, the journal of the Modern Language Association.

He is the book series editor of Scènes francophones (Bucknell University Press), the only North American book series dedicated to French-language theatre. At UM, he co-convenes, with Michiko Katayama Skinner (Theatre Arts) the Interdisciplinary Research Group in Theatre & Performance Studies. He has held visiting professorships and/or fellowships at Sorbonne Université (Paris-IV), the École normale supérieure de Lyon, and the Institut d’études avancées/Collegium de Lyon. He was recently named Cooper Fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences and elected as an Associate Researcher of the Centre d’étude de la langue et des littératures françaises (CELLF) at Sorbonne Université.

He is currently working on a collaborative volume on theatre, performance, and revolution across the globe as well as a new monograph project, tentatively titled, Smiling on the Scaffold: Comic Theater of the French Terror.

Research Interests:

Cultural Studies | French and Francophone Studies | Literary/Critical Theory | Medieval and Early Modern | Theater/Performance Studies | 18th-19th Century

Recent Publications:
The emergence of a theatrical science of man in France, 1660-1740. Oxford and Liverpool: Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment-Voltaire Foundation and Liverpool University Press, 2020. Monograph

Tracy Devine Guzman

Tracy Devine Guzmán

Associate Professor 

Ph.D. Latin American Studies/Romance Studies, Duke University
M.A. Government, College of William and Mary 
B.A. Foreign Affairs and French, University of Virginia
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Tracy Devine Guzmán teaches in Latin American Studies and Global Indigenous Studies with an emphasis on Brazil, the Andes, and South-South relations. Her research and teaching interests include cultural and intellectual history, social and political theory, and cultural production, especially as these fields intersect with questions of race/ethnicity, environmentalism, and animal studies. Her current book project, “Transcontinental Indigeneities: Linking the Americas and the Global South,” traces the flow of Native and non-Native engagements with diverse notions of indigeneity across the Atlantic, from the colonial period to the present. She is also editing a volume called Teaching Indigenous Studies in/of Latin America for the Modern Languages Association. Outside UM, you can find her advocating against speciesism and entertaining her rescue mutts.

Devine Guzmán serves on the advisory board for the US Network for Democracy in Brazil and is a Research Fellow with the Washington Brazil Office in 2022-23. You can find some of her work here.

Research Interests:

Cultural history and the history of ideas | Social and political theory | Global and transnational indigeneity | South-South relations | Environmental studies | Amazonia | Animal studies | Citizenships and nationalisms | Language and democracy | Cultural production under authoritarianism

Recent Publication:

“Democratic Imaginaries in a Discriminatory Society: The Colonial Legacies of Racialized Experience in Indigenous and Afro-Brazil.” Constructing the Racial "Other" in Latin America. Ed. Mabel Moraña and Miguel Valerio. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP. (In press).

 

Viviana Diaz Balsera

Viviana Diaz Balsera

Professor 

Ph.D. Hispanic Studies, Yale University
B.A. University of Texas at Austin
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Viviana Díaz Balsera is Professor of Spanish.  She works on early modern epistemologies with emphasis on colonial Mexico. In her research she has examined how Nahua intellectuals appropriated intersections between European-Iberian and Mesoamerican cosmogonic and socio-political imaginaries to preserve indigenous knowledges in the coercive environment of Spanish colonization. Her current research is on the Franciscan missions in La Florida and the role of extant bilingual literature in the globalization of the Timucua peoples.  

Research Interests:

Cultural Studies | Early Modern Transatlantic Epistemologies | Colonial and Borderland Studies | Indigenous Studies | Postcolonial Studies.  

Recent Publication:

Guardians of Idolatry: Gods, Demons and Priests Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón’s Treatise of Heathen Superstitions. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018.

Rebecca Doran

Rebecca Doran

Associate Professor

Ph.D. East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University
A.M. Regional Studies – East Asia, Harvard University
A.B. East Asian Studies, Harvard University
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Rebecca Doran teaches Chinese language, literature, and culture. Her research focuses on early and medieval Chinese literature, with special interests in anecdotal literature, gender, and historiography. Her first monograph explores representations of female power in the late seventh and early eighth centuries of the Tang dynasty. She has also published articles on various topics in Chinese literature, cultural studies, and gender studies. Her current research examines depictions of dress and attitudes to sumptuary practice in the early and medieval periods.  

Research Interests:

Chinese literature | Gender and sexuality | Women’s literature | Historiography 

Recent Publication:

“Fashion and Historical Imagination: The Case of Sun Shou’s ‘Bewitching and Strange Appearances.’” Early Medieval China, Vol. 26 (2020): 1–24.  

Ager Gondra

Ager Gondra

Assistant Professor

Ph.D. Spanish Linguistics, Purdue University
M.A. Spanish Linguistics, Purdue University
M.A.T. Secondary Education, Universidad de Deusto - Deustuko Unibertsitatea, The Basque Country, Spain
B.A. English Philology, Universidad de Deusto - Deustuko Unibertsitatea, The Basque Country, Spain
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Ager Gondra is a linguist whose scholarly interests reflect three general areas of investigation related to bilingualism: 1) linguistic variability and change in bilingual settings; 2) second language acquisition and teaching; and 3) attitudes and ideologies of languages in contact. He teaches courses in linguistics, and Second Language Teaching. He collects his research data in the Basque Country, his homeland. Ager Gondra is also the Director of the Spanish Basic Language Program. 

Research Interests:

Bilingualism | Language Contact | Language Variation | Language Ideology | Language Teaching and Learning | Syntax

Recent Publication:

Gondra, A.1, Rodríguez-Ordóñez, I.2, & Franco-Landa, E.3 2024b. Variation in the production of Basque ergativity: Change or stable variation?. Language Variation and Change, 36, pp. 95-120. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394524000048

Gondra, A. 2024a. Ideological Effects of Language Revitalisation and Standardisation on Traditional Home Language Speakers: the Case of Basque. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, pp. 1-15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2024.2326506

Elena Grau Lleveria

Elena Grau-Lleveria

Associate Professor  

Ph.D. Spanish and Spanish American Literature 20th century, University of Texas at Austin
M.A. Spanish Literatures and Linguistics, Rutgers University
B.A. Licenciatura in Spanish Linguistics, Universitat de Barcelona
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Elena Grau-Lleveria specializes in literary and feminist studies (19th - 21st centuries) from a transatlantic perspective. Her book, Las olvidadas. Mujer y modernismo (2008), analyzes the narrative production of a group of Spanish American and Peninsular women writers of the entre siglos (19th and 20th centuries), in order to shed light on how women writers problematized the ideological and aesthetics tenets of Modernismo in rigorous dialogues amongst themselves and male writers. In her latest articles, she analyzes the resistance discourses that some 19th century women writers rehearsed in their novels against the traditional images of bourgeoise womanhood that their respective hegemonic societies espoused across the Spanish-speaking world.    

Research Interests:

Feminist Literary Studies | Feminist Theory | 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries Latin American and Peninsular literatures | The Ideologies of Aesthetics | History of Ideas | Artist Novels

Recent Publication:

Las olvidadas: mujer y modernismo. Las narradoras de entre siglos. Barcelona: Propociones y Publicaciones Universitarias, 2008

Cae Joseph Massena

Cae Joseph-Massena

Assistant Professor 

Ph.D. French, University of Maryland 
M.A. Performance Studies, Université Paris 8-Saint Denis
M.A. English, Université Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Cae Joseph-Masséna is an Assistant Professor of Comparative, Francophone & Cultural Studies in the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures. 

Research Interests:

 

Recent Publication:

“Re-Staging the Haitian Revolution Narrative: The Tragic Mulatta’s Dissonance & Eziliphonics in Marie Vieux Chauvet’s Dance on the Volcano” in Marie Vieux- Chauvet’s Theaters of Revolt. Eds: C. Flaugh & L. Taub, Brill Publishers.

Andrew Lynch

Professor

P.h. D.Hispanic & Lusophone Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics, University of Minnesota
M.A. Hispanic & Lusophone Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics, University of Minnesota
B.A. Spanish Language, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Andrew Lynch is a sociolinguist whose scholarship focuses on Spanish language in society; language variability; heritage language studies; and the situation of Spanish in the United States. He is author of Spanish in Miami: Sociolinguistic Dimensions of Postmodernity (Routledge, 2022); editor of Spanish in the Global City (Routledge Language Handbook series, 2020); and co-author of El español en contacto con otras lenguas(Georgetown University Press, 2009). In addition to these books, he has published more than forty refereed journal articles and chapters in edited volumes, on topics ranging from sociolinguistic theory and methods in heritage language research, to Spanish language and globalization; political and ideological factors in the variation of Cuban Spanish; language attitudes toward Spanish and English in the US as well as Spanish and Catalan in Spain; the lexical and syntactic influence of English on Spanish bilingual discourse; historical perspectives on Latinidad in the US; the production and perception of literary texts by Latinx writers; and Spanish language use in the US-based mass media. He serves on the advisory boards of the National Heritage Language Resource Center at UCLA and the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning at UT-Austin. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the Heritage Language Journal (Brill Publishers) since 2013. 

Research Interests:
Sociolinguistics, Language in society | Bilingualism, Language contact | Ideologies of language | Language and globalization | Heritage language studies | Spanish in the US
Recent Publication:

Spanish in Miami: Sociolinguistic Dimensions of Postmodernity (Routledge, 2022)

Lillian Manzor

Lillian Manzor

Professor
Faculty Director of UParis

Ph.D. Spanish, University of Southern California
M.A. Spanish, University of Southern California
B.A. Spanish and French, University of Miami
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Lillian Manzor specializes in 20th and 21st century Latin American, Hemispheric Caribbean and Latine Theater and Performance Studies. Before coming to UM, she taught at UC-Irvine Comparative Literature (1988-1995). She is co-editor of the book series Sualos, published jointly by Havana’s Editorial Alarcos and Miami’s CTDA Press. She is currently finishing a book manuscript titled Marginality Beyond Return: US-Cuban Performances in the 1980s and 1990s.  Dr. Manzor has been an innovator in using technology in her teaching and research. She is the Founding Director of the Cuban Theater Digital Archive, a digital publication that serves as a space for communication between politically divided communities. She has also published a bilingual online exhibit Cuban Theater in Miami: 1960-1980, and the multimodal book, El Ciervo Encantado: An Altar in the Mangrove. Her ongoing research project, Sites that Speak, uses GIS and the Scalar platform to create digital cultural map of performing arts spaces in Spanish in Miami. Her research has been funded by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Cuban National Council for the Performing Arts. As a community engaged scholar, she serves as dramaturg and cultural advisor for theater companies in the United States and Cuba, and she has been actively involved in developing US-Cuba cultural dialogues through theater. 

Research Interests:

Latin American and Latino/a cultures | Performance studies | Gender studies | Literature and the visual arts 

Recent Publication:

“The Concert or the Dream of Nowhere Men.” In Margherita Laera, editor. Performing International Plays. 2021.

Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel

Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel

Professor 
Marta S. Weeks Chair in Latin American Studies

Ph.D. Latin American Cultural Studies, University of California at Berkeley
M.A. Hispanic Studies, University of California at Berkely
B.A. Hispanic Studies, University of Puerto Rico
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel specializes in colonial, postcolonial Latin American and Caribbean literatures.  She teaches courses on critical theory, comparative coloniality, gender and sexuality studies, andLatinx, Latin American and Caribbean studies. She has taught at Princeton University (1997-2000), Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (2000-2003; 2008-2017) and the University of Pennsylvania (2003-2008). She recently co-edited two volumes: (with Michelle Stephens) Contemporary Archipelagic Thinking: Towards New Comparative Methodologies and Disciplinary Formations (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020) (click here) and (with Santa Arias), The Routledge  Companion to Colonial Latin American and Caribbean Studies (Routledge 2021) (click here).  She is currently working on her fifth book, “Archipiélagos de ultramar: Comparative Insular and Colonial Studies,” which uses comparative archipelagic studies as a historical and theoretical framework to propose a research agenda for the study of cultural productions in the Caribbeanand other colonial archipelagoes between 1498 and 2010. She is co-editor of the book series on Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University Press.

Research Interests:

Latin American Literature: Colonial, Caribbean, and Latino Literature | Literary Theory, Colonial and Postcolonial Theory, Migration Studies, Sexuality, Queer and Trans Studies.

Recent Publication:

“The Two Ephemeral Wings of the Angel of Love”: Archipelagic Fantasies in the Narrative of Lourdes Casal and Manuel Ramos Otero” “Two Wings of a Bird”: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Puerto Rican and Cuban-American History, Literature, and Culture. Eds. Carmen Haydée Rivera y Jorge Duany. University Press of Florida, 2023. 209-230.

 

thomas_matusiak

Thomas Matusiak

Assistant Professor

Ph.D. Spanish and Portuguese, Princeton University
M.A Spanish and Portuguese, Princeton University
B.A Spanish and Linguistics, Lawrence University
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Thomas Matusiak researches the relations between aesthetics and politics in Latin American cinema and audiovisual cultures. Working across media and cultural practices – including film, analog and digital video, contemporary art, and performance – his scholarship questions how the form and materiality of moving images are determined by and enact political structures. Matusiak is the author of The Visual Guillotine: The Cinematic Cut and the Form of Politics in Latin America (currently being revised under advance contract), which theorizes the symbolic and material violence of the moving image. Examining dialogues between film theory and political theory staged by Latin American filmmakers from the 1930s to the present, this manuscript interrogates the politics of the cut across cinematic forms, highlighting the ways in which these practices shape the politics of spectatorship.

Matusiak is currently researching a second book, tentatively titled After the Index: Expanded Documentary in Latin American Cinema. This project examines the transformation of documentary following the crisis of indexical imagery provoked by technological developments and the post-medium condition. Contextualized within the broader documentary turn in contemporary culture, the manuscript maps the expansion of Latin America’s documentary filmmaking tradition towards intermedial forms such as the essay film, film and video installation, documentary performance, web-based documentary and immersive documentary. This project draws on his previous research on documentary reenactment, for which he was awarded best peer-reviewed journal article by the Film Studies section of the Latin American Studies Association in 2023.

Prior to joining the University of Miami, Matusiak was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Dartmouth College, Visiting Scholar at Columbia University, and Assistant Professor at SWPS University in Warsaw, Poland. His research has been supported by the Polish National Science Center and the US Fulbright Program. He is an active member of the Latin American Studies Association, in which he serves as secretary of the Film Studies section.

Research Interests:
Latin American cinema (narrative, nonfiction, and experimental) | 20th & 21st-century Latin American visual culture | Intermediality and transmediality | Documentary | Film & media theory | Critical theory
Recent Publication:

“La pose cinematográfica: Lucrecia Martel y el performance de la autoría masculina.” Drag Kings: Genealogía crítica de las masculinidades espectaculares en América Latina. Ed. Javier Guerrero & Nathalie Bouzaglo. Santiago de Chile: Metales Pesados, 2024.

Ludovic Vetea Mompelat

Research Assistant Professor

Ph.D. French Linguistics, Indiana University
Ph.D. Computational Linguistics, Indiana University
M.A French Linguistics, Indiana University
M.A Computational Linguistics, Indiana University
M.A Teaching French as a Foreign Language (FLE), Université Catholique de L’Ouest
B.A English, German, Spanish Languages, Literatures and Civilizations, Université Catholique de l’Ouest
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Ludovic Vetea Mompelat is a Research Assistant Professor of French Linguistics, Creolistics and Computational Linguistics. His research lies at the intersection of Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning, Corpus Linguistics, Syntax, Semantics, and Sociolinguistics. His training in formal Linguistics with a focus on French and French-based Creoles, as well as in Computational Linguistics allows him to use a mixed-method cross-disciplinary research approach in his work. Some of his publications such as “How to Parse a Creole: When Martinican Creole Meets French” (2023)  and “To Infinitive and Beyond, or Revisiting Finiteness in Creoles: A Contrastive Study of the Complementation Systems of Martinican Creole and Haitian Creole” (2023) are articulated around two complementary axes: first, the linguistic study and formal development of Creole languages, in comparison to one another and their lexifier language, and second, the creation of NLP solutions for under-represented languages as well as their promotion in the computational linguistics world.

Research Interests:

French Linguistics |  Creolistics | Computational Linguistics | Natural Language Processing (NLP) | Machine Learning | Corpus Linguistics | Syntax | Semantics | Pragmatics | Sociolinguistics | Under-represented Languages

Recent Publication:

Cavar, D., Mompelat, L., & Abdo, M. (2024, March). The Typology of Ellipsis: A Corpus for Linguistic Analysis and Machine Learning Applications. In Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Research in Computational Linguistic Typology and Multilingual NLP (pp. 46-54).

Patoimbasba Nikiema

Assistant Professor

Ph.D. in French and Francophone Studies, University of Pittsburgh
Doctoral Certificate in Gender, Sexuality, and Women Studies, University of Pittsburgh
MA. Certificate in University Teaching, West Virginia University
MA. In French, West Virginia University
B.A. English Studies, University of Ouagadougou

Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Patoimbasba Nikiema is an Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies / Global Black and Afropean Studies. His research focuses on Postcolonial Studies with a particular interest in Afropean, Sub-Saharan, and Caribbean literatures and cultures around questions of migration, diaspora, race, gender, and transnationalism. He is currently working on the participation of transnational African and Afrodiasporic writers in the Afrotopia, both on the continent and in the Caribbean. Patoimbasba Nikiema serves as the President of the Francophone Caucus of the African Literature Association (FRACALA).   

Research Interests:

Postcolonial Studies | Afropean Culture and Literature | African Cinema | Cultural Studies | Intersectionality and Identity Construction | North African Literature 

Recent Publication:

“Let the Door Open: A Dialogue with Heteronormative Traditions in Mohamed Camara’s Dakan.” International Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Studies, Vol. 3, no. 1, 2020.  

Gema Perez Sanchez

Gema Pérez-Sánchez

Associate Professor

Ph.D. Romance Studies, Cornell University
M.A. English Literature, Bucknell University
B.A. Music Performance-Flute, Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Gema Pérez Sánchez is an Associate Professor of Spanish who researches contemporary Spanish peninsular culture; gender and sexuality studies; transnational LGBTQ+ activism; anti-racist studies; and films and literature on migration to Spain. Currently, she is writing “Transnational Queer Affects and Activism: Literary and Visual Public Interventions in Spanish Culture (1970s-2000s)”—a book on the intersection of epistolary, literary, visual, and activist discourses and transnational LGBTQ mobilizations in contemporary Spain. She teaches courses on topics as diverse as LGBTQI culture and thought in Spanish-speaking countries and Spain’s early twentieth-century literary and artistic avant-garde. She loves to engage in collaborative international research projects with scholars and activists to bridge the gap between academia and real-life challenges. One of her all-time favorite research activities was to immerse herself in the archives of the Robert Roth Papers, housed at the Human Sexuality Collection at Cornell University.  

Research Interests:

Arabic and Mediterranean Studies | Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies (including Latinx Studies) | Cultural Studies | Immigration/ Globalization/ Transnationalism/ Diasporas | Latin American Studies | Literary/Critical Theory | Media, Film and Visual Studies | Peninsular Studies | Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies | Social Movements and Networks | Women, Gender, Sexuality and Queer and Trans Studies | 20th-21st Studies 

Recent Publication:

Javier Fernández Galeano and Gema Pérez Sánchez. “Pioneros de la fraternidad homosexual: La correspondencia entre Héctor Anabitarte y Armand de Fluvià (1974-1980).” Moléculas Malucas. 31 July 2020. click here

Pride Research Profile 

Suja Sawafta 

Assistant Professor

Ph.D. Oriental Studies - Modern Arabic Literature, University of Oxford
M.A. Franco-Arab Studies, University of North Carolina
B.A. International Studies and French, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Curriculum vitae

Bio: 

Suja Sawafta is Assistant Professor of Arabic Studies at the University of Miami. Her research focuses on exile/migration and eco-critism in Modern Arabic and Franco-Arab literature within the Arab World, Europe, the Mediterranean, and Global South. She is currently at work on her first book on the Jordanian-born Saudi-Iraqi writer Abdulrahman Munif, a petroleum-economist turned novelist most famously known for his epic novel Cities of Salt. Together with Khalid Lyamlahy (U of Chicago), she is currently co-editor of a forthcoming edited collection on the Turkish-born Palestinian-Iraqi intellectual and luminary Jabra Ibrahim Jabra.

Research Interests:

Arabic and Mediterranean Studies | French and Francophone Studies | Global and Transnational Indigeneity | Exile and Migration | Environmental Humanities| Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies | Orientalism | 19th Century |  20th-21st Century

Recent Publication:

Guest Editor, “The Arab Spring,” Special issue of International Poetry Review, Volume 47, 2024, distributed by UNC Press

 

Allison Schifani

Allison M Schifani

Professor and Director of Graduate Studies

Ph.D. Comparative Literature University of California, Santa Barbara
M.A. Comparative Literature, University of California, Santa Barbara
B.A. English and Comparative Literary Studies, Occidental College
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Her work on art, technology, ecology and the city has appeared in The Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, Media Fields, and elsewhere. She is a founding member of the research and design collaborative SPEC, whose focus is the future of the city, with particular attention to digitality, economy, and urban speculation.

Research Interests:

Cultural Studies | Digital Humanities | Environmental Humanities | Immigration/ Globalization/ Transnationalism/ Diasporas | Literary/Critical Theory | Media, Film and Visual Studies | Science and Technology Studies | Social Movements and Networks and 20th-21st Century 

Recent Publication:

Urban Ecology and Intervention in the 21st Century Americas: Verticality, Catastrophe, and the Mediated City (New York: Routledge, 2021).

Omar Vargas

Omar Vargas

Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Spanish

Ph.D. Spanish American Literature, University of Texas at Austin
M.A Latin American Literature, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
B.A. Mathematics, Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Curriculum vitae
Bio: 

Ómar Vargas is Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures at the University of Miami. He completed his Ph. D. in Spanish American Literature at the University of Texas at Austin and his undergraduate studies in mathematics at Universidad Nacional de Colombia. His research interests focus on the relationships between scientific discoveries and developments and the narrative fiction of Latin America and the Caribbean in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, particularly in the cases of authors such as José Lezama Lima, Jorge Luis Borges, Salvador Elizondo, and Gabriel García Márquez. He is the autor of Cantidades hechizadas y silogísticas del sobresalto: la secreta ciencia de José Lezama Lima (2021). He is currently exploring the transition of the scientist to a writer in the case of Argentine author Ernesto Sabato. He has published in the journals Neophilologus, Symposyum, Ciberletras, Latin American Research Review, Latin American Literary Review, The Borges Center, Revista Revolución y Cultura, Nueva Revista del Pacífico and La Habana elegante.

Research Interests:

Latin American Studies | Science and Technology Studies | 20th-21st Century 

Recent Publication:

Cantidades hechizadas y silogísticas del sobresalto. La secreta ciencia de José Lezama Lima. Purdue University Press as Volume 82 of the Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures series, August 15, 2021.

 

Lecturers 

 

Eugenio A. Angulo

Senior Lecturer 

Ph.D. Spanish, Florida International University

Bio: 

Eugenio A. Angulo teaches Spanish language courses. Specialist in 20th century Spanish American poetry, he has published the books Dudas del idioma español (Miami, Editorial América, 1987), Voces que dictan (Madrid, Betania, 2003), Reinvenciones(Madrid, Betania, 2014), and the essay Jardín: Poética subversiva de Dulce María Loynaz (2020). 

Research Interests:

20th century Spanish American poetry | 20th century Spanish American women’s poetry | Feminist literary studies 

 

Sonia Behar

Lecturer 

Ph.D. Spanish, Florida International University
M.A. Linguistics, Florida International University 
Bio: 

 

Research Interests:

Antonella Cassia 

Lecturer

Joint Ph.D. Transcultural German Studies and Near Eastern Studies, University of Arizona/Universität Leipzig

M.A. Foreign Languages and Literature, University of Roma Tre

Bio: 

Antonella Cassia is a Lecturer of German, French and Italian. She was born in New York City and raised in Rome, Italy. After living and studying in Germany, Austria and in the Middle East for a few years, she moved back to the US where she graduated with a PhD in Transcultural German Studies and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Arizona. Her dissertation "Saudi Arabia in the German Imagination: Identity, Space and Representation" explored representations of Saudi Arabia in travel literature, pilgrimage accounts of German converts to Islam and the blogs of German expatriates. Before coming to the University of Miami, Antonella has taught at the University of Minnesota, University of Arizona, University of Leipzig and at a number of Community Colleges and Cultural Centers in the US and overseas. Besides teaching, Antonella has an extensive experience as simultaneous and consecutive interpreter, translator, fundraising manager at the Institute for International Relations with the Countries of Africa, Latin America, Middle and Far East, and as  a researcher and coordinator of the Euro-Arab press review broadcasted by the Italian Channel Rai News 24. In addition to German, French and Italian, Antonella speaks Arabic, Swedish, Spanish, and Turkish. She is currently learning Mandarin Chinese.  In her free time she enjoys volunteering in the US Coast Guard and acting.

Research Interests:

Cultural relations between Germany and the Middle East | Representation of the Middle East in the German speaking literature and media | Travel Literature | Popular Culture in the German speaking world | German-Turkish Transnational Cinema | Minority Discourse | Postcolonial Studies | Gender Studies | Islam in the European media | Cyber-Islamic Environments and Muslim Public Sphere | Blogosphere, personal pages, and social network sites among Muslim immigrants living in Germany | Migration and Diaspora Studies | Inter-religious Dialogue | Conversion to Islam

Shai Cohen

Lecturer

Ph.D. Hispanic Literature Studies and Theory of Literature, University of Navarre
M.A. Peace and Conflict and Human Rights Studies, University of Granada
M.A. Latin American and Iberian Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
B.A. Spanish Philology, University of Pau and Pays d’Adours

Bio:  

Shai Cohen teaches Spanish and Hebrew languages, literatures, and cultures. His research focuses on medieval to early modern period in the Iberian Peninsula and other European territories related to it, with special interests in economic, political and Judeoconverso literature, and historiography.  His most recent book, El poder de la palabra: la sátira política contra el conde duque de Olivares (CSIC, Madrid 2019), explores the relation between political satire and government in 17th century Spain. He is the editor of different volumes and the author of numerous articles and book chapters (e.g. El hebreo en España defendida de Quevedo, 2017). Shai also wrote the Historical Novel Strappado (original title: סטראפדו, Gvanim, 2013) and the dissemination work entitled El arte de hablar callando, El meme: transmisor de conceptos del Siglo de Oro (Leer-e, 2013). Alongside his research, he is also active in the field of Digital Humanities as the initiator and coordinator of various projects and workshops, as well as in several associations, research groups and projects such as AISO, AIH, AEEHJ, and GRISOSFERA. 

Research Interests:

Early Modern Iberian Studies | Early Modern Economic and Political Texts | Political Satire | Judeoconversos and Sephardic Studies | Peace and Conflict in Golden Age | Identity Negotiation Theory Studies | Digital Humanities  

Etsuko Takahashi Collins

Senior Lecturer 

Ph.D. Instruction and Learning, University of Pittsburgh

M.A. Asian Languages and Literature, The University of Iowa

Bio: 

Etsuko Takahashi Collins (she goes by “Takahashi sensee”) is a Senior Lecturer of Japanese at the University of Miami. She teaches all levels of Japanese: Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced and Business Japanese. She loves thinking about effective, enjoyable and engaging ways to facilitate communicative activities she can use in class. Her research interests center around second language reading and vocabulary development. 

Research Interests:

Second Language Reading | Second Language Reading | Vocabulary Knowledge Development

Leila Martins DaCosta

Senior Lecturer

Ph.D. Virtual Language Learning and Teletandem, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) São Paulo, Brazil  
M.A. First Language Acquisition, Michigan State University
M.A. Linguistics, Florida International University
Bio: 

Leila had a master's degree from Michigan State University with a concentration on First Language Acquisition. a master's degree on Second and Foreign Language Learning from Florida International University and a PHd on Applied Linguistics, Second Language Learning with a concentration on Telecollaboration from UNESP São Paulo Brazil. PHd Thesis : (Gender and Cultural identities in language learning through Telecollaboration)

Research Interests:

Portuguese to Spanish speakers | Literature, cultural identities, gender discourses observed in the process of language learning through telecollaboration

Mojca Del Fabbro

Senior Lecturer

Ph.D. Linguistics, University of Ca'Foscari

Bio: 
 

Research Interests:

Lorella Di Gregorio

Lecturer

Doctorate in Literary, Cultural, and Linguistic Studies, University of Miami
Master of Arts in Spanish, Texas State University
Master of Arts in Art History, University of Bologna, Italy
Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Philosophy, University of Catania, Italy

Bio: 
Lorella Di Gregorio teaches all levels of Spanish for both L2 students and Heritage Learners as well as Italian. She also researches 20th and 21st century Mexican and Southern Italian cultural production related to migration and organized crime and has been awarded numerous research and travel grants. Her dissertation obtained the Honorable Mention for the 2020 Barrett Prize awarded by the University of Miami Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas in addition to the 2020 David John Ruggiero Dissertation Award offered by the Center for the Humanities at the University of Miami. Her most recent article “Exvoto: Folk, Outsider, Transnational. Debating Definitions,” was published by Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, University of Texas Press.
Art, music, and literature have always been the focus of both her intellectual and pedagogical interests. This passion for the fine arts and popular cultural production has undergirded Lorella’s entire educational journey, having earned a BA in Modern Literature (with a thesis in Music History), her first MA (summa cum laude) in Art History at the University of Bologna (Italy), her second MA (with distinction) in Spanish at Texas State University (USA) with a thesis in Linguistics, and a Ph.D. (with distinction) in Literary, Cultural, and Linguistic Studies at the University of Miami. She is currently visiting co-editor for the 2023 issue of Letras Hispanas on the representation of families and migration from Central and Mesoamerica to the US.


Research Interests:

Cultural Studies | Migration Studies | Ideologies of Language |  Sociolinguistics | Transnational Studies | Global Studies | New Media Studies | Comparative Cultural and Linguistic Studies between Latin America | Iberian Peninsula and Southern Italy | Contemporary Art | Psychology of Art | Art Brut | Outsider Art | Folk Art

Loredana M DiStravolo

Senior Lecturer 

Ph.D. Spanish Literature, University of Maryland

Bio: 
 

Research Interests:

Kevin Finn

Senior Lecturer

Ph.D. Romance Studies with a concentration in French, University of Miami

M.A. French, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
B.A. French, Swansea University
Bio: 

Kevin Finn is a senior lecturer and Director of the French Basic Language Program. His Master's thesis focused on the use of comedy in Alexandre Dumas’ Les trois Mousquetaires, and his doctoral dissertation examined questions of identity in contemporary Quebecois immigrant literature. 


Research Interests:

National and post-national identity | Postcolonial Studies | Literature of Francophone Canada 

Delia Pamela Fuentes Korban


Lecturer

Ph.D.  Romance Studies: Spanish, University of Miami 
M.A. Comparative Literature, Florida Atlantic University
B.F.A. Studio Art, Photography, Florida Atlantic University
B.A.  Italian Studies, Florida Atlantic University

Bio: 

Delia Pamela Fuentes Korban teaches Spanish and Italian Languages at all levels as well as Latin American literature.  She specializes in contemporary Argentine popular  music, literature and culture; memory studies; truth and reconciliation committees and their socio-cultural ramifications.  

She is an awardee and curator of an Andrew W. Mellon CREATE Grant for The Argentine Diaspora Oral History Project, which will be housed under the UM Libraries’ Oral Histories Collection and made available through its website. Her project aims to make an underrepresented community visible by recording the migration histories of Argentine and Argentine Americans who have made South Florida their home.  

One of her favorite places to conduct research, specially during the Argentine winter, is the Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno in Buenos Aires.


 
Research Interests:

Latin American Literature, Film and Cultural Studies | Memory studies, Oral History, Urbanity, and Visual Culture | Popular Music and Memory, History and Digital Media | Contemporary Argentine Literature, History, and Cultural Production 

Elisabeth Juetten

Lecturer 

Ph.D. Modern German Literature, RWTH Aachen University
M.A. German Literature, Biology, RWTH Aachen University
B.A. German Literature, Biology, Pedagogy, RWTH Aachen University

Bio: 

Elisabeth Juetten is currently Lecturer of German and Coordinator of the German program. She teaches German at all levels. The beginner and intermediate courses are designed to provide students with the language tools and comprehension strategies necessary to carry out advanced work in German and German Studies. The advanced courses engage students in the analysis and interpretation of themes and issues present in literature, film, and other cultural products from the German-speaking world. Whilst her interdisciplinary research interest more recently focuses on Ecocriticism, her first monograph analyzed the phenomena of justice in the work of Jakob Wassermann.

 

Research Interests:

Environmental Humanities | German Jewish Literature | Gender Studies, Ethics and Literature | Literary Theory

 

Recent Publication: 

“From Dead Letters to Living Writing. The Aesthetic of Life in Novalis Heinrich von Ofterdingen.” In: From Ego to Eco. Brill Rodopi 2018, S. 76-96.

Elisabeth Llaveria-Powell

Senior Lecturer 

Ph.D. Florida International University

Bio: 
 

Research Interests:

Cherol Marcelin 

Lecturer

Bio: 
 

Research Interests:

Nadia Naami

Lecturer

Ph. D. in Literary, Cultural, and Linguistic Studies, University of Miami
Ph. D in Humanities and Social Sciences, University Chouaib Dukkali, Morocco
M.A. in Language and Communication, Chouaib Doukkali University, Morocco
B.A. (Licence ès lettres) in French Language and Literature with a concentration in Literature, Chouaib Doukkali University, Morocco

Bio:  

Nadia Naami is a lecturer of French and Arabic at University of Miami. Her work focuses on French and Francophone Studies with a special interest in Ethics, Decolonial Studies, and Women Studies. Her current research channels a comparative re-reading of French and Francophone postcolonial literary canon and philosophical texts through a Transatlantic perspective. Her larger teaching and research interests include Franco-Arab literatures and cultures, Ethics, Critical Theory, Literary Criticism, Women Studies, and Visual Arts. In addition to her academic work, Nadia Naami is an independent art curator and editor.

Research Interests:

Maria G Pardo 

Senior Lecturer

Ph.D. Romance Studies-Spanish, University of Miami

Bio: 
 

María Gracia Pardo has a background in Communications Studies and Latin American Literature. She has taught courses on Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American literature and culture. Her current research focuses on the ways in which disinformation, misinformation and mistrust tend to spread precisely through the media and genres purported to be factful. This interest has led to an ongoing search for the relationship between illiberal discourses, democratic backsliding, and erosion of the archive. Along with the “paradox of nonfiction,” she has written about the “developmental analogy,” or the rhetorical parallels between the tropes used to represent childhood and those used to represent society in film, literature and political thought. She is one of the four founding members of Colaboratorio Ávila, a transatlantic translation workshop that aims to disseminate the voices and idiomatic expressions of Venezuelan women writers in international publications such as Modern Poetry in Translation and Latin American Literature Today. The group is now collaborating on an anthology of short stories by Venezuelan writer Krina Ber.  


Research Interests:

Childhood Studies | Children’s Literature | Media Studies | Translation | Venezuela | Brazil

Dabney Park

Lecturer


Bio: 
 


Research Interests:

Viviana Pezzullo

Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in French

PhD Comparative Studies (French, Francophone, and Italian Studies), Florida Atlantic University
Laurea magistrale (M.A.) Philology, University of Naples Federico II
Erasmus Exchange Fellowship at École normale supérieure de Lyon
Laurea Triennale (B.A.) Modern Arts, University of Naples Federico II

Bio: 

Viviana is a Lecturer of French at the University of Miami. Her work focuses specifically on women writers from the French, Francophone Caribbean, and Italian traditions. She is currently investigating the ethics of collaborative writing in testimonies of women in prison during the 1970s. Her passion for art and photography led her to become interested in the paratextual interplay between textual, art/illustrative, and typographical components as moments of authorial reclamation. Viviana loves archival research, and her favorite place is the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand in Paris. https://vivianapezzullo.com

Research Interests:

Contemporary French, Francophone, and Italian Literatures and Cultural Studies (20th and 21st Centuries) | Women, Gender and Sexuality | Visual Arts | Translation | Digital Humanities

Rachida Salama Primov 

Senior Lecturer

Ph.D. Université de Provence (Aix-Marseille I)

Bio: 
 

Research Interests:

Catalina Quesada Gomez

Senior Lecturer

Ph.D. Latin American Studies, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain 
M.A. Latin American Studies, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
B.A. Spanish (Filología hispánica), Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
Bio: 

Catalina Quesada-Gómez teaches Spanish and Latin American literature and culture at the University of Miami. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Spanish American Literature from the University of Seville in Spain. She has taught at several universities in Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Colombia, and Nicaragua. She has also been a visiting researcher at universities in Colombia, Chile, Nicaragua, Spain, France, and the United States. Professor Quesada-Gómez is the author of La metanovela hispanoamericana en el último tercio del siglo XX (2009), Literatura y globalización: la narrativa hispanoamericana en el siglo XXI (espacio, tiempo, géneros) (2014), and more than fifty articles. She was the guest editor of “Cultura y globalización en Hispanoamérica” (2014), a special issue of Pasavento: Revista de Estudios Hispánicos. She is the coeditor of Cámara de eco. Homenaje a Severo Sarduy (2018) and El libro y la vida. Ensayos críticos sobre la obra de Héctor Abad Faciolince (2019). During the academic year 2021-2022, she will be an Engaged Faculty Fellow at the University of Miami. She loves libraries and one of her favorite places in the world to do research is the National Library of France, where she used to spend many hours while living in Paris.


Research Interests:

20th and 21st Century Latin American Literature and Culture | Postcolonial Studies | Globalization and Cultural Production | Digital Humanities | Caribbean Studies | Colombian and Mexican Studies | Neobaroque and Cuban Studies | Film Studies | Spanish American Colonial Literature | Metafiction | Critical Race Theory | Suicide in Literature

Rosario Catalina Ramirez

Lecturer



Bio: 
 


Research Interests:

Maidelin Rodriguez

Senior Lecturer

Ph.D. Romance Studies, University of Miami

Bio: 

 

Research Interests:

Alberto Sarrain

Lecturer



Bio: 
 


Research Interests:

 

Tiffany Shinbach

Senior Lecturer

A.B.D. University of California, Davis 
M.A. University of California, Irvine
B.A. University of Miami 
Bio: 
 
Research Interests:

Yamicela Torres Mollinedo

Lecturer

M.A. Spanish, Florida International University
M.A. Teaching Spanish, ISP Félix Varela, Cuba
B.A. Spanish, ISP Félix Varela, Cuba 

Bio:  

Yamicela Torres Mollinedo has experience as a Spanish teacher in Cuba, Brazil, and the United States. She has also worked as an editor and has published several books of poetry. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Spanish at Florida International University.

Research Interests:

Latin American Literature | Brazilian Literature and Culture | Transatlactic Studies | Comparative Studies | Women | Exile and migration | Language learning

Cecilia Vazquez

Senior Lecturer

Spanish, New Mexico State University 

Bio: 
Research Interests:

Eiko I. Williams

Senior Lecturer

M.A. Spanish, Middlebury College 
B.A. Spanish Philology, Osaka University of Foreign Studies

Bio: 

Eiko Williams is a Senior Lecturer of Japanese and Spanish. She teaches the elementary and intermediate levels of Spanish and Japanese and conducts a faculty-led summer program in Miyazaki, Japan. She loves to motivate and help her students with their journey of language learning. Her interest is to use Can-do statements as one of the most effective tools for communication and intercultural competence.

Mari Williams

Senior Lecturer

A.B.D Romance Studies - French, University of Miami 
M.A. Romance Studies - French, University of Miami
B.A. French Studies - University of Massachusetts
Bio: 

Mari Williams is a senior lecturer of Japanese and French. She worked as an actress in Japanese theater and television, and her research focuses on the language acquisition through acting in the target language. Biannually, she offers a course named ‘Advanced Conversation through Japanese Theatrical Texts,’ where students write scripts and act them out in different social settings to better understand the language environment. She translated “Decoding the Japanese Mind through Expressions,” published in 2019, which portrays the Japanese mentality expressed through its idiomatic language.

Xiaolei Zhang

Senior Lecturer

M.A. in Chinese, University of Massachusetts-Amherst  
M.S. in Education, Florida State University  
Bio:  

Xiaolei Zhang is a senior lecturer of Chinese at University of Miami. Her work focuses specifically on second language acquisition and curriculum design.  

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