On June 4, 2020, the governor of Virginia ordered the removal of Richmond’s monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee, amidst demonstrations across the country against police brutality and systemic racism. His announcement provided a renewed momentum, among racial justice activists, to demand the elimination of all public symbols of white supremacy. Other cities across the nation soon followed suit, ordering the dismantling of Confederate statues, even as protesters, in many places, took the lead in toppling these monuments.

The chairs and directors of Humanities departments and programs at Washington University in St. Louis have prepared a statement on the value of the humanities in times of crisis. In times of severe challenges, it is crucial that we avail ourselves of the invaluable resources that humanities scholarship and education offer. The full statement has now been posted on our departmental blog.

It is our distinct pleasure to announce that a jury composed by Agnes Lugo-Ortiz (University of Chicago), Shelley Garrigan (NC State University), and Michel Gobat (University of Pittsburgh) have selected two wonderful new monographs to receive the LASA 2020-BEST BOOK AWARD IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Researchers and students engaging with the U.S.’s second-largest language are ignored in our universities — and in ‘The Chronicle’

The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures congratulates Professor Ignacio Sánchez Prado on his recent installation as the Jarvis Thurston and Mona Van Duyn Professor in the Humanities.

Swashbuckling tales of valiant gauchos roaming Argentina and Uruguay were nineteenth-century bestsellers. But when these stories jumped from the page to the circus stage and beyond, their cultural, economic, and political influence revolutionized popular culture and daily life.

Elzbieta Sklodowska has co-edited with Mabel Cuesta (University of Houston) Lecturas atentas. Una visita desde la ficción y la crítica a veinte narradoras cubanas contemporáneas, which showcases narrative works of contemporary Cuban women authors, both on the island and in the diaspora, accompanied by in-depth critical readings of these texts.

The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures congratulates Professor of Spanish Akiko Tsuchiya on the publication of her new book, Unsettling Colonialism: Gender and Race in the Nineteenth-Century Global Hispanic World, by SUNY Press.

Professor William (Billy) Acree received the Graduate Student Senate’s 2019 Outstanding Faculty Mentor award. The GSS Outstanding Faculty & Staff Awards are given out annually to recognize faculty and staff members who “make significant contributions to the graduate student experience.”

The department recognizes two of our graduate students, Francesca Dennstedt and Emma Merrigan who, along with Erika Rodriguez from Comparative Literature, formed The Association of Gender Minority and Women Graduate Students.

Two of our recent graduate students in Spanish have landed tenure-track jobs during this highly competitive season.

Irene Domingo, who received her PhD in Spring 2015, has accepted a tenure-track position as an assistant professor of Peninsular Literature (20th-21st centuries) at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN.

Stacy Davis, a PhD candidate in Spanish, has accepted a tenure-track position in Spanish and pedagogy at Truman State University.