By Sarah Geegan

The University of Kentucky will host the 65th annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (KFLC), an internationally esteemed colloquium for scholars of language, literature and culture, beginning Thursday, April 19, across the UK campus.

The event will unite scholars from across the world, as the largest U.S. conference dedicated to all aspects of the study of language and its peoples, from technology to teaching, from film to literature, from linguistics to cultural studies. With keynote speakers, discussion panels, research presentations and exhibits, the conference will address issues pertaining to language through multiple platforms.

Doug Slaymaker, executive director of the KFLC and associate professor of 

By Whitney Hale, Lea Mann

The University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities has chosen 10 outstanding undergraduates as new scholars for the university's Gaines Fellowship Program for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic years.

Gaines Fellowships are given in recognition of outstanding academic performance, demonstrated ability to conduct independent research, an interest in public issues and a desire to enhance understanding of the human condition through the humanities. Fellowships are awarded for the tenure of a student's junior and senior years, or for the last two years of a five-year program; students in all disciplines and with any intended profession are given equal consideration.

UK's

By Kathy Johnson

University of Kentucky educators and others will be honored with teaching and public service awards today in UK's second annual Founders Day Award Ceremony at 4 p.m. in Worsham Theater in the UK Student Center.  Members of the campus and local communities are invited.  A reception will follow in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Cultural Center.

The university was created by legislative act on Feb. 22, 1865. While Founders Day has been celebrated in various ways over those years, the Founders Day Award Ceremony was established last year to recognize outstanding teaching, research and public service among faculty.

The Provost's Awards for teaching and service, the Sullivan Medallions for community service, the Sturgill Award for contributions to graduate education, and the Kirwan Prize for outstanding research will be presented

By Whitney Hale

The University of Kentucky's Latin American Studies Program, College of Communications and Information Studies and Libraries are coming together to offer a screening of "Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo and the Search for Identity," a documentary on a period during Argentina's Dirty War when people were tortured and babies were kidnapped and given to military supporters. The free public screening will be presented at 3 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, at Worsham Theater.

"Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo" is a documentary film that was a

By Whitney Hale

A new composition by University of Kentucky sophomore Ben Norton has been selected for the Lexington Philharmonic's New Music Experiment, a new initiative to foster musical creativity and innovation. As part of the experiment, Norton's piece will be part of a workshop and later presented to the public in a performance scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17, at the Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall. Tickets to the performance of Norton's Woodwind Quintet No. 9 and other selections from the New Music Experiment is $5 and can be purchased at the door.

"I am very excited and incredibly honored to be given this opportunity," says Norton. "I was simply happy that others wanted to go out of their way to

By Gail Hairston, Amy Jones, Kody Kiser

Six University of Kentucky professors were honored last night by the UK Alumni Association for the excellence they demonstrate in the classroom.

Click here for a transcription of the video above.

This year’s recipients of the 2012 Great Teacher Awards are:

Dissertation Defense of Alice Driver

Thursday, December 1, 2011 - 9AM-11AM in 1145 Patterson Office Tower

Dissertation Title: Cultural Production and Ephemeral Art: Feminicide and the Geography of Memory in Ciudad Juárez, 1998-2008.

By Erin Holaday Zielger

The United States celebrates International Education week this week, but UK has escalated its presence and connectivity across the globe since Provost Kumble Subbaswamy established the Internationalization Task Force in February 2007.

"Our students, regardless of whether they come from rural Kentucky or from outside the U.S., are increasingly aware of the importance of being ready for the global marketplace," Subbaswamy said.  "Thus, it is our responsibility to make sure that UK provides them ample opportunity to become ‘world ready.’ Our internationalization efforts are aimed at achieving this strategic goal."

International Education Week is an opportunity to celebrate the benefits of international education

By Erin Holaday Ziegler

The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences will host a trailblazing American diplomat next week to continue the college's Year of China initiative.

Former U.S. Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch will speak on “Leadership and Education in a Globalizing World: China’s Challenge” at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, in Room 118 of the White Hall Classroom Building on UK's campus.

Bloch’s talk, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the "Passport to China: Global Issues & Local Understanding" course taught by UK sociology Professor Keiko Tanaka.

Ambassador Bloch, the first Asian-American ambassador in American history, has had a broad career in U.S. government service. She is currently president of the U.S.-China Education Trust, a nonprofit

Doctoral Defense of Adam Glover

Tuesday, November 15 - 8am to 10am in 1145 Patterson Office Tower

Dissertation Title: Poetics of Enchantment: Language, Sacramentality, and Meaning in Twentieth-Century Argentine Poetry

By Whitney Hale

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, University of Kentucky faculty and students, as well as international guest artists, will take center stage in a tribute concert honoring the late Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca. "Llanto por Federico García Lorca," presented by UK's School of Music and Latin American Studies Program, will begin 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30, at the Niles Gallery, in the Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library and Learning Center. The event is free and open to the public.

The concert "Llanto por Federico García Lorca" will feature

By Whitney Hale

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, University of Kentucky's School of Music and the Latin American Studies Program present "Latin America in Music: A concert of Latin American Music." This concert featuring UK faculty and students, as well as international guest artists, will take the stage at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, at the Worsham Theater, in the UK Student Center. The concert is free and open to the public.

"Latin America in Music" will feature performances by:

Rare books and manuscripts are a regular part of Mitchell Codding’s professional life, courtesy of his role as executive director of The Hispanic Society of America, located in New York City’s Upper Manhattan. “If you’re really interested in Hispanic literature, art, culture, that kind of thing, it’s like being a kid in a candy story. You get to deal physically with those objects, something most people don’t get to do,” Codding said enthusiastically of his role with the museum and library that compose the Society.

Though he’s been in New York working for the Hispanic Society for more than 25 years—Codding became the Society’s assistant director in 1984 and has been executive director since 1995—he still remembers his time in Lexington and at UK fondly.

HM King Juan Carlos of Spain presenting the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, awarded by Spain's Ministry

The University of Kentucky's Department of Hispanic Studies is expanding its online course selection this summer to encompass an expanding foreign language need in the community, the Commonwealth and across the globe. Spanish for Health Professionals is the name of this wholly-online summer course, and fundamental health language, Hispanic culture and lifestyle are the topics at hand.

The College of Arts and Sciences offers Spanish for Health Professionals, or Spanish 151, in the classroom during the school year as the student need arises, and while the summer course is open to traditional students, Hispanic Studies is also focused on nontraditional students both locally and globally.

"A class like this does not require fluency," explained Hispanic Studies professor and course director Haralambos

Ph.D. Students

by Leah Bayens

photos by Mark Cornelison

Any language devotee knows that linguistics illuminates socio-political and bio-cultural mysteries. Apparently, it also forms the tie that binds a former theologian and a former telecommunications specialist, bringing both into the Hispanic Studies fold.

Doctoral candidates Jarrod Brown and Iván Sánchez-Medina diverged from many years of study and service in religion and business communications, respectively, and found a home in UK’s Department of Hispanic Studies precisely because of the program’s renewed emphasis on linguistic research. Despite their disparate backgrounds, and in spite of different research areas, they both use linguistics to track the continuum of presences and absences in

University of Kentucky Hispanic Studies professor Susan Larson specializes in 20th century Spanish literature and film. She's currently engaged in research on questions of modernity and the social and cultural implications of urban planning. 

 

"I'm interested in how discourses of science and technology work their way into film, literature and culture in general," she said.

 

Larson spends a great deal of her time within this sub-discipline of a sub-discipline, as is the case for many university professors.

 

Participation in conferences and symposia is very important to Larson's research. But current budget restraints are keeping Larson and her colleagues throughout campus

Cristina Alcalde’s book, "The Woman in the Violence: Gender, Poverty, and Resistance in Peru," recently published through Vanderbilt University Press, addresses the different types of violence women experience during different stages of their lives. In writing The Woman in the Violence, Alcalde, an Assistant Professor in the Gender and Women’s Studies Department at the University of Kentucky, drew from her extensive fieldwork conducted in Lima, Peru, the capital of Peru and one of the largest cities in Latin America. Alcalde focuses on the everyday activities of women affected by violence and examines what happens before, throughout, and after abusive relationships. In addition, her analysis addresses

Ph.D. Student

by Saraya Brewer

photos by Richie Wireman

Gothic-and fantastic-themed films and literature have, in recent years, increasingly gained credibility with the masses, particularly with the popularity of “The Lord of the Rings,” “Harry Potter” and – perhaps on a smaller scale – Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan's Labyrinth.” With the massive artistic and literary (not to mention financial) successes of these films and novels, the genres have also been gaining widespread notoriety in the academic world, despite having been traditionally cast aside as being a genre that is not intellectual, significant or of good taste.

University of Kentucky Hispanic Studies Ph.D. candidate Nadina Olmedo hopes that representations of the genre as cliche, sensational or not-intellectualized are obsolete. With her dissertation,

Ph.D. Students

by Joy Gonsalves

When graduate faculty from the Hispanic Studies Department announce this year’s scholarly grant recipients, they’ll deliver a triple-whammy. Matthew Feinberg, Michelle Dumais, and Brian Cole were each awarded a grant of some $3,000 sponsored by the University of Minnesota to study their love of loves—Spanish culture— in Madrid. 

Titled the “Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States’ Universities,” this joint US-Spanish initiative is designed to promote scholarly representations of Hispanicism abroad. Given to published professors and film societies alike, Cole, Feinberg and Dumais will apply their awards toward each one’s dissertation focus. With qualifying exams now behind them, it’s time for these third-