Graduate Research |
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Graduate Research in CMLLCGraduate students in CMLLC engage in exciting research projects of all kinds. The CMLLC Graduate Forum hosts an annual conference featuring interdisciplinary work by students from around the university, the state, the country, and the world. This year's conference, to be held Friday and Saturday, April 6-7, 2018 in Manoogian Hall's Armenian Room (Room 226), is titled "Identity Crises: Loss, Anxiety, Liberation." Keynote speaker Alain-Philippe Durand of the University of Arizona will deliver an address titled "The Case of Frédéric Beigbeder" and graduate students from across Wayne State University and the United States will present their research on the topic. See the full conference program here. PhD CandidatesSPANISHColleen McNewAdvisor: Prof. Francisco J. Higuero FRENCH STUDIESSarah CoulsonAdvisor: Prof. Alina Cherry Exclusion is well-represented in contemporary French literature. Each novel analyzed in my study portrays a distinct form of marginalization. In Annie Mandeta GjataAdvisor: Prof. Alina Cherry
Sandra Rodriguez BontempsAdvisor: Prof. Alina Cherry My dissertation explores various facets of global travel and practices of spaces as reflections of the complex nature of our hypermodern existence. I focus on the narrative paradoxes stemming from two authors’ intention to reconcile conflicting phenomena – the urge to move and inertia – which constantly reoccur in their works. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, Gérard Genette, Michel de Certeau, Marc Augé, and Bertrand Westphal, I argue that the authors design, through their poetics of “detour” and “flight” and their aesthetics, an open cartography of mobile spaces in which the text and the world interact in ways that offer us insights into the unique spaces, and forms of movement and intersubjectivity that define our globalized, postmodern way of life. GERMAN STUDIESCorrina PeetAdvisor: Prof. Anne Rothe My dissertation engages postcolonial theory to explore the diverse counter-colonial discourses and practices evident in post-unification East German popular culture. Drawing on the postcolonial theories of Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak, and the recent scholarship on counter-colonial East German discourse like Paul Cooke’s From Colonization to Nostalgia: Representing East Germany since Unification, I discuss the East German socio-political situation in 1989. I argue that, following the collapse of the Soviet empire, a postcolonial conflict occurred in East Germany in 1989/90. Responding to the East German counter-colonial uprising, West Germany quickly took control via the 1990 elections. Funded and organized by West German parties, the elections led to the victory of Helmut Kohl’s conservative party and shortly thereafter to unification. LANGUAGE LEARNING STUDIESAdrion DulaMinor Advisor: Prof. Kate Paesani Despite evidence showing the importance language learners place on pronunciation, recent studies point to numerous deficiencies in contemporary and non-technology based pronunciation curricula, materials, and methodologies (Hismanoglu and Hismanoglu, 2010). Automatic speech recognition programs such as Apple iPhone’s Siri and Google’s search by voice and dictation applications offer
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