Spanish Departments Research Articles

Cultural Capital: Reflections from a Latin Americanist

<i>Cultural Capital</i>: Reflections from a Latin Americanist

For Sara, compañera

For Sara, compañera John Beverley I don't know when I first met Sara. I was invited to give a talk at Dartmouth in the mid-seventies, just barely tenured myself. But she was away from campus during that visit. I do remember the younger faculty who were my natural cohorts during the visit speaking of her with a kind of fear and trembling. I don't know the ins and outs of everything, and in any case wouldn't broadcast them here, but what I can say is that by the early eighties Sara and her colleagues had built at Dartmouth one of the most forward-looking Spanish Departments in the country, already leaning towards a Latin American focus, resolutely feminist, and a pioneer of what would become the postcolonial turn. Unfortunately, this achievement was probably somewhat wasted on the future lawyers, doctors, middle–managers and CIA agents who made up the bulk of Dartmouth's undergraduates then, still mostly male. (Maybe it benefitted mostly the CIA guys.) At Hopkins, Sara was in a more traditional "foreign languages" set up, and she had to work hard to get out from under the hegemony of the Hispanists. But she had superb graduate students, and over the years turned out some of the most brilliant names in the field, now in mid-career and in senior positions. It occurs to me now that Sara and I might have crossed paths earlier without knowing it. We were both raised in Peru in the forties and early fifties; she is an Arequipa, and I was a third-culture kid living in Lima, where my father worked for something called the International Petroleum Company, a small piece that would be absorbed into what later became Exxon. She did her BA, MA and PhD at UCLA in the sixties. I went to the University of California San Diego to work on my PhD between 1966 and 1969. I used to go up to UCLA to use [End Page 372] its library, and sometimes both to UCLA and USC to listen to talks. So it's possible. But whether we crossed paths or not, both our lives and work are somehow shadowed by that period in Peruvian history, where the conflict between APRA and the State was quite intense. The best portrait of this period is probably Mario Vargas Llosa's novel Conversación en la Catedral. Where Sara and I linked up more definitively was through the conferences of the Institute for Ideology and Literature at the University of Minnesota, which we both attended. Hugo Achúgar and I had been trying to persuade Alfredo Roggiano, the long-time editor of the Revista Iberoamericana, that a new school of post-Stalinist Marxist and socio-criticism had emerged in Latin America in the seventies—at that time it was centered around the Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos Rómulo Gallegos, in Caracas, where Domingo Miliani was director, Ángel Rama was nearby, and many of the contributors to the volume, exiles from dictatorships in their respective countries, were located. Surprisingly, Roggiano agreed, and even lent his name to the project. The result was a special issue of the journal called "Ideología y crítica literaria en la América de habla hispana" (Revista Iberoamericana, 114–116). I approached Sara about contributing an essay. She replied, I remember, saying something like "Thanks John, but I'm not a Marxist." I said it doesn't matter; what you do fits with the idea of the special issue. And it did, perfectly: her essay "Huamán Poma y el espacio de la Pureza" became one of swing points of the postcolonial "turn" in Latin American criticism in the eighties and early nineties. It should be recalled too that, at that time, the figure that dominated a lot of our attention was Michel Foucault, not a Marxist either but a follower of Althusser's fundamental work on ideology in the 1960s–hence the emphasis in our title on ideology, perhaps hinting at the possibility of literary criticism as an ideological practice, that is, as what came to be known as Latin Americanism. That sense of a looming postcolonialism fits also...

PO-1455 Influence of the pandemic COVID-19 on medical physics practice: A flash survey in Spain

Purpose or Objective: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the Spanish health system globally. We conducted a structured online survey among the Medical Physics departments in Spain. The primary objective of the work was to assess the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on our medical physics (MP) departments and evaluate how this situation affected their professional practices. Materials and Methods: We conducted a survey during the first half of July 2020. The survey was distributed to all members of the Spanish Society of Medical Physics. Although we built an anonymous survey, it was possible to aggregate the results by region, type of centre (public or private), and professional category. The questionnaire consisted of a total of 27 questions. We analysed changes in working conditions, the preventive measures adopted, and the extent to which the clinical and non-clinical tasks of the Spanish departments were affected during this period. Results: Seventy-five hospitals responded to the survey (17 private, 53 public, five unidentified). According to the data provided by the Spanish Society of Radiation Oncology, 38% of the private centres and 78% of the public centres existing in our country responded. 83% of the respondents considered that their MP departments had adapted adequately to the new situation (88% of the departments distinguished between essential and secondary tasks). Figure 1 shows the respondents' perception about the degree of availability of both the personal protective equipment (PPE) and the PCR test, aggregated by region (the five with the most responses), and the distribution of surgical masks differentiating by public or private hospital. More than a third (37%) of the Spanish MP departments had at least one professional infected with COVID-19. Before the start of the pandemic, 95% of the MP departments did not telework. During the pandemic, 82% of the departments offered the option of working from home. As indicated in Figure 2, the quality of the tasks performed while working from home was not affected during this stage. Similarly, teleworking facilitated a better conciliation with private life (90%). (Figure Presented) Conclusion: Most Spanish MP departments were able to offer a high-quality healthcare service during the pandemic. To do this, they adapted their quality protocols and prioritized the essential tasks. Clinical tasks related to treatments were maintained throughout all Spanish MP departments. Although most professionals perceived that their centres provided enough PPE such as gloves, hydroalcoholic gel, and clothing, they considered there was a failure in providing surgical masks. The telework options minimized the detriment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in medical physics services. In a socially complicated situation, working from home facilitated conciliation with private life.

Spanish language teachers’ pedagogical beliefs in Chinese universities

Understanding teachers’ beliefs is critical to improving educational practice. There is a significant need for research on foreign language teachers’ pedagogical beliefs, as these can exert an influence on students’ learning outcomes. This study draws on Kember’s (1997) theorization of teaching beliefs to explore the beliefs of Spanish language teachers regarding their pedagogy in Chinese universities. Twenty teachers from the Spanish departments in eight Chinese universities were recruited as participants, and a Q-methodology analysis with supplementary interview data identified three types of pedagogical beliefs: “integrated capacity-building”, “ELE learning outcome-focused”, and “social interaction-focused”. The findings suggest that ELE teachers in China no longer subscribe to the traditional teaching methodology which places themselves at the class center, and have instead progressed along a continuum from teacher-centeredness to student-centeredness. With a novel focus on Spanish teachers’ beliefs in Chinese universities, this study provides insights into the teaching of languages other than English (LOTEs) in China, and helps to expand the methodological repertoire in the field of linguistic research.

Departments and disciplinary gatekeeping: The sociolinguistics of Spanish in US academia

Abstract In his contribution, José del Valle looks at the intersection of the sociolinguistic study of Spanish in the US and the transformations of Spanish language departments in higher education. Del Valle traces the history of the institutionalization of Spanish teaching and study and its effects on linguistic research’s position within Spanish departments. Shifts in approaches to the use of language in social practice, and the growing demands on language units to act as service departments for language learners, has isolated scholars in those institutional homes from broader integration into sociolinguistic research.

Engaged Humanities and the Future of Spanish Programs

Engaged Humanities and the Future of Spanish Programs Ann Abbott Keywords curricular reform/reforma curricular, engaged humanities/humanidades comprometidas, foreign language study/estudio de lengua extranjera, Hispanism/hispanismo, reductionist models/modelos reduccionistas, Service-Learning/aprendizaje del servicio, Spanish for the Professions/español para profesiones Response to "Apologia No More: On Strong Foundations and the Future of Hispanism" More than just finally articulating the value of what we do in Spanish programs, we must actually change a significant portion of what we do—and how we do it—in order to offer the kind of value the authors wisely propose. To provide solutions to "the possibility of non-Hispanic American cultural resistance to the growth of Hispanic communities" (Bayliss and Rossomondo 2017) we need to focus much of our curricula on US Latinos, commit to social justice education and engage with our local Latino communities. Few departments do this, though, because few departments have truly seen this as their mission. To prepare students to be civically-engaged, savvy cultural critics who are equipped to combat highly-charged, racialized discourses will require integrating into our curriculum topics such as human migrations (historical and global), economics, policy studies, communication, media studies and more. Yet the vast majority of departments continue to mostly teach students how to analyze cultural products (literary studies, predominantly) and language (linguistics). To bridge what Spanish programs actually do and what the authors claim we are preparing students to do requires a more radical—and uncomfortable—shift than just finding the right words. This curricular shift must occur swiftly. A decade has already passed since the MLA's special report on foreign languages (cited by the authors) as well as Carlos Alonso's declaration in Profession that Spanish is now "a second national language and culture in this country" (220). Yet most Spanish departments in the United States still operate as foreign language programs, perennially privileging Spain and reproducing value systems and power structures the authors suggest we can dismantle in the United States. They astutely propose that Spanish departments embrace the local and transnational nature of Spanish, but our current approach of scattered heritage speaker sections and service learning courses is insufficient. Departments that adopt the engaged humanities model and a mission to see and seek connections among traditional scholarly projects of inquiry and the issues surrounding them imbue their programs with an urgency and relevance that our profession as a whole currently lacks but that students and other stakeholders seek. The demographic trends listed by the authors will consolidate by 2067, but we can change today. Take the concrete example of campuses located in new-growth communities—places where immigrants have not traditionally settled and which lack infrastructure to build linguistic and transcultural competencies. Cultural studies scholars and students can work with the community to analyze depictions of these new encounters and suggest more accurate, helpful representations of the challenges and opportunities within their changing communities. Second language acquisition experts and schools can partner to create positive responses to [End Page 33] multilingualism, inside and outside the K–12 classrooms. Literary scholars and libraries can collaborate to build collections, attract Latino patrons and design relevant programming. Language program directors can integrate service learning across the curriculum to provide targeted assistance that meets community-identified needs. Conceived as the department's mission, these activities can be integrated into regular research, teaching and service obligations, not heaped upon them. Nonetheless, a quick look at the dissertations produced in Spanish departments ("Open Access Dissertation Lists") reveals that our focus on literary analysis and linguistics has barely budged, constantly reproducing frameworks that do not actually address the societal needs the authors foreground. Lastly, our profession should embrace both civic and career connections to Spanish studies. After all, the important civic project the authors outline plays out in workplaces and among colleagues and clients, not just in voting booths and neighborhoods. We perpetuate our own reductionism by presenting a focus on careers as a caricature of vocational training. Instead, it is an opportunity to engage with the complexities and creative challenges of professionals who must not just develop but also deploy translingual and transcultural competence in real time, with real people, not...

The Lion and the Lamb: Literature and Linguistics in Spanish Departments

The Lion and the Lamb: Literature and Linguistics in Spanish Departments

Jorge Luis Borges, Post-Analytic Philosophy and Representation by Silvia G. Dapía

Reviewed by: Jorge Luis Borges, Post-Analytic Philosophy and Representation by Silvia G. Dapía Rolando Pérez Jorge Luis Borges, Post-Analytic Philosophy and Representation Routledge, 2016 by Silvia G. Dapía The interest in Borges in the United States developed sometime in the early 1980s. Though most of his writings for which he is known, like Ficciones and The Aleph, preceded the so-called Latin American Boom, his work primarily gained recognition during the years of the "Boom." However, in contrast to Boom generation writers like García Márquez and Julio Cortázar, Borges, a self-avowed "conservative" was not a politically engaged intellectual. The "revolutionary" aspect of his writings was wholly aesthetic. He was viewed as a writer, who had chosen metaphysical, speculative thought over politics. And this is the Borges that Silvia G. Dapía captures so well in her deeply profound monograph, Jorge Luis Borges, Post-Analytic Philosophy and Representation (2016). For example, Schopenhauer's "concept of the will and the illusory nature of the individual" gave Borges, writes Dapía, the means "to deny the existence of the independent individual and, with it, any reflection on historical responsibility" (170). And it was precisely this kind of social disengagement that some of us in Spanish departments found so exasperating about Borges, particularly in the years following Argentina's repressive Dirty War. Now, in Continental philosophy departments, the reception of Borges was quite different. Borges was associated with other philosophical writers like Robbe-Grillet and Italo Calvino, who dealt with post-meta-physical, linguistic, constructivist notions of the world. Continental philosophers like Deleuze and Foucault wrote on Borges in new and suggestive ways that turned an otherwise politically "conservative" writer into a philosophical postmodern thinker. Consequently, it was this philosophical Borges that those of us who were also philosophers found so appealing and thought-provoking about his work in the early 80s. Yet it is important to acknowledge from the outset, that there has always been not just one but many "Borgeses" that complement and contradict each other in ways that break with the law of non-contradiction, as in "The Garden of Forking Paths." And this is the admirable virtue of Dapía's beautifully written Jorge Luis Borges, Post-Analytic Philosophy and Representation, wherein the Argentine writer is treated not so much as a philosopher, but rather philosophically. And this is particularly important in light of the fact that Dapía places Borges, not amid Continental philosophers (who have always had a close connection to literature), but rather amongst "post-analytic philosophers" like Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, Donald Davidson, Arthur Danto, and Nelson Goodman. As she declares in the "Introduction," her use of post-analytic philosophy does not imply "that Borges was interested in pursuing the problem of representation" as an analytic philosopher. The goal is "to read Borges philosophically." [End Page 307] And this is what she does by intercalating the ideas contained in Borges' short stories, essays, and poems with certain concepts of post-analytic philosophy that have to do with the nature of reality vis-à-vis the study of metaphysics and epistemology. Moreover, since the conversation here is not between science and philosophy, which would necessitate a mathematical and experimental approach, but rather between literature and philosophy, the major focus of Dapía's book is the question of "representation." As such, then, I will attempt to summarize for the reader, the way the author frames the various dialogues between Borges and each philosopher, and will argue that Dapía's book is a major and unique contribution to Borges studies, in that it points to certain notions in Borges without which it is nearly impossible to understand what prima facie seem to be literary reiterations of language games. That, to a great extent has do with Borges' (Kantian) notion of reality, and his use of irony, as well as his notion of writing as an "invention" of reality, and its impact on the question of "the Other" in anthropological terms. And here a quick return to the history of modern philosophy may help us to appreciate the encounter, as presented by Dapía, between Borges and Rorty. As is...

Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Training: A Contrastive Analysis of Trainers and Trainees' Perspectives

This study explores current practices of teaching assistant (TA) training in doctoral-granting institutions and expands on previous studies by exploring the views of both faculty and graduate students involved in the process. Our overall goal is to determine whether training practices and goals have changed and, if so, to what extent, in order to reflect the changing objectives of the foreign language (FL) field in the last decades—objectives that involve the development of translingual and transcultural competence and the integration of twenty-first-century skills. We conducted a nationwide survey of Spanish departments that focused on three main areas: language, culture, and technology. Results indicate that TA training is based on immediate teaching needs and lacks long-term goals of professionalization and that there are substantial differences in opinion between TAs and faculty in charge of the training regarding its effectiveness. We argue that our findings have direct implications for the revitalization of TA education since only when TAs are trained to fully integrate culture and language and incorporate technology in meaningful ways in lower-level courses will FL departments be able to strive for the desired integrated curriculum.

Clinical characteristics during diagnosis of a prospective cohort of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus treated in Spanish Departments of Internal Medicine: The RELES study

IntroductionPatient registries are useful tools for assessing rare diseases. Our objective is to present the Spanish registry of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (Registro español de pacientes con lupus eritematoso sistémico, RELES). Patients and methodsRELES was started in 2008 as an observational, prospective, multicentre cohort registry that included patients from the time they were diagnosed. The registry's objective is to analyse the incidence and noninflammatory complications of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The departments of internal medicine of 38 Spanish hospitals participate in this registry. ResultsA total of 298 patients with a mean age of 40.8±15.7 years were included, 88.9% of whom were women and 85.6% of whom were white. In the first visit, there was a predominance of joint manifestations (74.5%). One hundred and seventy-seven patients (59.4%) were positive for anti-native DNA. In these patients, there was a higher rate of lupus nephritis (26.7% vs. 14%, p=.009; relative risk [RR], 1.33), haemolytic anaemia (13.6% vs. 4.1%, p=.07; RR, 1.46) and lymphopenia (55.4% vs. 43.8%, p=.05; RR, 1.21). The median Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index 2000 (SLEDAI 2K) score was 9.64 points (interquartile range, 4–13). The patients treated with antimalarial drugs before the diagnosis of SLE had a median SLEDAI score in the first visit of 5, compared with 8 for those who were not treated with these drugs (p=.02). ConclusionsRELES constitutes the first Spanish patient cohort with SLE recorded from the time of the diagnosis. The presence of anti-DNA has been related to severe manifestations such as nephritis and haemolytic anaemia. Treatment with antimalarial drugs before the diagnosis was associated with less active disease at the initial presentation.

The status of women in spanish political science

This article incorporates and analyses some quantitative indicators relating to the status of women in the field of political science in Spain. These statistics are broken down according to the gender of undergraduates and Ph.D. dissertations, as well as the teaching staff in all Spanish political science departments. Likewise, in order to offer information concerning those working in this field, the gender gap of members and the executive board of the Spanish Association of Political Science is also included. Finally, the same gender breakdowns have been made for the scientific committees of the political science conferences held in Spain, and the authorship of articles published in the Spanish Journal of Political Science since its inception.

The Perilous Legitimacy of the Foreign-born Spanish Instructor in the U.S.

Author(s): Barahona, Byron A. | Abstract: This article discusses the perilous legitimacy and professional vulnerability of the foreign-born Spanish instructor in the U.S. First, it examines the academic goals of language and in particular Spanish departments regarding the development of language proficiency, the study of cultural values of the Spanish-speaking world, and the place of broad principles of humanistic inquiry and critical thinking skills in language teaching. Next, it considers the general approach to culture and Latin American politics in Spanish textbooks to then highlight the implications of discussing highly sensitive political issues in Spanish classes, namely U.S.-Latin American relations, which may compromise the legitimacy of foreign-born Spanish instructors. Finally, drawing from experience and outcomes, I propose a framework that could make discussing U.S.-Latin American relations possible between foreign-born Spanish instructors and students while upholding the academic goals outlined above in order to foster learners’ critical awareness of political developments so essential to the understanding of modern Latin America.

Memory Revisited in Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending

The history of Spanish departments in Australian universities can be traced back to the 1960s, when a number of British hispanistas relocated to Australia and created a small number of successful teaching programs that reproduced the British model. A second generation of Spanish scholars arrived in the 1980s and 1990s, mainly from Latin American countries, in a migration wave that is still current. The transition from a British understanding of the Spanish discipline, with a strong focus on (canonical) literary studies, to current curricula that emphasise communicative skills and a loose notion of cultural studies, is symptomatic of deeper changes in the way the discipline has sought to reposition itself in the context of the Modern Languages debate.

Vested Interests: the Place of Spanish in Australian Academia

The history of Spanish departments in Australian universities can be traced back to the 1960s, when a number of British hispanistas relocated to Australia and created a small number of successful teaching programs that reproduced the British model. A second generation of Spanish scholars arrived in the 1980s and 1990s, mainly from Latin American countries, in a migration wave that is still current. The transition from a British understanding of the Spanish discipline, with a strong focus on (canonical) literary studies, to current curricula that emphasise communicative skills and a loose notion of cultural studies, is symptomatic of deeper changes in the way the discipline has sought to reposition itself in the context of the Modern Languages debate.

Confronting Our Canons: Spanish and Latin American Studies in the 21st Century (review)

BROWN, JOAN L. Confronting Our Canons: Spanish and Latin American Studies in the 21st Century. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 2010. 247 pp.This is an intriguing book. Chapter 1 provides some broad brushstrokes on the formation of the notion of a canon in the West, with some references to classical times and to biblical canons, and a section on the culture wars which began in the universities in the 1980s when previously excluded subgroups such as women, gays, non- Westerners, people of color, people of non-English descent, and people from lower socioecononomic strata (38) vied for more representativity in the canon. Chapter 2 reviews a number of modern versions of the canon - including, for example, the Oprah canon (50) and the anthology canons (54-57) - before turning its attention to what is essentially the meat of the book, the Graduate Reading List in Spanish in US universities.The Spanish departments at 56 universities, from Arizona State University to Yale University (they are all listed on pages 198-99) were asked to participate in the survey by sending in their reading lists, and every single one did so (63). The required reading included 10 PhD reading lists, 16 merged MA-PhD lists, and 30 MA lists (63). These were then analyzed, and a number of interesting facts emerged. The reading were male-dominated, having 676 male authors compared to 102 females (65). Just two authors were on every single reading list: Miguel de Cervantes and Benito Perez Galdos (65). The core canon in Hispanic studies was defined as consisting of those works which appeared on 90% or above of all reading lists, and, apart from Don Quixote, there were 11 works which fitted the bill, and these ranged from Lazarillo de Tortnes to (a surprise for me) Larra's Articulos de costumbres (65-66; see also 195). Only one work from Hispanic America was discovered to be on that list, and it was Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Cien anos de soledad (66). The canonical authors, as distilled from the reading and listed in Table 6 with their appropriate percentages, were as follows: Cervantes (100), Galdos (100), Calderon (98), Cela (98), Dario (98), Neruda (98), Fernando de Rojas (98), Lope de Vega (98), Garcia Marquez (96), Tirso de Molina (96), Borges (95), Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (95), Lorca (95), Juan Ruiz (95), Unamuno (95), Cesar Vallejo (95), Becquer (93), Clarin (93), Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (93), Gongora (93), Larra (93), Fray Luis de Leon (93), Antonio Machado (93), Berceo (91), Espronceda (91), San Juan de la Cruz (91), Jorge Manrique (91), Juan Manuel (91), Quevedo (91), and Garcilaso de la Vega (91) (196). …

“¿Por qué leemos esto en la clase de español?”: The Politics of Teaching Literature in Spanglish

As we consider the role of the Modern Language Department in the twenty first Century, this article discusses what is at stake in teaching works written in Spanglish in Spanish departments and what teaching such works might mean for students and the scholarly Community at large. This article primarily comes out of my experiences teaching Spanglish works in Spanish courses at a major research institution during my graduate studies and more recently at a private liberal arts College as an assistant professor.1 The question posed in the title, ?Por que leemos esto? for example, was asked of me by a Student in an upper-division literary and cultural studies course on contemporary narrative and film of the US/Mexico border region. My students' discussions that semester led me to ponder the value of teaching works in Spanglish, and I began to see that such texts encourage students to consider larger issues of language, culture, and identity, such as the dynamic and contextual nature of language, the politics and power of language choice, and the creative possibilities of negotiating linguistically and culturally in multiple and hybrid, rather than in singular, modes. While these issues can be raised in reading texts written entirely in Spanish, the tensions created in the classroom by texts in multiple and mixed codes lead to deeper analysis and engaged dialogue. One of these discussions stemmed from Sandra Cisneros's short story Little Miracles, Kept Promises. The story is a compilation of prayers and petitions to God, La Virgen, and various saints by individuais from Texas and Mexico. The prayers are written in multiple and mixed codes: English, Spanish, Spanglish, and even a literal coded language of letters and numbers. At the Start of this class period, students shared some of their favorite prayers from the text, among these Elizondo's from Cotulla who wrote: Milagroso Cristo Negro de Esquipulas, Te ofrezco este retrato de mis ninos. Wachelos, Dios Santo ... y que el cheque del income tax nos llegue pronto para pagar los biles (123). Fito Morales of Rock Port offered this prayer: Milagroso Cristo Negro, Thank you por el milagro de haber graduado de high school. Aqui le regalo mi retrato de (123). In what followed, students asked about the inclusion of Spanglish words like wachelos or words in English such as graduation when Spanish options exist. We considered which words were used in Spanish in primarily English prayers, which words were used in English in primarily Spanish prayers, and why speakers might have chosen these particular words. We also analyzed the construction of words like wachelos, noting how they were not random inventions but followed Spanish grammar rules. This led us to discuss the ways language continually is evolving and is tied to cultural context. Students observed these phenomena both in the text and in their experiences. Such texts, thus, allow for heritage, native, and non-native speakers to examine their assumptions about correctness and authority, their goals as lifelong language learners, and their understanding of their own and other linguistic communities. In my second year language and culture course, students read a selection from Junot Diaz's novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.2 Teaching this Spanglish work in the Spanish classroom underscores the creative possibilities of negotiating linguistically and culturally in multiple and mixed, rather than in singular, modes. After being introduced to the protagonist Oscar, a Dominican-American dude [who] wore his nerdiness like a Jedi wore his light saber or a Lensman her lens (21), students identified the codes Oscar uses: English, Spanish, and Spanglish, as well as academie and science fiction argot, while others looked for Oscar's iden

Practice patterns in the management of prostate cancer in Spain: results from a national survey among radiation oncologists in 2009

Little is known of practice patterns on advanced prostate cancer (PC) in Spain. The study objectives were to investigate practice patterns in the management of PC and to determine the adherence to the 2007 Spanish guidelines for the management of PC. An epidemiological, cross-sectional study was undertaken. Study-specific questionnaires were distributed to all centers with radiation oncology (RO) facilities delivering megavoltage radiation therapy (RT) in Spain (n = 108). A questionnaire evaluated diagnostic and treatment approaches to PC in low-risk and high-risk cases. And a 12-item questionnaire was used to assess guidelines adherence. Responses were obtained from 102 centers (94.0 % response rate). In the high-risk scenario, the majority of clinicians (99.0 %) chose combined modality treatment with RT and androgen deprivation (AD) and 93.0 % recommended long-term AD. External-beam RT (EBRT) doses ranging 72-76 Gy were used in 59.5 % of centers and >76 Gy was employed in 40.5 %. In the low-risk scenario, EBRT was chosen by 59.6 %, brachytherapy by 39.4 %, and active surveillance by 1 %. The consensus was high (score 5 + 4 ≥ 90 %) on 8/12 questions assessing adherence to guidelines, being high specifically on items related to RT technique, RT dose, combination of HT and RT in intermediate/high-risk patients, and prognostic factors. This is the largest survey to date of Spanish RO departments dealing with PC. The study results therefore likely provide a highly reliable picture of clinical practice in Spain in this century and show how this practice is influenced by clinical evidence from randomized trials and consensus conferences.

Contra el olvido: El exilio espa�ol en Estados Unidos (review)

Reviewed by: Contra el olvido: El exilio español en Estados Unidos Jennifer Brady Faber, Sebastián, and Cristina Martínez-Carazo, eds. Contra el olvido: El exilio español en Estados Unidos. Madrid: Biblioteca Benjamin Franklin, 2009. ISBN: 978-84-8138-839-8. The collection of twelve essays in Contra el olvido: El exilio español en Estados Unidos suggests that the experience of both voluntary and forced exile of Spanish intellectuals to the United States in the twentieth century was not homogeneous. The editors, Sebastian Faber and Cristina Martínez-Carazo, put it well when they write, "Los ensayos aquí reunidos reflejan la pluralidad de acercamiento a la experiencia del exilio republicano en Estados Unidos y la dificultad que entraña formular una definición coherente a la hora de evaluar un fenómeno tan complejo e inaprensible como éste" (20). The wide variety of essays included in this collection attempts to redefine the experiences of twentieth-century Spanish scholars in the United States, including Pedro Salinas, Luis Cernuda, Juan Ramón Jiménez, América Castro, and José Rubia Barcia. As the editors remind us in the introduction, entitled "Problemas y paradojas del exilio español en Estados Unidos," the reasons for leaving Spain and their experiences once established in the United States affected the written works of the scholars in different ways. However, the editors begin by noting the similarities of the circumstances of exiled Spanish authors. Most worked in Spanish departments at the university level, which, according to the editors, forced them into a position of cultural marginalization because of the geographic isolation of North American universities. In turn, this isolation allowed them to concentrate their efforts on writing and publishing. Furthermore, most exiles were not involved in Spanish politics, which the editors highlight by quoting Joan Ramon Resina's assertion that this common point was also reflected in the United States's neutral [End Page 541] position towards Spain during the years leading up to the war, the Spanish Civil War itself, and the years after (19). Even though these strict generalizations affected the exiles' scholarly production, the essays in this collection successfully defend the attempt to redefine each exile's experience as an individual, particular one. One paradigm through which several of the authors in this collection craft their arguments is the dichotomy between the experience of the exile and the intensification of a sense of Spanish nationalism. The distance that exile granted the Spanish authors examined in these essays allowed them a unique perspective from which they were able to conceive of their country in a new way; yet, they perpetually longed for their homeland (which is particularly true in the poetry of Salinas and Jiménez). The collection is divided into four sections: 1) "Escribir desde el exilio: Poesía y novela," 2) "Américo Castro y su entorno," 3) José Rubia y su entorno," and 4) "Reflexiones y memorias." The authors of the twelve essays contribute in different ways to the study of the Spanish exile in the United States; some examine the general situation of exile, while others focus on the experience of specific scholars. The first section is by far the most encompassing. Four of the five essays examine the effect of exile on the life and works of Pedro Salinas, Luis Cernuda, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. The last essay in this section, written by Ricardo F. Vivancos Pérez, takes an especially unique approach. He redefines works on Hispanic cultural and literary studies by advocating for a global and integrated definition of Spanish-language literary production. He suggests creating a literary canon that ignores geographic and political boundaries, which fittingly reflects the situation of exile as paradoxically belonging nowhere, yet being in two places at the same time (physically and nostalgically). The second section, which focuses on Américo Castro, is composed of three essays. Perhaps the most intriguing essay is Samuel Armistead's well written "Américo Castro en América." Armistead offers a complete picture of Castro's experience in the United States and praises Castro's influence on current scholarship. The third section includes two essays devoted to José Rubia Barcia, one...

The Making and Breaking of Language Ideology: Language Ideologies in Spanish Departments

In their study of language ideology, Valdés, González, López García, and Márquez (2003) found evidence of a pervasive monolingualist ideology or “discourse of monolingualism” in college-level Spanish departments. This discourse, which mirrors national language ideologies in the United States, is premised on notions of nationalism, linguistic purity, and the inherent superiority of monolingualism over bilingualism. This article builds on Valdés et al. by expanding its domain of inquiry to the secondary level of instruction. It is found that these notions are not widely or deeply present in high school Spanish departments.

Romania Continua, Romania Submersa, and the Field of Romance Studies

Understanding future of Romance studies would be an act of prophecy, rather than a forecasting. Since I am completely unable to become suddenly a prophet, mine will be some sort of Augustinian-driven consideration of past and future of present things. I received my formation as a very canonical Romanist. It was a very intense, almost skill-based training in history of literatures and languages, in textual scholarship, paleography, classical languages, and other strict disciplines: hard core of philology. For better or for worse, rest, I had to do it by myself. I spent ten years of my life teaching Romance literatures of Middle Ages in Salamanca and at some other European institutions. Looking back to that period after seven years in American academia requires a sort of a critical archaeology of that formation and its conditions of possibility. The field of Romance studies could be perceived as a sort of academic battlefield in form of a jigsaw puzzle. Different pieces have to be fit together to form original, historical picture of a mythical Romania, a picture that includes not only current Romance languages and cultures, Romania continua, but also different expressions of Romania submersa, that is Romance expressions of those other languages (of Celtic, Germanic or Berber origin, for instance) that, although located at outskirts of Romania, still claim their historical and underlying romanization as one of signs of their being higher cultures. The field became a battle from moment that jigsaw was puzzled by nineteenth-century national borderlines and by classification of Romance languages within those borderlines. All this could not be more obvious, but, at same time, it bas very evident consequences as well: Occitan cultures are studied, if at all, within French departments, as if Occitan were a part of monde de la francophonie; Catalan language is studied, if at all, in Spanish departments and has even become a part of Hispanic studies; we could go on ad nauseam trying to fit pieces of what Walther von Wartburg certified as La Fragmentation linguistique de la Romania within disciplinary boundaries of academic departments as they have been constituted in last decades as a result of complex interplay between linguistic geography, linguistic politics, and political geography. It does not come as a surprise that program in Romance philology at Columbia University is owned, as it were, by French department, and, in fact, it would not be a surprise either, if it were owned by department of Germanic studies, since they established foundation for Romance studies in Romania continua as well as concept of Romania submersa, to which nowadays they refer as die verlorene Romanitat, the lost Romanity. By same token, but from a completely different perspective, it is not a surprise either that same program at UC Berkeley is co-owned by several departments, sort of floating among or on top of them and resistant to change despite fact that those departments have changed their undergraduate and graduate programs radically over course of last few years. In other places I am aware of, such a program does not even exist, or it is result of a process of exhumation and resuscitation, as at University of Salamanca or University of Alcala de Henares, both in Spain. To primitive jigsaw puzzle formed by archetypal picture of Romania, it is necessary to add another one formed by ways in which we conceive relationships between disciplines and academic programs. Romance studies and Romance philology are an exceptional academic space, and it is because of this exceptionality that it is uncomfortably located. In many instances, it is only a name used by university to bring together colleagues from various smaller fields into a bigger structure in order to ease administrative work. …