Back to Spanish

Dania Abreu (Puerto Rico). Mi nombre es Dania Abreu-Torres. Soy de Puerto Rico. Recientemente comencé mis estudios de doctorado, al finalizar en mayo (2004) mi maestría aquí en UF. El campo que me interesa investigar los próximos años es la poesía del Caribe hispánico, específicamente los temas de raza y escritura femenina. Adicional, he estudiado la narrativa puertorriqueña, y en un futuro espero englobar a todo el Caribe en mi trabajo (incluyendo al francófono). daniae@ufl.edu
Homepage.  

Henri Simon-Blanc (France/Vietnam).  I am a PhD student in Spanish. My area of interest is science fiction and fantastic literature/film/animation/comics. I am writing my dissertation on the work of Chilean/Mexican/French novelist/playwright/movie director/ writer of comics called Alejandro Jodorowsky, looking into the deconstruction of the postcolonial society in the work of this author.

Vanessa Bueno (Brazil). I am a second year Master’s student in the literature track. I have decided on the non-thesis option, and I am planning on teaching Spanish after graduation. I would like to work teaching Spanish at a high school or community college.
vanessab@ufl.edu

Melanie D’Amico (California, USA)
I am currently pursuing my Master’s in Hispanic Linguistics. I completed my BS in Spanish with a Business Option at Penn State University. My main area of interest is Second Language Acquisition; as well, I am planning to write my master’s thesis on this topic. I am also a Graduate Teaching Assitant in the beginning Spanish program here at UF and have really enjoyed working with such excellent students.
mdamico@ufl.edu
Homepage

Miguel De Feo (Argentina). I am a PhD student in Latin American Literature. I am interested in cultural studies, literature, and philosophy of Latin America.  

Erica Fischer Dorantes (México). I am a third year PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics. My doctoral research will be on lexicography (bilingual English-Spanish dictionaries), but I also enjoy bilingualism and technology in foreign language teaching.
efischer@ufl.edu
Homepage

Claudia García (Argentina). I am a Master's student in Spanish. My main interest is Contemporary Latin American Literature (Central America in particular). At the moment, I have too many ideas of what I would like to study in this field, so when they boil down to a few manageable ones, I'll update you all!

Ericka Ghersi (Perú).  I am in pursuit of a PhD in Latin American Literature, and I am writing my dissertation on poetry and feminist discourses. At this moment, I am working on a project for the University of San Martin de Porres (Lima-Perú), it consists of looking into the possible conection between the social events of the last decade of the 20th Century and the literary work (poetry) written by female writers who experienced the ‘horror times’ in Peru due to tensions between the Shining Path and Fujimori’s dictatorship. As a writer, I have published two books of poetry: Zenobia y el anciano (1994), Contra la ausencia (2002), and I have already prepared a third book Cartas postales. Finally, I am one of the directors of the literary magazine "Las Olas". Besides my interest in poetry, I am also applying my degree on Mass Comunications writing papers on film such as adaptations of Latin American novels into films.

Carmen Guerrero (Colombia). Barranquilla city located in the northern part of Colombia, is the beautiful place where I was born. There I studied to be an ESL and literature teacher. After that I worked as a preschool, primary, middle and high school teacher in different parts of the country, all of them in the north coast of the Colombia. I married Alexander Steffanell, my teaching training coordinator, in July 1995. Seven years after my graduation I came to Miami University in Ohio to work on my Master's degree. That was an enriching experience and also the place where our son, Navín, was born. Now I'm in Gainesville, Florida, working on my doctoral studies in Peninsular Literature.
At University of Florida I teach two Spanish classes for intermediate level. I am taking classes in Cervantes, Colonial litearture and Bildungsroman in Latin America I. My first semester at UF, I took a class in Exemplarity in Medieval and Golden Age texts that inspired me to pick a topic for my dissertation. Baltasar Gracián is the name of the author I'm studying, he was part of the Spanish Baroque period. El Oráculo Manual, el Criticón and el Discreto are the books from this author that I'm using to do my research. After that first step, I plan to study Colonial period to see if there is something connected to this author and my main interest, which is Exemplarity in Critical Reading.
Homepage

María Guerrero (Spain). I am a MA student pursuing my Master’s in Spanish Literature. My areas of interest are 20th century Spanish women writers, Spanish and Latin American film, feminist theories and cultural studies.

Laurel Hodges (Alabama, USA). Hi, I'm Laurel and I hail from Alabama. I have a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Alabama, and now I'm a second-year master's student here at UF in the Hispanic Linguistics track. I'm interested in phonetics and especially the acquisition of pronunciation. I'm also doing a minor in translation studies through the Center for Latin American Studies.
ljhodges@ufl.edu
Homepage

Kandace Holladay (United States). I am a doctoral student whose primary interests are Latin American literature and cinema. My Master's thesis was a comparative study of Manuel Puig's El beso de la mujer araña and the film adaptation Kiss of the Spider Woman focusing on the ekphrasis process, the inversion of the ekphrastic process and the dismantling of the stereotyped images of Man, Woman and Homosexual in the novel and film. My doctoral research, however, will concentrate on the literary works by the Mexican author, Marcela del Río Reyes.

Natalia Inés Jacovkis (Argentina). I am a first year PhD student. I am interested in Contemporary Latin American (especially Argentina and Mexico) literature and cinema. I am focused on analyzing what has been produced in Latin America during the last two decades in relation to the processes of neoliberalism and globalization.

Víctor M. Jordán (Cali-Colombia)
En el momento mi interés principal es la literatura colombiana y caribeña del siglo XIX.
vjordan@ufl.edu

Sarah Kraemer (United States). I am a Master’s student in the Linguistic track. My area of interest is sociolinguistics, in particular language attitudes of Spanish heritage speakers in the United States towards varieties of Spanish and their pedagogical implications in Second Language Acquisition.

Joy Lewis (United States)
I am a master's student on the literature track. My interests are Chicano (Mexican-American) Literature as well as Mexican iconografy and culture.

Violeta Lorenzo (Puerto Rico)
I am a M.A. literature student under the 4-1 combined program. My interests include Latin American literature, linguistics, history, cinema, and music.
viole@ufl.edu

Roger S. MacManus (United States). I am a doctoral student in medieval Spanish literature. I am currently looking for and investigating diseases recorded in Spanish literature and other texts. My Masters paper investigates Cantiga XCI of Alfonso X and the Miracle of the Blasphemed Virgin of Gonzalo de Berceo, two examples of a disease which struck thousands of people in Medieval Europe with the horrifying symptoms of invisibilis ignis, carnem ab ossibus separans et consumens: a disease with the eponym ''St. Martial's Fire''.

Alberto Méndez (México)
I am a first year Master's student in Spanish Literature; my main interest is in contemporary political essays from México, especially in the work of Octavio Paz.
mendezal@ufl.edu

Roy Michalik (Michigan, USA)
My name is Roy Michalik, I'm originally from Ypsilanti, Michigan and I'm in my first year in the Master's program in Hispanic Linguistics. I am interested in dialectology, with a special focus on the Southern Cone region. As of yet I don't have a very specific plan for my studies but I would like to do some sort of comparative study of slang in this region, particularly in Chile and Argentina.
michalik@ufl.edu

David Nolen (Alabama, USA)
I am a second year Master's student in the literature track. I am from Alabama, and did my undergraduate studies at the University of Alabama in Spanish and Latin American Studies. I continue to be interested by Latin American literature and culture, but I have also become more interested in Peninsular Golden Age texts as well.
dsnolen@ufl.edu

Erica Oshier (United States). I am a PhD student studying Spanish American Literature. My interests include but are not limited to feminism, postcolonial studies, literary theory and cultural studies. My master's research was on globalization and identity in a Nuyorican text, my doctoral research is on Mexican feminist thought after the revolution.

Ericka Helena Parra (Mexico).   I am in the first semester of the PhD in Latin American Literature. My interest is women’s spaces in postcolonial writing. Basically, I will focus on testimonios written by women in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Kate Price (Canada). In pursuit of an MA, I am interested in Contemporary Latin American literature and culture. Interest areas include; Women’s narrative, comparative Caribbean literature and cultural studies.
katepr@ufl.edu
Homepage

Alejandro Quin (Colombia). Actualmente estoy terminando mi maestría en literatura. Mis áreas de interés son por ahora el ensayo y el pensamiento hispanoamericanos de los siglos XIX Y XX.
alejquin@ufl.edu

Alex Quintanilla (El Salvador). Me llamo Alex Quintanilla, soy salvadoreño. Hago el doctorado en Lingüística Hispánica. Soy lexicógrafo. Me interesan la lexicografía práctica (hacer diccionarios) y la metalexicografía (teoría, análisis e investigación de diccionarios). Quisiera elaborar un proyecto de diccionario integral para El Salvador como el del Colegio de México de L. F. Lara, que desvirtúe la división del español en -ismos (salvadoreñismos, mexicanismos...) y remedie la carencia lexicográfica de diccionarios integrales en América.
jralex@ufl.edu
Homepage

Eva María Regueira (Miami Beach, FL, USA). I am a native Floridian with Spanish and Cuban parents. I completed my
Bachelor’s degree in Spanish right here at the University of Florida. I also have two minors in Business Administration and Pathways to Teaching Foreign Language in Secondary Schools. I am now an MA student in Spanish Literature and teach introductory Spanish language courses for UF. My main areas of interest are twentieth century Spanish and Latin American theatre and film.

Alegría Ribadeneira (Ecuador). I am on my third year, finishing up my Masters thesis and starting up with my PhD coursework this year. I am also a TA in the second year Spanish program where I enjoy inspiring my students to learn not only the mechanics of the Spanish language but also all the richness of its culture.

Juan Pablo Rodriquez Prieto (España). Me llamo Juan Pablo Rodriguez Prieto. Soy de España, de la ciudad de Palencia. Estudio un doctorado en Lingüística Hispánica. Mi área de interés es la lingüística aplicada. Me gustaría hacer una investigación en algún aspecto en concreto de la sintaxis del español y su adquisición por estudiantes nativos de inglés. Causas, explicaciones y posibles técnicas y actividades para ayudarles a adquirir dicha estructura con más facilidad

Aixa Said-Mohand (Spain). I was born in Melilla, a Spanish enclave in North Africa. I am currently pursuing my PhD in Hispanic Linguistics. My areas of interest are methodology, Second Language Acquisition, and bilingualism. Homepage.

Eider Sainz De La Maza (Spain). I am from the Basque Country. I am a Master’s student in Latin American Literature. My interests are not really defined yet.

Lauren Schmidt (United States). I am a Masters student in Spanish Linguistics. My main interests are in Spanish dialectology and second language acquisition. I first fell in love with the Spanish language and with linguistics while studying abroad during my undergraduate career in the Yucatan, Mexico, and later in Monteverde, Costa Rica. I hope to do research in either dialectology or SLA.
lschmidt@ufl.edu

Alexander Steffanell (Colombia). Soy Alexander Steffanell, del Caribe colombiano (Barranquilla). Ciudad donde bailamos cumbia, merengue y salsa, como máxima expresión de nuestra cultura caribe. Estoy en segundo año de doctorado en Literatura Latinoamericana, con énfasis en Literatura Colonial. Mi área de interés es la Literatura Colonial, con énfasis en todo lo que tenga que ver con la literatura religiosa escrita por monjas y sacerdotes. Tengo dos maestrías en Linguistica. Una de la Universidad de Antioquia(con énfasis en Sociolinguistica-coursework-) y otra de Miami University (Ohio) en Linguistica Hispánica. Mi tesis se basó en los Patrones de Interacción Verbal (PIV) entre las vendedoras palenqueras y clientes en la ciudad de Barranquilla. También tengo dos años de Teología en el Seminario Teológico Presbiteriano (Colombia). Ahora estoy trabajando mi tesis doctoral en Sor Francisca Josefa de Castillo y Guevara, conocida principalmente como la Madre Castillo: monja colonial colombiana.
ascg67@ufl.edu

Veronica Tienza-Sanchez (España). Mi nombre es Veronica Tienza-Sanchez y vengo de España. Soy licenciada en Filología Inglesa y vine a UF a seguir estudiando literatura, aunque esta vez en español. Actualmente, estoy en mi segundo año de la maestría. Me interesa mucho la literatura latinoamericana, quizas porque sé muy poco de ella. De todas formas, no estoy concentrada en ninguna área en particular porque no voy a escribir la tesis. Estoy contenta de haber elegido este programa porque he aprendido y sigo aprendiendo mucho.
tienza@ufl.edu

Karina Vázquez (Argentina). I am in the second year of the Literature MA Program. My specific area of interest is the literature produced in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile) after the last dictatorships, and the process of integration of these countries in the global context of the 90s. I am also interested in the links between literature, sociology and political science as a framework to discuss, review and apply theoretical categories from each one of these fields of study to the creative and interpretative process in the literary production.
Homepage

Christina Welch-Álvarez (Spain/United States). I am a third year doctoral student in Spanish. My area of interest is 19th century Caribbean literature, specifically the Naturalist novel. My dissertation involves looking at the connections between the Naturalist novel and cultural nationalist projects in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Back to Spanish