Publications and websites
• Bruno Perreau’s new book came out on November 16, 2016: Queer Theory: The French Response(Stanford University Press). He also published an op-ed piece in the French daily newspaper Libération on gender theory: Genre : ne renonçons pas à la théorie !
• Haohsiang Liao published a new book Easy Mandarin Chinese published by Tuttle. It provides a concise, intuitive and illustrated introduction to anyone interested in learning Mandarin Chinese—whether on their own or with a teacher.
• Paul Roquet published an article online “From Animation to Augmentation: Dennō Coil and the Composited Self” in animation: an interdisciplinary journal. ABSTRACT
• Emma Teng published a piece, “China Comes to MIT: 1877-1931” in fall issue of the Chronicle of the Chinese Historical Society of New England.
• Maria Khotimsky published a book chapter entitled “Marina Cvetaeva in Translation and as a Translator of Poetry,” in A Companion to Marina Cvetaeva. Approaches to a Major Russian Poet, Edited by Sibelan Forrester (Brill: Leiden; Boston, 2016).
• A. C. Kemp’s video series, “The User-Friendly Classroom” has been published on MIT’s OpenCourseWare at and was a Featured Course highlighted on their homepage during the month of November. The User-Friendly Classroom video series was developed with support from The Gilberte Furstenberg & Douglas Morgenstern Fund for Innovation in Language Instruction and The Alumni Class Funds.
• Leanna Rezvani reports that her website on Teaching La Princesse de Clèves recently reached 10,000 hits.
Lectures and Conference Presentations
• Emma Teng presented a lecture November 2, “Traversing Boundaries: Bridging Asian and Asian American Studies through ritical Mixed Race Studies,” at the Humanities Institute at SUNY Stony Brook.
• Bruno Perreau gave a talk at the Biennal Conference of the Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture in Minneapolis on October 28. He also gave a talk at Cornell on gender in translation on November 14. EVENT. Perreau also contributed to the Stanford University Press Blog in the form of an online conversation “Diversity: America v. France” with Prof. Laure Murat (UCLA)
• Paloma Duong presented on a Panel on Global Punk a the Punkfest held at Cornell University November 1.
• Maria Khotimsky presented at The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Washington, DC, November 16-20. Her presentation: “Contemporary Translingual American Poets of Russian Origin” was part of the Round Table: “Contemporary Literary Translingualism: Conversations between Slavic and World Literature.” At the conference, she was also Chair and Organizer of the Round Table “Translation Studies and Slavic Studies in a Global Perspective.”
• Eric Grunwald and Jane Dunphy conducted a workshop on October 5 on “Success in the Classroom” for the International Students Office, as one in a series of seminars/workshops called “Re-Orientation.” This series provides on-going support for first-year international students.
• Jane Dunphy also made several presentations in October. On October 21 she presented a paper, “Integrating Expertise Across the Curriculum to Optimize the L2 Writing Classroom,” at the 2016 Symposium on Second Language Writing at Arizona State University. On October 28 she conducted a workshop on “Storytelling: A Tool for ITA development” at the 2016 Symposium of the Ivy-Plus International Teaching Assistant Network.
• A. C. Kemp presented “The User-Friendly Classroom: The First Day” at the New England International Teaching Assistant Network (NEITAN) Conference at Brown University in Providence Rhode Island on October 28.
• Leanna Rezvani presented “Marguerite de Roberval in the New World: The Heptaméron’s Response to Sixteenth-Century Controversy about Women and Religion” at a conference November 4 on Early Modern Works by and about Women: Genre and Method at McGill University in Montreal.
• Masami Ikeda-Lamm gave a talk on the increase in “self-learners” of Japanese observed among MIT students in recent years at the Japanese Workshop organized by AATJ – Japan Foundation on November 20.
• GSL lecturers participated in 5th Annual Conference of the International Conference on Learning and Teaching Chinese Language and Culture (NECLTA) held on Saturday, October 29, at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. Tong Chen gave a presentation entitled “Using Software to Understand Text Before Class Time.” During the conference, he was also re-elected to NECLTA’s Board of Directors. Kang Zhou presented “Using Video Clips to Teach Complicated Grammar Structures for Intermediate Chinese Learner.”
• GSL was also well-represented at the conference of American Council on The Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Annual Meeting held in Boston November 18-20. Margarita Ribas Groeger co-directed the workshop “Real Conversations: How to Advance Language and Cultural Proficiency in the Student-Centered Spanish Classroom” as part of the Yale University Press Exhibitor Session. She also conducted a Round Table Presentation “In Their Own Voice: Empowering Learners Through Digital Pedagogy.” Lissette Soto, Ana Yañez, Mariana San Martin paresented “The Case for a Second-Semester Short-Term Study Abroad Program” at the conference. Haohsiang Liao gave a presentation entitled “Online Speech Recognition Tool NetProF in Learning Cycle.” Min-Min Liang presented two papers: “Turning The Table on Learner Engagement for Secondary Mandarin Classrooms,” and “Kitchen Language to Discourse: Employing OPI Principles in Course Design.” Tong Chen gave a presentation entitled “Errors Analysis on the Usage of Empty Words and Its Teaching Strategies.” Kang Zhou presented “Kitchen Language to Discourse: Employing OPI principles in Course Design.” Peter Weise presented a paper, “Was wäre gewesen, wenn …” – Der Hypothetische Konjunktiv und die deutsche Teilung,” a presentation on a unit from 4th semester German class using a film to introduce students to historical events during the German division and reunification while practicing the hypothetical subjunctive as a grammatical form. Masami Ikeda-Lamm gave a presentation “Cultivating Japanese Writing Proficiency with Enhanced Vertical Continuity.”
Of note
• Emma Teng was interviewed by the Museum of Food and Drink on the history of Chinese immigration. A brief clip from this interview appears in this kickstarter video. Teng serves as an advisor to the exhibit Chow: The History of Chinese American Cuisine, which opened November 6.
• Shigeru Miyagawa’s research was an inspiration for an orchestra and choir work by the British composer Pete Wyer commissioned by the NY World Financial Center. It premiered in the WFC complex on October 12.
• Leanna Rezvani took a group of French II students to a concert by the Boston Camerata on October 22. The program was entitled, “City of Fools: Rule and Misrule in the Middle Ages.” You can hear about the program HERE.
• Three MIT students who have all done concentrations in German were chosen to received scholarships by the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst – DAAD), the largest funding organization in the world supporting the international exchange of students and scholars. Gabriel Lesnick received a Graduate Study Scholarship. Lucine Gabriel and Elizabeth Rider were accepted into the Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE Germany) program.
• Peter Weise was re-appointed Testing Chair for the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG).
Events
• A reading by Chinese avant-garde writer Can Xue on Thursday Oct. 6, was attended by over 100 people. Porochisa Khakpour, Writer in Residence at Bard College, and John Donatich, Director, Yale University Press, joined the panel and did readings from Can Xue’s works. The event was sponsored by GSL and WGS and it was hosted by Min-Min Liang.
• The English Language Studies program in vited Melissa Barnett, Associate Director for Assessment at MIT’s Teaching & Learning Lab, to give a seminar October 29 on assessment research designed specifically for the kinds of teaching and learning that occurs in GSL classrooms.
• The Chinese Group presented an invited lecture November 17 on “Myths about Teaching Chinese as a Second Language” by Professor Shou-hsin Teng from Chungyuan Christian University in Taiwan. The talk filled one of the lecture halls at Stata, attracting nearly 80 Chinese language educators from the greater Boston area and beyond.