CLAS is in Session

A year of Latin American learning

As we enter the holidays, CLAS is proud to celebrate another exciting year of Latin American research, teaching, and outreach. In 2022, the Center:

• awarded 12 FLAS fellowships for the study of Quechua and Portuguese and secured $1.15 million in FLAS funding for the 2022-26 cycle
• supported pre-dissertation field research abroad for 10 Tinker fellows
• hosted and co-sponsored dozens of events ranging from academic lectures, to digital humanities workshops, to concerts, to tango classes
• trained more than 60 K-12 teachers and impacted over 8,000 students nationwide through various educational outreach programs
• supported Latin Americanist conferences, artist residencies, course creation, and archive and library holdings expansion through National Resource Center funding from the US Department of Education

... and much more!

AATSP Conference & Add-on Symposium

The 105th iteration of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish & Portuguese (AATSP) Annual Conference will take place June 26-29, 2023 in Salamanca, Spain.

This year, the conference will include an optional one-day add-on symposium in Porto, Portugal. This symposium will provide professional development for two groups of AATSP members:

• beginners with knowledge of Spanish can participate in the Beginners Boot Camp in Portuguese Language & Culture
• intermediate/advanced Portuguese speakers can attend a Seminar on Inorporating the Culture, History, & Literature of Porto into US Portuguese Courses, including a linguistic contrast of Brazilian and Iberian Portuguese

Tinker Field Research Highlight

Steven Rhue, PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology, recently conducted field research in Brazil, with support from a 2020 Tinker Foundation Field Research Grant awarded by CLAS, as well as an NSF Cultural Anthropology Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant.

Steven's project is entitled "Children's Experiences and Perceptions of Household Water Insecurity in the Urban Amazon of Brazil" and involved both virtual data collection and in-person field research with children ages 5 to 11 living in two baixadas in Belém, Pará that regularly experience interruptions in water service. Steven's innovative methods included the piloting of a Draw, Write, and Tell technique which provided insights into the children's daily relationship and experiences with water, ranging from play to water consumption to worry about flooding.

Please join us in congratulating Steven on his excellent work and wishing him luck with the remaining stages of his dissertation.

Postdoc: Tulane, Latin American Studies

Tulane University's Stone Center for Latin American Studies is now accepting applications for the 2023 Zemurray-Stone Post-Doctoral Fellow in Latin American Studies.

The Stone Center seeks applications from scholars engaged in media studies and digital humanities whose creative and professional advancement would benefit from collaborating in the development of a series of experimental prototypes that explore the future of new digital forms of communication and aesthetic expression to convey the impacts of Latin American Studies on Tulane students and the field at large.

Application Deadline: March 15, 2023. For more details, see the full job announcement here. Apply via Interfolio here.

Staff Thank Yous

As Zoey Wurgess' time as our International Studies student intern comes to a close, we would like to thank her for her hard work. Throughout the semester Zoey designed event flyers, edited materials for the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, helped develop our Teaching Central America Resource Guide, supported Día de los Muertos programming, and more.

As her final task with CLAS, Zoey contributed to an article highlighting efforts on campus to update and refine pedagogical materials for the study of Portuguese. Read the full text here.

We would also like to recognize Patti Vocal, who has served as CLAS Outreach Coordinator since October 2019 but is now moving on from the role.

Patti has been instrumental to the success of several CLAS outreach programs, most notably the BookBox series, which she implemented in Fall 2020 and expanded in subsequent semesters with impressive results. The series has trained dozens of K-12 teachers and impacted thousands of students.

Thank you for all your hard work, Patti. You'll be missed, and we wish you all the best!

SPPO Graduate Student Conferences

On March 24-25, 2023, the graduate students of the Department of Spanish & Portuguese will host their annual conferences:

Ohio State University Congress on Hispanic & Lusophone Linguistics (OSUCHiLL)

OSU Hispanic & Lusophone Studies Symposium (OSUHALSS)

The abstract submission deadline for both conferences is January 13, 2023.

FLAS Alumni Group on LinkedIn

The U.S. Department of Education's International & Foreign Language Education office invites all current and former FLAS fellows to join its FLAS Alumni Group.

When requesting to join, IFLE encourages fellows/alumni to send a direct message through LinkedIn containing the following information (this will expedite the verification and approval process): Name at the time of FLAS award, Institution, and Year(s) for which they received an award

FLAS students and alumni can use the LinkedIn group to connect with fellow language and area studies specialists, share stories about their experiences in the FLAS program, and network with alumni working in similar fields of expertise.

Brazil Gateway: CAPES PrInt Workshop

On Thursday, December 15, 12-2 PM EST, the Brazil Gateway will host the III CAPES PrInt Workshop via Zoom.

The event will showcase research collaborations between Brazilian universities and Ohio State and will feature Brazilian PhD candidates who have received CAPES PrInt funding to pursue research at OSU. The disciplines represented include bioanthropology, literature, nuclear engineering, and veterinary medicine.

Register here to receive the Zoom link.

FLAS Fellowship Info Session (last one!) | Register to attend

Wednesday, January 11