The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures congratulates Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature Ignacio Infante on his selection as one of Emerson’s 2020 Excellence in Teaching Award recipients.

The Emerson Excellence in Teaching Awards Program, now in its 31st year, recognizes approximately 100 educators in the St. Louis metropolitan area annually for their leadership in and passion for teaching, their contributions to student learning, and their knowledge and creativity.

The department extends a huge congratulations to Professor of Italian Rebecca Messbarger, who is the recipient of a Rome Prize fellowship in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies from the American Academy in Rome (AAR).

The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Latin American Studies Program congratulates Professor Mabel Moraña on the publication of her new book, Philosophy and Criticism in Latin America: From Mariátegui to Sloterdijk, as part of the Cambria Latin American Literatures and Cultures Series with Cambria Press.

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.

Check out our new departmental blog for updates on COVID-19 and other topics. It's a great way to connect with faculty over the summer: https://sites.wustl.edu/rllwustl/home/

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. 

How was social distance observed (if at all) during previous pandemics? Turns out there's quite a precedent not just for staying away for your neighbors, but also for the idea of "quaranteaming" you might have heard about.

CNN talked to Rebecca Messbarger, a professor of Italian and founding director of the Medical Humanities program at Washington University in St. Louis about social distancing from the Black Plague until now. The parts about the different ways people deal with distance still ring true.

RLL alumnus Gonzalo Aguiar of SUNY Oswego’s department of modern languages and literatures has earned a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Scholar Fellowship for his book project,"Tropes of Violent Inequality: Brazilian Crime Fiction in a Post-Neoliberal Age."

Please join the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in congratulating Professor Ignacio Infante on the publication of his new book, a groundbreaking translation of Vicente Huidobro’s Temblor del cielo, available now.

Giovanni Boccaccio’s masterpiece, the “Decameron,” is set on the outskirts of Florence in 1348. His protagonists have retreated to the countryside in the wake of the Black Death, which is decimating their city both mortally and socially. The book offers important lessons as we confront the global threat of Coronavirus.

When a plague swept 14th-century Florence, killing more than half the city’s population, wealthy Italians turned to social distancing. One small group’s retreat from a stricken city to a deserted villa became the backdrop for the classic novel “The Decameron.”

That novel is just one of the texts Rebecca Messbarger teaches in her Disease, Madness and Death Italian Style course at Washington University. But it has sudden resonance, she says — and relevance she never anticipated when she began teaching it a year ago.