ISSUE 10
SPRING 2010
The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
Montclair State University
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Greetings from the Chair
News from Alumni and Students
Faculty News
Prizes
Program News
Impressions from Abroad
Edited by Dr. Jefferson Gatrall
GREETINGS FROM THE CHAIR
This has been a year of tremendous growth for the Department
of Modern Languages and Literatures. With the expansion of the
University to over 18,000 students, its mission of globalization,
and the usefulness of familiarity with languages/cultures other
than one’s own for success on the job market—to say nothing of
the fascination such knowledge holds for the learner (!)—the
Department has been delighted to welcome many new majors
and minors. Moreover, as the University becomes increasingly
diversified, international commerce alters its epicenters worldwide, and shifts in the international political arena put in high
relief the relevance of languages previously less taught, it is
incumbent upon the Department of MLL to make additional languages available to our students and to this end we are currently
exploring a variety of options.
Not only is a healthy increase in the number of majors and
minors in the Department evident but an increase in the number
of sections of our beginning and intermediate level courses is as
well. Moreover, our program in Russian has seen both a revival
of advanced courses not offered for some time and the expansion of some of those courses into the General Education curriculum. Hebrew is also of growing interest to the MSU population, necessitating the creation of a new placement test for
which we have Professor Talya Schwarzer and MSU’s
Coordinator of Language Testing Jessica Brandt to thank.
(A-newly-minted Dr.) Courtney Glore (congratulations,
Courtney!) has successfully managed the German program in
Dr. Bettina’s Brandt’s absence with the result that a recent open
house brought us five new German minors in one fell swoop.
Furthermore, our program in MSU’s Austrian sister city, Graz,
has become more competitive, and this fall saw the return to
MSU of senior administrators from Karl Franzens Universität
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there to discuss new directions in which our association might
take us. We sincerely thank not only Dr. Glore for her dedication
this year (while we certainly miss Dr. Brandt!), we thank
Professor Mazooz Sehwail for his extraordinary commitment as
well. Indeed, Arabic is in full swing with Professor Sehwail at the
helm, and I encourage you all to think about summer study
abroad—if not with our long-standing program in Nice, then in
Jordan where Professor Sehwail has created a new summer program for us that promises to be a most enriching experience.
Professor Geneviève Chevalier came from the University of
Nice in the fall to meet with some of our faculty in French and
with Marina Cunningham and Wendy Gilbert-Simon of the
Global Education Center for the purpose of formulating additional exchanges (both faculty and student) with Nice and to
render our current informal association official. This is now
very much in the works! Our summer program in Nice is filling up well, and we look forward to another exciting summer
there under the able stewardship of Dr. Joanna Dezio.
Additionally, we are now offering an assistantship at the
University of Nice to our students in the MA program.
In a word, then, the Department is not only alive and well,
but thriving!
Dr. Lois Oppenheim, Chair
NEWS FROM ALUMNI
Mirlène Jean-Francois, who graduated in May 2006, spent
three years working as a French Teacher, first at Dwight
Morrow High School in New Jersey and then at an elementary
school in North Carolina—her most memorable teaching experience to date. In addition to teaching high school this year, she
is studying in the Curriculum and Supervision graduate program at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She would
like to thank the great professors at MSU, who, she says,
taught her the language essentials that she now uses today. She
will be absent for the party, but with everyone in thought.
Adria Gettle is in her third year teaching at the Urban
Assembly School for Law and Justice, a small high school in
Brooklyn, NY, founded in 2004, where she has successfully
built both a French and Advanced French program. Thanks to
a $5,000 fellowship from Fund for Teachers, a division of New
Visions for Public Schools in July 2009, she spent three weeks
collaborating with a teacher of English in a collège in
Calvisson, France writing a year-long, interactive, multi-media
curriculum that promotes international communication, friendship, and authentic language practice. American and French
students post video, audio, text, questions, conversations and
photos as they demonstrate their proficiency in their target language and strive to learn more about each other’s cultures on a
shared blog (http://calbrook.blogspot.com). She also led seven
students on a trip to Paris in February 2010.
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Jaclyn Hoesch is currently working for L’Occitane en
Provence as a Marketing Product Manager, thanks to what she
calls her “wonderful experience with everyone” in the French
program. Jaclyn received a bachelor’s degree in 2006 in
French Translation as well as a bachelor’s degree in the
International Business Department at MSU.
Colens Pierre, a 2008 grad in French, began teaching at
Elizabeth High School this past November.
After graduating in 2008 with a double major in French and
theater, Nicole Van Voorhis is now living in New York City
and pursuing her acting career. She is taking classes at Herbert
Berghof Studio, and she “loves every minute of it!”
Henri Fromageot successfully completed his MA thesis,
“Droits de l'homme et politique africaine de la France,” and
Ilkay Ozdemir hers, “Le rôle de la séduction dans Bel-Ami,
Une vie, et Pierre et Jean de Maupassant.” Congratulations to
Henri and Ilkay!
FACULTY NEWS
Dr. Bettina Brandt recently published an article in Transit,
the peer-reviewed online German Studies journal of the
University of California at Berkeley, and has another article
forthcoming in the Germanic Studies journal, Etudes
Germaniques, that comes out of France. Dr. Brandt also gave
three invited lectures (in Maastricht, the Netherlands; in Tours,
France; and in Svendborg, Denmark) and a conference paper
on “memory and theater in postwar Japan and Germany” at the
annual German Studies conference in October. While in
Denmark, Dr. Brandt participated in a multilingual poetry performance with Yoko Tawada at the Literaturhaus in
Copenhagen. Since November—when Herta Müller received
the Noble Prize in literature—Dr. Brandt has organized several
panels and roundtables about the Romanian-German author,
most recently at Pennsylvania State University, where she is
currently a visiting scholar in the Department of German and
Slavic Languages and Literatures.
Professor Joanna Dezio, MSU's visiting specialist in interpreting and translation and the director of MSU in Nice,
appears in the Summer 2009 issue of Columbia University’s
journal Future Anterior, where her translation from the Italian
of an article by Renata Codello on Carlo Scarpa’s "Monument
to the Partisan Woman" has been published. Many Italian
women were courageous resistance fighters against Fascism,
but until Carlo Scarpa created his impressive monument to
their valor, the contribution of these women to the regaining of
liberty in Italy was unheralded.
Dr. Elizabeth Emery has lectured in the US and France about
medievalism, nineteenth-century French literature and culture,
and writers Pierre Loti, J.-K. Huysmans, George Rodenbach,
Rachilde, and Marcel Proust. Book chapters and articles published in 2009 include “Dornac’s ‘At Home’ Photographs,
Relics of French History” (Proceedings of the Western Society
for French History); “Colonial Gothic: The Medievalism of
America’s ‘National’ Cathedrals,” in The Other Medievalisms
(Johns Hopkins Press); “Misunderstood Symbolism:
Rereading the Subjective Objects of Montesquieu’s First
Maison d’un artiste,” in Symbolist Objects: Materiality and
Subjectivity at the Fin-de-siècle (Rivendale Press); “The
Martyred Cathedral: American Interpretations of Notre-Dame
de Reims after the First World War,” in Medieval Art and
Architecture after the Middle Ages (Cambridge Scholars
Press); and “Medievalism and the Middle Ages” (Studies in
Medievalism).
Dr. Jefferson Gatrall presented several papers in the past
year, including “An Inconvenient Footnote: Lermontov’s A
Hero of Our Time and the Circassian Genocide” at a Columbia
University conference on teaching nineteenth-century Russian
literature as well as a paper on Russian paintings of the historical Jesus at the 40th Annual AAASS Conference in Boston.
Together with Sean Pue, he organized the panel “Landscapes
of Cultural Production” for the Annual Meeting of the ACLA
in New Orleans, where he also presented the paper “The
Flowers of Galilee: Literary Landscape in the NineteenthCentury Jesus Novel.” He recently participated in a colloquium on Russian Realism sponsored by the Slavic Department at
Yale University, and he will also be presenting a paper this
August on Tolstoyism at a conference in Yasnaya Polyana,
Russia, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the novelist’s
death. With his co-editor Douglas Greenfield, he is working on
the final stages of production for Alter Icons: The Russian
Icon and Modernity, forthcoming in December from Penn
State Press, a volume for which he wrote the introduction and
a chapter.
Dr. Courtney Glore Crimmins presented a paper titled “Red
and Re-Read: Reinterpreting the Soviet War Memorial in
Berlin’s Treptower Park after 1990” at the conference “Twenty
Years On: Remembering the GDR and German Unification,”
held at the University of Bath, UK, in September 2009. She
will be contributing a chapter to a volume based on the conference to be published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Last spring, Dr. Kathleen Loysen spoke at the annual conference
of the North-American Society for Seventeenth-Century French
Literature at New York University and this spring and summer will
be presenting papers at the Kentucky Foreign Language
Conference, the Women in French Conference on Women's SelfNarrative Across the Francophone World at Wagner College, and
the Material Cultures Conference sponsored by the Centre for the
History of the Book at the University of Edinburgh. She was also
the recipient in 2009 of the CHSS Dean’s Recognition Award for
Excellence in Teaching, and was awarded a research sabbatical
for spring 2011.
Kareen Obydol-Alexandre, an adjunct in the Dept. of MLL
since 2002, participated in a two-week theater class for French
teachers at the Collège International de Cannes, working on
breathing and phonetics exercises in the mornings and reading
and acting out plays on stage in the afternoons. She has since
drawn on her rich experiences there to enliven her own classes
and improve her students’ proficiency.
In November Dr. Daniel Mengara was invited to Algeria
where he made a presentation on “Les mythes anciens à
l’épreuve de la modernité dans les littératures africaines” at
the Second Algiers Panafrican Festival. His paper was entitled
“Oralité, mythes et cultures africaines: Plaidoyer pour une
renaissance par l’audio-visuel.” Dr, Mengara was also recently invited by the Haitian community to give a lecture in
August of this year at the annual banquet sponsored by the
radio station Haiti-Info Broadcasting Corporation. At this
event, which usually gathers some 300 Haitian business people
and professionals, he will speak on “La négritude comme
héritage des peuples noirs: Perspectives et enseignements.”
He also attempted a run for the presidency of Gabon in the
summer of 2009, but his candidacy was arbitrarily rejected by
the Gabonese constitutional court.
Dr. Lois Oppenheim returned to campus this fall after a fruitful sabbatical year in which she wrote half of her book-inprogress, Imagination from Fantasy to Delusion (under contract with Routledge for publication in London and New
York). Dr. Oppenheim, who was Visiting Scholar last year at
the Psychiatric Institute of Columbia Presbyterian Medical
Center, is spearheading the making of a documentary film
(which actor John Turturro will narrate). Additionally, in
recent months she has written several articles, including “Life
as Trauma; Art as Mastery: Samuel Beckett and the Urgency
of Writing,” published in Contemporary Psychoanalysis; “A
Discrete Irony of the Schizotypal Mind,” in Philoctetes; and a
chapter entitled “The Lexicographer's Nightmare,” for a book
on neuro-psychoanalysis and cognitive neuroscience forthcoming from Oxford University Press. She organized two roundtable events—“Modernists that Matter: Mallarmé and
Apollinaire” and “Surrealism and Beyond: Paul Eluard and
René Char”—as well as a Beckett festival at the Philoctetes
Center and a conference at the New York Psychoanalytic
Institute called “Minding the Gap: Classical and
Relational/Interdisciplinary Psychoanalysts in Dialogue.”
“Minding the Gap II: Psychoanalytic Convergences and
Divergences on the Etiology and Treatment of Psychosis” will
take place in April. Dr. Oppenheim has published numerous
other articles and given several invited lectures in recent
months in both psychoanalysis and literary studies.
This academic year Dr. Rabia Redouane published three articles: “Teaching Less Commonly Taught Languages:
Pedagogical Challenges and Solutions,” in Dilbilim (İstanbul,
Turkey); “Assessing Instructional Methods in l2 French
Vocabulary Acquisition: Guessing-from-context method versus
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FACULTY NEWS
(Continued from page 3 )
a word-list method,” in La Revue Alloquor Studia Humanitatis
Iassyensia (Editura Universitatii Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi,
Romania); and “Écrire la passion amoureuse dans Mes
hommes de Malika Mokeddem,” in “La Lettre R,” Issue thématique Arts et artistes. Vices et passions (Université Ştefan
cel Mare, Suceava-Roumanie). She also published reviews of
La famille disséminée by Lamia Bereksi Meddahi and Le
Silence de Mahomet by Salim Bachi, both in French Review.
In addition she delivered papers at the 2009 South West
Conference on Language Teaching (SWCOLT) in Norman,
Oklahoma, and at the 10th Nordic Conference on
Bilingualism, Tartu University, Estonia. This spring semester
she has two forthcoming articles: “Histoire et récit dans Le
Successeur d’Ismaïl Kadaré,” Cahiers de l’Echinox, numéro
spécial Les Cultures des Balkans (Université Babes Bolyai,
Cluj-Napoca, Romania) and “Femme nue, femme noire de
Calixthe Beyala: Pour une mythologie de l’érotisme africain,”
in Mythes et érotismes dans les littératures et cultures francophones de l’extrême contemporain, L’Harmattan (Paris). In
addition, she has two book reviews accepted for publication:
one on Un moment d’oubli by Abdelkader Djemaï in The
International Journal of Francophone Studies and the other on
Le passeur des mots et autres nouvelles by Charbel Tayah in
French Review. She will also deliver a paper “Family dichotomy in Ils disent que je suis beurette by Soraya Nini” at the
2009 South West Conference on Language Teaching
(SWCOLT), Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Professor Harriet Saxon organized the Spring Conference
“Une Journée d’immersion” for the Foreign Language
Educators of New Jersey (FLENJ). Professor Josée Dufour
participated with a session on “La Déclaration Universelle des
Droits de l’Homme.” They also both presented workshops in
October at the meeting of the New York State Foreign
Language Teachers’ Association in New York City.
Professors Mazooz T. Sehwail and John N. Soueid are working together to publish an Arabic textbook for beginners. The
authors are hoping to have the book ready for use in Beginning
Arabic I & II next fall or spring.
NEWS FLASH:
Professor Jessica Brandt, who teaches in both the Russian
and German Programs in addition to coordinating language
placement for the whole Department, married Patrick Burns on
January 9th of this year. To Jessica and Patrick—our very best
wishes!
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PRIZES AND AWARDS
Winner of the Arabic essay prize
Heritage speaker: Daneiah Nasser
Winner of the French essay prize
Undergraduate/non-native speaker: Rafael Auz
Runner-Up: Sita Patel
Winner of the German essay prize
Non-native speaker: Ryan Freligh
Winner of the Hebrew essay prize
Non-native speaker: Rosalie Dumas
Winner of Lillian Szklarczyk Graduate Scholarship
Marie Théberge (M.A. Program)
Winner of Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
Graduate Scholarship
Jocelyne Hutzenlaub (M.A. Program)
Mike Alves has been selected for the University of Nice
Assistantship offered annually to one or two students in the
Dept. of MLL’s Graduate Program in French. He may have a
tough time fighting off the sun and beach of Southern France,
but the year of teaching English to French university students
in 2010-2011 should be an enriching one. The competition was
fierce, and there were more candidates for this position this
year than ever before. We congratulate Mike and wish him a
bon séjour en France. It should also be noted that Frantz
Janvier was selected as well. He was to go to Nice under the
auspices of this assistantship and all was arranged when the
earthquake in Haiti, which touched his family personally,
necessitated his withdrawing his acceptance of the offer. We
wish Frantz, and all others affected by this catastrophe, our
deepest sympathy.
Christine Kawtari won an MSU Foundation Scholarship for
French teaching for the Fall 2009 semester and a TEACH
Grant for the 2009-2010 year.
In a tradition newly established by Dean Marietta Morrissey of
honoring distinguished alumni at CHSS Convocation, Harriet
Saxon has been selected to be so honored this year. Her
accomplishments are many and we are proud that she graduated from our M.A. program in French and that she continues to
be with us as an adjunct in the French program.
Congratulations to all!
NEWS FROM THE ARABIC PROGRAM
For the first time, the Arabic program is offering a special
study program abroad “Montclair in Amman.” Participants will
earn 9 credits over six weeks. In addition, students will explore
a unique blend of old and new cultures, the opportunity to
practice Arabic, and the chance to visit such fascinating places
as the ancient Petra, the relaxing beach of the Red Sea in
Aqaba, the natural phenomenon of the Dead Sea, and much
more.
The Coordinator of the Arabic program, Prof. Mazooz
Sehwail, and the faculty of the Dept. of Modern Languages
and Literatures welcome three new adjuncts in Arabic: Prof.
James Pavlin, Prof. Ismail Khalil, and Prof. John Soueid.
NEWS FROM THE FRENCH PROGRAM
An Evening with Chopin in Paris
MSU students Catherine Winters, right, and Rafael Auz, second from left, attending the French Student Hockey Night at
Prudential Center.
The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures cosponsored the Romance Studies Colloquium on Storytelling
(October 1-3). The three-day event brought together over one
hundred scholars from around the world and featured plenary
speaker Peter Brooks (Princeton University). French conference presentations included titles such as “Transitory Tales:
Modern Paris and the Omnibus Narrative,” “Self, Society, and
Nostalgia in Senegalese Women’s Autobiography,”
“Storytelling as Philosophy,” “Story and ‘Non-Story’ in
Balzac’s Le Père Goriot,” “The Storyteller on Trial,” “Justice
et Justesse: Crime Fiction’s Spiritual/Aesthetic Ideals,” and
“Who Tells the Story of Poetry?” The conference was organized by Dr. Elizabeth Emery with the help of Colloquium
Assistant Ashley Hansberry and an MSU local committee
headed by Dr. Kathleen Loysen and professors from other
departments.
Mathieu Guiglielmi (Research Scholar in French from
University of Nice) as Chopin and and Micaela Aldridge
(daughter of Bob Aldridge, Chair, Cali School of Music) as
George Sand. Photo credit: Lester Vrtiak.
To honor the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frédéric
Chopin, the Cali School of Music in conjunction with the
Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures presented “An
Evening with Chopin in Paris” on February 22nd. It was an
evening of drama, intrigue, and music, presented as a soirée at
the home of Chopin during the 1840s. The script, based on letters, journals, and diaries of the composer and his contemporaries, was created by Montclair State University professors
Elizabeth Emery, Tatyana Kebuladze, and David Witten.
French research scholar Mathieu Guiglielmi starred as Chopin.
Cajun Music Workshop held in October, 2009
CHSS-CSAM Student Research Symposium
After James Doughty’s and Mary Hartnett’s successful presentations in last year’s CHSS-CSAM Student Research
Symposium, a number of students from the Dept. of Modern
Languages and Literatures plan to participate in this year’s
event, to be held on April 22nd, 2010. For more information,
contact Dr. Emery ([email protected]), co-organizer
of this year’s symposium.
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PROGRAMS
(Continued from page 5)
Mountclair State exchange student JJ Blumer in Graz, Austria.
NEWS FROM THE GERMAN PROGRAM
Courtney Glore Crimmins offered a special German selected topics
course in the Fall 2009 semester on Narratives of Division and Unity in
Modern Berlin. In connection with the 20th anniversary of the fall of
the Berlin Wall on November 9, students engaged with texts from
canonical German writers and filmmakers Günter Grass, Monika
Maron, Peter Schneider, Wolfgang Staudte, Christa Wolf, and others.
William Schneider and JJ Blumer are currently MSU exchange
students in Graz, Austria. They were invited to meet with the
Mayor of Graz on March 1, 2010.
The German program is now on Facebook! Join us for information about the Department, current events in German-speaking countries, and related local activities.
The German Club
The Club held a successful fundraiser in the winter, selling
German Advent Calendars to raise money for a group field trip
in the spring. The group plans a museum trip to New York
City. Contact President Heather Fackelman at [email protected] for more information on German
Club activities.
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NEWS FROM THE HEBREW PROGRAM
While we do not yet have a minor in Hebrew, we are moving
in that direction. Indeed, we have Professors Talya Schwarzer
and Yaffa Malashock to thank for their loyal devotion to the
Department and for their tireless efforts to grow the program
so that a minor may soon be in the offing.
NEWS FROM THE RUSSIAN PROGRAM
On December 5th 2009, and in conjunction with the Russian
Club, about 40 students and faculty members from the
Department attended a performance of Leoš Janáček’s House
of the Dead at the Met Opera in New York. In March, students
and faculty returned to the Met Opera to see Shostakovich’s
The Nose, based on Gogol’s famous short story.
The Russian Club
Under the able and energetic leadership of students Anastasia
Andrej, Allen Teplitsky, and Irina Kuzmich, the Russian Club
has applied for certification with the MSU Student
Government Association. The Club organized movie showings
and cultural events on campus throughout the year.
IMPRESSIONS FROM ABROAD
Reminiscing about Summer ’05
Contributed by alumna Jackie Hoesch
I step warily onto the rickety balcony pushing open the pastel
Provencal shutters, set myself Indian-style, and grasp the curly
end of the railing. I reflect upon the foreign scene below. From
the terrace of my quaint hostel room at Résidence Ségurane,
the July evening already rivals no other in memory. Dusk
begins to descend over the sky, although it is considerably late
(I’d hardly notice the ticking of a
clock) and the balmy streets remain
warm. My polyester curtains (that
resemble the pattern of a 1980’s
Easter dress) billow while twenty-two
o’clock slinks in along with the
Mediterranean breeze. The sun, on the
other hand, seems childishly reluctant
to tuck away its brilliance and enthusiasm and admit to its scheduled bedtime, much like the crowd that begins
to gather on the terrace and spill out
to the street below, ready to begin
their adventure through Vieux Nice.
his staked-out corner of Ségurane. The familiar aroma of pork
and beans wafts up and enters my nostrils. The resident
clochard, oblivious to his sans-abris predicament, hums a
catchy, classic jazz tune, lights up a cigarette, and greets passing students with a “bonsoir” while enjoying his bubbling
feast. Students begin to congregate on the street, eager to
embrace the night while the smiling outdoor resident and his
four-legged companion entertain the crowd with a recorder
flute and affably solicit a smoke from every passerby.
Even the clochards are in heaven here.
The afternoon’s last glows from the
west cast an amber glow upon terracotta rooftops that extend for miles
until dispersing into the Alps or
spilling into the sea. Above the dotted
buildings, the tips of crisp, white sails
herald “Le port de Lympia,” the port
of Nice. The yachts with their helicopters float grandiosely, seeming
remote and secluded from the vibrant,
quotidian, bourgeois life about Rue
Passeroni, our temporary home. Just
beyond looms the six-story Hôtel
Jaclyn Hoesch and friends in Nice, summer 2005.
Kyriad with its neon, flashing sign
above a grinning student in American-attire, cargo shorts, and
A moped rushes through buzzing with bravado. A handsome
white T. He turns the corner, careful to dodge the dog-poo pile
young man in his riding helmet, khakis and a billowing white
lurking on the curb as he’s strolling back from the corner
button-down, winks at us as he slows to scoop up his
Tabac with two bottles of wine wrapped in a towel. A girl
Mediterranean beauty, a mature woman who looks dazzling in
catches up beside him, her hair golden and skin bronze from
her perfect tan, linen pants, and bright turquoise tunic. She
spending an afternoon on the rocky shores. Her canary-yellow
clings to her driver’s back whispering in his ear.
tank-top clings in a shadow to the wet bikini beneath. She lugs
A puff of exhaust kicks up as they head around the curve
an azure-green beaded bag with a straw beach mat intertwined
laughing. The students uncork their swinging wine bottles,
among the straps and a baguette under her arm.
break apart a baguette with cheese, and begin their stroll down
the cobblestone roads, disappearing through the haze of an
A Monoprix shopping bag floats by on the salty breeze and
exotic evening that has only just begun to take shape.
seems to mock my American habits with its classic design and
elegant, soulful French dance through the alleyway. A dog
barks at this wistful tango of plastic scraping the pavement.
The Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures would like to thank
The mutt bounds back to his master beckoning him to attack
Garry Rideout, Dir. of Production Services, for his invaluable assistance
the intruder, but the man continues cooking on his hotplate in
in the preparation of this newsletter.
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