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Name, Position, and Biography
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Contact
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Arabic
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Soraya Wirth
Lecturer of Arabic
Click here for biography
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154 N Regina
574.284.5388
swirth@saintmarys.edu
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Chinese
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Alice Siqin Yang
Lecturer of Chinese and Coordinator of China Summer Program
Dr. Yang is the lecturer of Chinese, the advisor of the Chinese Cultural Club, and the coordinator of the China Summer Program. She is a native Chinese and received her B.A. and M.A. in English and American Literature in China as well as training in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. After nine years of teaching experience at Wuhan University, she pursued her M.A. in women's studies at the University of Northern Iowa and Ph.D. in comparative and international development education at the University of Minnesota. She received a research grant from the Ford Foundation and completed her dissertation on women's development and gender equity in Chinese higher education.
Besides her teaching assignment, she is the Assistant Director of Global Education at the Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership and supports all study abroad programs. Her areas of interest include: Chinese language, culture, history, gender/women's studies, international education and exchange, and intercultural education. She offered a course on Chinese Women and Society for the China Summer Program in 2009.
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125 S Regina
574.284.5380
syang@saintmarys.edu
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Spanish
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Luzmila Camacho-Platero
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Luzmila Camacho-Platero, Assistant Professor of Spanish at Saint Mary’s College, works mainly on Golden Age Literature but more specifically on drama and theater. Her other research and teaching interests include contemporary Spanish film and minority cultures. She has published a critical study and annotated edition, La Monja Alférez de Juan Pérez de Montalbán. Estudio Crítico y Edición Anotada (2006), as well as articles on topics such as la mujer varonil (popular character of 17th century Spanish theater) and screen representations of women. Currently, she is working on an edition of Montalban’s exemplary novels and an article on female immigrants in contemporary Spanish cinema.
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127 S Regina
574.284.4824
lcamacho@saintmarys.edu
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Sarah Grussing
Visiting Asst. Prof. of Spanish
Sarah Grussing has been a global vagabond and a voracious reader since a very early age. She grew up in several states as well as in Australia. At age 15, she left home to study in a castle in Wales (United World College of the Atlantic) with other young people from over seventy different countries. Since then her interest in global affairs and social justice has grown. After studying abroad in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America during the turbulent 1980s (witnessing violent and nonviolent political and social conflict firsthand), she completed her B.A. at Carleton College.
Her intellectual interests are varied. At the University of Minnesota, she wrote her Master’s thesis on Spanish Golden Age playwright Lope de Vega and her Ph.D. dissertation on the symbiosis between Indigenous armed resistance in Chiapas, Mexico and the growth of multimedia virtual resistance on the Internet (1994-2000).
Dr. Grussing has published in feminist scholarly journals in the U.S. and in Brazil and presented her research at conferences in the U.S., Spain, and Ireland. Her current research and teaching interests include (re)reading/viewing Latin American film and narrative portrayals of State and guerrilla-sponsored violence through the ambiguous lens of the current global “War on Terror.”
Dr. Grussing is also interested in fostering campus/community connections, civic engagement, and global citizenship through meaningful service learning.
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Regina 155 N
574.284.5367
sgrussin@saintmarys.edu
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Jennifer Zachman
Associate Professor of Spanish
- B.A., College of St. Benedict
- M.A., Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Zachman is a specialist in twentieth century Spanish Literature. Her primary areas of research interest are: Spanish women writers and contemporary Spanish theater. Other areas of interest include: feminism and women's studies, film studies and intercultural studies. |
154 Regina
574.284.5388
jzachman@saintmarys.edu
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French
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Mana Derakhshani
Professor of French
- B.A., M.A., Ph.D., University of Utah
Dr. Derakhshani is Professor of French in the Department of Modern Languages. She has a Ph.D in nineteenth-century French poetry, her first love, however since coming to Saint Mary’s College in 1989 her scholarly work has focused on the pedagogy of languages and intercultural studies. She has developed new courses in Francophone Studies and the Culture of Business in the French-Speaking World, and is currently working on a new course on French Cinema. She was instrumental along with several other colleagues across the campus for creating the Intercultural Studies Minor and has taught the Introduction to Intercultural Studies course every year since its inception. She was one of the co-writers of the proposal to the Lilly Foundation for the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership and served as its Interim Director in its first year (2000-2001).
Dr. Derakhshani actively participates in her field by presenting papers, sessions, and workshops related to her research at conferences on a regular basis. With Dr. Julie Storme, she co-directed a highly successful institute for secondary teachers of French, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, at Saint Mary's during the summer of 1993, on "Integrating Language and Culture through Content-Based Foreign Language Instruction."
She has published an advanced-level French reader entitled Voix Francophones: le monde contemporain en textes, about which one reviewer wrote, "By encouraging [students] to reflect on such problems as ethnic stereotypes and the destruction of the environment and to examine their own sense of national identity, their religious beliefs, their prejudices, these texts will have an impact greater than their stated goals, and the many 'voices' that they record will resonate in the students' minds long after their course work has been completed." She has authored articles on teaching culture and on intercultural aspects of French cinema.
She was the recipient of the 1995 Saint Mary's College Multicultural Award and of the Indiana 1997 French Teacher of the Year at College Level Award.
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153 Regina Hall
574.284.5374
mana@saintmarys.edu
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Renée A. Kingcaid
Professor of French
Dr. Kingcaid is a specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century French prose fiction, with a special interest in psychoanalysis and narrative theory. She has published over a dozen articles and delivers regular conference papers in these fields.
Her 1992 book, Neurosis and Narrative: The Decadent Short Fiction of Proust, Rachilde, and Lorrain, has been praised as "excellent," "imaginative," and "enlightening"; the Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France cited it as opening "new methodological and interpretative perspectives" on the fiction of late 19th-century France.
Dr. Kingcaid has received numerous grants from Saint Mary's College in support of her teaching and research initiatives. She has presented conference papers in numerous venues on diverse topics in French literature and culture, and is the on-campus faculty director of the Saint Mary's College Study Abroad Program in France. Dr. Kingcaid has held many positions of leadership on the Saint Mary's campus, including one term as Modern Languages' Department Chair, two terms as Faculty Assembly Chair, and two terms as Chair of the Curriculum Committee.
She particularly enjoys teaching Intermediate French, Transition to French Literature, courses in the French novel, and she frequently supervises independent literary studies.
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104 S Regina
574.284.4839
kingcaid@saintmarys.edu
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Julie Storme
Chair of Modern Languages and Professor of French and Italian
- B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Northwestern University
By training an eighteenth-century specialist (her dissertation was on Montaigne's and Rousseau's conflicted identity as a writer), Dr. Storme has concentrated her professional activities at Saint Mary's College within the field of foreign language pedagogy. She is the author of the workbook for Situations et contextes, a first-year French textbook, and co-authored the intermediate textbook Ouvertures, now in its third edition.
Within the field of language pedagogy, she has special expertise in the teaching of reading and culture. With Dr. Derakhshani, Dr. Storme is a frequent presenter of papers and workshops at pedagogy conferences, and was co-director with her of the NEH-funded Summer Institute for Teachers of French at Saint Mary's in 1993 on "Integrating Language and Culture through Content-Based Instruction."
Dr. Storme has been instrumental in developing the French Studies major, with special courses on France and America from the eighteenth- through twentieth-centuries, and the history of French colonization, for which she received a SISTAR grant (student-faculty research) from Saint Mary's. She also serves on the InterCultural Studies Committee, having served as its first coordinator. Along with others on this committee, she helped establish the InterCultural Studies Minor at Saint Mary's.
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155 Regina
574.284.5399
jstorme@saintmarys.edu
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Marianne Hahn
Lecturer in French and German
- B.A., M.A., University of Notre Dame
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114 S-A Regina
574.284.5375
mahahn@saintmarys.edu
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Italian
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Peter Checca
Assistant Professor of Italian, Counselor of the Rome Program
- BA, Boston State College
- MA, Middlebury College
- PhD, Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Checca has written three manuals which he uses in his courses: Italian for Beginners, Parliamo in Italiano, and Italian through Video. In addition to Introductory Italian, he enjoys teaching Advanced Italian Grammar and History of Italian Cinema.
His research interests focus on Italian cinema and contemporary Italian literature. In 1991, Dr. Checca received the prestigious Maria Pieta Award from Saint Mary's College, in recognition of his outstanding teaching.
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145-A Regina
574.284.4586
pchecca@saintmarys.edu
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Nancy D'Antuono
Professor of Italian
- A.B., Hunter College
- M.A., Ph.D., University of Michigan
Dr. D'Antuono is a specialist in Spanish Golden Age literature (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) with a concentration in the theater and in Italian literature (thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries) with emphasis on the novella, the commedia dell'arte, scripted theater and opera libretti.
She is the author of a book, Boccaccio's Novelle in the Theater of Lope de Vega (Madrid: Porrúa Turanzas, 1983) and some thirty articles on Italo-Hispanic literary and cultural relations.
She continues to work on, Calderón's Theater in Italy, 1642-1800, a project for which she has received grant support from Saint Mary's College and from the American Philosophical Society. One critic has described her research as impressive for its "cogency, professionalism and insight."
An internationally respected scholar, Dr. D'Antuono is the only American hispanist working on Spanish Golden Age drama in Italy both as source for the commedia dell'arte and the seventeenth-century Italian theater. She regularly presents sessions on Italo-Hispanic Baroque literary relations and on the commedia dell'arte at professional meetings.
At Saint Mary's College she teaches introductory, intermediate and advanced-level Italian language courses as well as courses in Italian literature.
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101 Regina
574.284.5386
dantuono@saintmarys.edu
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Betta LoSardo
Adjunct faculty
- B.A., Boston College
- M.A., Middlebury College
Betta LoSardo is an Adjunct Instructor at Saint Mary's as well as an Assistant Professor at DePaul University. Her areas of expertise, in addition to competence-based and adult education theory, include Italian Renaissance art and culture, Italian American Studies, and Corporate Art collecting. Ms. LoSardo has an A.M. from Middlebury College in Italian Studies and has studied at the Universita' di Firenze. |
156 Regina
574.284.5387
blosardo@depaul.edu
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Robert Morse
Lecturer in Italian
- B.A., University of Pennsylvania
- M.B.A., George Mason University
- M.A., University of Virginia
Robert Morse is a visiting lecturer in Italian at Saint Mary’s College. He first learned Italian while living, working, studying, and traveling in Italy for more than a decade. Robert was employed in the sports business, first as a professional basketball player in the Italian League, then in sports broadcasting and event management in Rome.
Mr. Morse received his Masters degree in Italian language and literature from the University of Virginia in 2007. He specializes in the teaching of the Italian language. Other areas of academic interest include 19th and 20th century historical novels, modern short stories, and Italian film studies.
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124 S Regina
574.284.5371
rmorse@saintmarys.edu
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Umberto Taccheri
Associate Professor of Italian
- Laurea in Lettere (BA) Università "La Sapienza" in Rome
- MA, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
A native of Rome, Italy, Dr. Taccheri is a specialist in Medieval and Renaissance literature; his other interests include Cinema Studies and Italian Cultural Studies, and the application of information technology in education.
Dr. Taccheri joined the department of Modern Languages in 2001, after having taught Italian in Academic Institutions for almost a decade. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania with a dissertation on Dante Alighieri, and published articles on Ludovico Ariosto, Luchino Visconti and Thomas Mann, and Dante. Two of his articles on the cinema of Roberto Benigni are in press, and will appear in collections of scholarly essays on the director of Life is Beautiful.
Since at Saint Mary’s, together with Introductory and Intermediate language, Dr. Taccheri has taught upper division courses on Italian Culture and Civilization, Advanced Conversation, the Short Story Tradition and Introduction to Italian Literature I and II.
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110 Regina
574.284.5385
taccheri@saintmarys.edu
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German
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Marianne Hahn
Lecturer in German and French
- B.A., M.A., University of Notre Dame
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114 S-A Regina
574.284.5375
mahahn@saintmarys.edu
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