Publications

• Takako Aikawa had two recent publications: “Differences in students’ error correction between native and non-native Japanese teachers,” Proceedings of the 2017 Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Japanese Language Education, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada, pp. 16-23. And: “Toward the Development of AI Tutor: Development of Error Corpus Data and Knowledge Acquisition of Error Correction” Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computer Assisted System for Teaching and Learning Japanese, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, pp. 153-160.

• Jane Dunphy served as a reviewer in September of Championing Science: Communicating to the Public for the University of California Press

• Nilma Dominique published a book chapter, “Panorama do Ensino de Português em Massachusetts, EUA” [An Overview of Portuguese Teaching in Massachusetts], which was published in A Língua Portuguesa no Mundo: passado, presente e futuro [The Portuguese Language in the World: Past, Present and Future] edited by Alexandre Luís, Carla Luís and Paulo Osório, Lisbon, Edições Colibri, pp.117-128.

• Marie-Hélène Huet‘s critical  edition of Jules Verne’s Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours (Around the World in 80 Days) was published in the Pleiade Edition (Paris, Gallimard). She is scheduled to participate in a French radio program on France-Culture about Jules Verne and the question of time on November 3.

• Leanna Rezvani published a review of Marguerite De Navarre’s Shifting Gaze: Perspectives On Gender, Class, And Politics In The Heptaméron in the September H-France. READ REVIEW. She also published an article, ” Saint Sebastian and the Mule-driver’s Wife: Marguerite de Navarre’s Renaissance Martyr,” in the Fall 2017 L’Esprit Créateur. READ ARTICLE.

• Bruno Perreau has, since last summer, worked as member of the editorial board of the new book series, Formations: Adoption, Kinship, and Culture at Ohio State University Press, and as associate editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of LGBT Politics, at Oxford University Press. Last August Perreau published a review of Gretchen Schultz’s book: Sapphic Fathers: Discourses of Same-Sex Desire from Nineteenth-Century France, in University of Toronto Quarterly, 86 (3) READ REVEIW. In late May 2017, Perreau published an article on kinship, and universalism in honor of the work of Evelyne Pisier, “Adopter” in Hommage à Évelyne Pisier, Paris, Centre National du Livre.

• Emma Teng published “A ‘Class by Themselves’: Battles over Eurasian Schooling in Late-19th-Century Shanghai,” in Zarine Rocha and Farida Fozdar eds. Mixed Race in Asia: Past, Present and Future, Routledge, and “Wang Tao as a Pioneer of New Literary and Journalistic Forms,” in A New Literary History of Modern China, Harvard University Press.

Lectures, Seminars, and Conference Presentations

• The Chinese language group was well represented at the 6th Annual Conference of the NECLTA International Conference on Learning and Teaching Chinese Language and Culture organized by the New England Chinese Language Teachers Association at Tufts in October. Tong Chen gave a plenary talk entitled “From Teacher-Student Interaction to Teaching First Year Chinese.” Panpan Gao made a presentation, “How to use social networking platform to enhance the teaching and learning of Chinese.” Kang Zhou presented “Developing Cultural Competence for Heritage Learners: Four-Step Approach to Better Cultural Understanding.”

• Takako Aikawa presented “JaJan: Language Learning in a Shared Virtual Space,” with Louisa Rosenheck at the New England Regional Association For Language Learning Technology Annual Conference at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, in October. In August, she presented at three conferences: panel presentation, “IT development and the ‘forced’ future of language teaching: toward the de-standardization of language education and the professionalization of language teachers,” in collaboration with Marcella Mariotti and Alessandro Mantelli (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy) at the 15th International Conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies and Association of Japanese Language Teachers in Europe in Lisbon, Portugal. Also in August she presented “Differences in Students’ Error Correction between Native and Non-native Japanese teachers” at the 2017 Annual Canadian Association of Teachers of Japanese Education Conference, Calgary, Canada. And also in August, “Toward the Development of AI Tutor: Knowledge Acquisition of Learners’ Error Correction” at the 7th International Conference on Computer Assisted Systems For Teaching and Learning Japanese, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. Aikawa gave an invited talk in July: “Impact of AR/VR on Language Acquisition,” at the Forum8 Workshop at, MIT. In June she gave an invited talk, “Impact of Technology on Language Learning,” for the Hakodate International Foundation, Hakodate, Japan.

• Tong Chen gave a talk entitled “Focusing on Short Sentences: Transformational Grammars Applied to L2 Learning” at The Third International Forum on Linguistics and Chinese Education held at Notre Dame in October.

• Nilma Dominique presented “Exploring Critical Approaches in an Advanced Grammar Course with a Diverse Sociolinguistic Context” at the VI SIMELP – World Symposium on Portuguese Language Studies. Santarém, Portugal, in October. In May, she presented “Brazilian Popular Music and Culture as a Mediator in the Construction of a Curriculum for Teaching Portuguese as a Heritage Language” at the IV Conference about Teaching, Promoting and Nurturing Portuguese as a Heritage Language in New York.

• Jane Dunphy gave two seminars in August. One was for the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics: “A Compelling Presence: Effective Speaking in the Professions.” In addition, she presented Core Features of Education in the United States,” for visiting faculty and students from China’s University of Electronic Science & Technology. In September Dunphy presented a seminar for MIT’s International Student Office: “Navigating MIT: The Key to Successful Classroom Participation.” In October, she gave a seminar for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute: “Global Writers-Global Readers.” In addition, she presented a paper at the Ivy-Plus International Teaching Assistant Network Symposium at Boston University: “Communication Strategies for Networking.”

• Margarita Ribas Groeger and Dagmar Jaeger co-presented a paper in October entitled “Forging Interpretation in Language Learning: Technology within a Constructivist Framework,” at the New England Regional Association for Language Learning Technology at Wesleyan University, CT.

• Marie-Hélène Huet‘s is scheduled to participate in a graduate Mellon seminar dedicated to the theme of catastrophes, and to give a lecture entitled “Medusa’s Progeny: Myth in the Time of Enlightenment” at Brown University in November.

• Min-Min Liang presented a paper, “Observing, Discovering and Defining Chinese Culture: Promoting Higher Order Thinking Skills through Media,” at the Yale Chinese Heritage Language Education Roundtable as an invited speaker, at Yale University, on October 21.

• Haohsiang Liao was invited to give a workshop at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland In September. His workshop was entitled “Global Chinese Language Pedagogy in the Era of MOOCs.”

• Carrie O’Connor attended the “Cultural Production in the 19th Century Workshop” in June in Paris, France. Then, she attended the American Comparative Literature Association conference last July in Utrecht, Netherlands. She presented a paper entitled: “(Un)Dressing Otherness in Rachilde’s ‘Monsieur Vénus’ (1884)”

• Bruno Perreau gave a talk on “Minority Presence and Representation: Transatlantic Lessons,” at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University, in October. Last July, he gave the opening keynote speech to the annual conference of the Society for French Studies, organized at the University of Durham, United Kingdom.

• Leanna Rezvani presented a paper entitled, “The Heptaméron’s Mothers: Oisille and Saint Anne” at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in Milwaukee, WI, in October.

• Paul Roquet gave a talk at the Porting Media II conference at Concordia University in Montreal in October: “IoT Portals, Ubiquity, and the Ambient Power Play.”

• Emma Teng delivered two lectures at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru in August, and gave a talk on “East Meets West: Eurasians and Hong Kong,” at the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Hong Library in September. She also spoke on a panel at the J-WEL Higher Education Week in October.

In the Media

• MIT Global France Seminar with French author Édouard Louis (En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule, published in English as The End of Eddy) spoke in a packed classroom on October 27. An article in SHASS News covered this important event.

• Bruno Perreau‘s work on democracy and the social contract was featured in the Spring 2017 issue of Spectrum.

• Jing Wang and her NGO 2.0 and New Media Action Lab is featured in October’s issue of Said and Done from the SHASS Dean’s office. Of special interest is how we can apply the MIT motto of mens et manus in our humanities and social science work. READ ARTICLE

Of Note

• Ian Condry was awarded a Mellon Faculty Grant from the MIT Center for Art, Science, and Technology for a “Dissolve Music” conference at MIT in March 2018 to bring together musicians, activists, and scholars. Condry says that “Dissolve” refers to the idea that you can’t solve problems until you dissolve the structures of power that reinforce injustice, violence, and inequality. Music has a special power to dissolve boundaries and open up new opportunities for collective action, whether for resistance or resilience. Condry is currently on sabbatical to work on his new book tentatively titled “Everything is Free Now, and Why That’s Good for Music and Musicians.” He reports that he is conducting fieldwork in Tokyo, Boston, and Berlin, and recently returned from Backnang, Germany, where he observed new “spatial mixing” technology at d&b audiotechnik.

• Nilma Dominique was certified as an ACTFL/AAPPL Portuguese Language Test Evaluator.

• Jane Dunphy hosted faculty from the University of Wollongong, Australia, in October, who were on an official visit to study the curricular, assessment and pedagogical practices of MIT’s ELS program

• Dagmar Jaeger‘s German literature and culture” students visited the exhibition “Elsewhere-Provincial Perspectives. Paintings by Wilhelm Neusser” at the Goethe Institut Boston in September with a tour through the exhibit by the artist Wilhelm Neusser himself. Jaeger also hosted thirteen students in April who are studying German at Melrose High School. The high school students met with MIT students of German over pizza and had a conversation with Bettina Stoetzer and Tanya Raymond from the MIT-Germany program.

• Min-Min Liang was elected to be the Secretary of the Heritage Language Group in the ACTFL community.

• Shigeru Miyagawa will join the Office of Vice President of Open Learning in 2018 as a Senior Associate Dean.

​• Emma Teng’s Taiwan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures served as the inspiration for a solo performance work choreographed by Cynthia Ling Lee, a choreographer, performance studies scholar, and assistant professor of dance at UC Santa Cruz. MORE INFO AND VIDEO.

Events

• Emma Teng curated  China Comes to “Tech”: 1877-1931 at the MIT Libraries’ Maihaugen Gallery. The exhibit opened February 2017 and will run until March 2018.

• Global Studies and Languages, with co-hosts Program in Science, Technology, and Society; and History; sponsored a lecture by Tom Mullaney, Associate Professor of Chinese History, Stanford University; and author, The Chinese Typewriter: A History (MIT Press). Mullaney spoke on “Computer wars: Chinese script in the age of alphanumeric hegemony.

• MIT Global France Seminar hosted Nathalie Etoke in September, Associated Professor of French and Africana Studies at Connecticut College. who spoke on “Du Noir dans le Bleu Blanc Rouge / Black in Blue White Red,” examining the “current tension between blackness and Republican color-blindness” in France. The Global France Seminar also hosted three other events: Suzanne Desan, Vilas-Shinners Professor of History, University of Wisconsin Madison, speaking about Théroigne de Méricourt, Gender, and Geopolitics in Revolutionary Europe; Charles Piot, Chair and Professor of Cultural Anthropology and African and African American Studies, Duke University, speaking on Migration Stories: The US Visa Lottery and Global Citizenship; and author Edouard Louis.

Nathalie Etoke at podium