This semester has been as busy as any other for FRIT’s graduate students.
First, a warm congrats to those receiving degrees this spring: Fiona Ward and Demetrio Antolini both successfully finished their MA’s in Italian studies. Demetrio will be moving on to the PhD in Italian Screen Studies with a focus on representations of people at the fringes of society in Italian cinema. Eleanor Paynter, a student in Comparative Studies, who has been a part of FRIT’s community for many years, completed her PhD this semester, and will be joining Cornell University in the fall as Postdoctoral Associate with the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, collaborating on their Migrations Initiative.
In late February, PhD candidate Kirby Childress helped organize and chaired a panel at the Drawing Gender Symposium, focused on Women and French-language Comics. Childress is working on a dissertation on Internalized Homophobia, Aids, Abjection, and Empathy in French Film and Graphic Novels. He also served as FRIT’s Graduate Administrative Associate this semester.
Thierno Diallo and Badou Fall, PhD Candidates in French, participated in the inaugural Francophone Day this March. Together with FRIT department members Eric Tsimi and Maud Bahoua, the group organized a full day of activities, workshops, and lectures focused on Africa(s) and its diasporas.
Childress and Diallo also participated in the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in February. There they held a workshop on making structured input activities in Arabic, Chinese, and French together with FRIT graduate alumni Laurene Glimois (PhD, 2019) and Xinyi Tan (PhD, 2018).
In April, Enrico Zammarchi, who holds a PhD in Comparative Studies and is pursuing an MA in Italian Studies, gave an online talk in Spanish on the history of Italian hip-hop, titled, “My Style in Strictly Italo: Una historia del hip-hop italiano.”
Erik Scaltriti, a PhD candidate in Italian Screen Studies, recently received a grant from the Office of International Affairs to carry out research for his dissertation. His research focuses on representations of migration in contemporary documentaries.
PhD candidate Laurenzo De Camilla is the recipient of the highly selective Graduate Associate Leadership Award. De Camilla serves as FRIT’s Graduate Professionalization Representative and helps other graduate students build a comprehensive portfolio and think about professionalization from the beginning of their graduate education. Last but not least, De Camilla’s article "LGBTQ+ female protagonists in horror cinema today: The Italian case" was recently published in the Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies.
Congratulations are also in order to several alumni of FRIT’s graduate program. Mackenzie Leadston (PhD, 2019) was awarded the Susan Hayward Prize for best article published by a Ph.D. Candidate for her recent article in Studies of French Cinema. Michele Gerring, (PhD, 2014) will soon have a chapter titled "Le Prochain défi pour l’intégration en France: les Français d’origine asiatique en France” in a volume on contemporary France, edited by M. Gueldry and A. Crouzières-Ingenthron and published by the American Association of Teaching French. Heidi Brown, (PhD, 2014) received tenure and is now Associate Professor at Loyola University.
Congratulations, congratulazioni, and félicitations to all of you!
