Faculty

Meet the Modern Languages Faculty

Jessie D. Dixon, Chair
Associate Professor of Spanish
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1998

Caesar Akuetey
Professor of French
Ph.D., Universitéde Franche Comté, 1989
"My research focuses on General Linguistics, notably on the construction of my mother tongue; the Ewe language (a language spoken in Ghana, Benin and Nigeria)"

Bruce Davis
Burkhardt Distinguished Chair in Modern Languages- French
Ph.D., University of Virginia, 1983
"My current research focuses on issues of gentrification and urban planning in Paris."

Timothy J. Foster
Associate Professor of Spanish
Ph.D., Columbia University, 1994
"My dissertation studies the narrative utterances of authors unable to speak in their homeland due to sociopolitical repression"

Fernando Gomez
Associate Professor of Spanish
ABD, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2007
"In my research I enjoy investigating the diverse ways authors have depicted the human experience over the centuries."

Jerome Miner
Associate Professor of Spanish, Director, Burkhardt Language Center
Ph.D., University of Iowa, 1995
"My current research is in computer-assisted instruction, translation, and 20th-century Latin American narrative."

Robin Ragan
Associate Professor of Modern Languages-Spanish
Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2001
"I am particularly intrigued with the way 19th century medical discourse portrays illness as a natural state in women."

Claudia Fernández
Assistant Professor of Modern Languages-Spanish
Ph.D., University of Illinois-Chicago, 2005
"I investigate how adults learn the morphology and syntax (i.e., grammar) of a second language in the classroom."

Todd Heidt
Assistant Professor of Modern Languages-German
Ph.D., German Studies, University of Cincinnati, 2010
"I am interested in the intersections of modernity, story-telling, media and realism. My dissertation focuses on film adaptations from Weimar Germany (1919-1933), paying particular attention to the manner in which these narratives draw attention to the act of story-telling as much as they communicate the story itself."

Schahrazede Longou
Assistant Professor of Modern Languages-French, On-Site Director, Besançon Program
Ph.D., University of Iowa, 2009
"My dissertation studies fictional narratives by women who have emerged in the Algerian context of the 1980s and 1990s and who struggle against the violence and patriarchy inherent in traditional Algerian society."

Antonio Prado
Assistant Professor of Spanish, On-Site Director, Barcelona Program
Ph.D. candidate, University of Illinois-Urbana,2006
"I am interested in cultural productions that testify gender and class positions of political struggle in times of State crisis. My forthcoming book deals with the newspapers and magazines produced by the anarcho-feminist movement during the turbulent and unstable years prior to the fascist coup d'état that led to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)."

Julio Noriega
Visiting Associate Professor of Modern Languages-Spanish
Ph.D., Latin American and Peninsular Literature, University of Pittsburgh, 1993
"My interests lie in Spanish-American Migrant Literature within the context of colonial-postcolonial, transatlantic and cultural studies theories in Latin America as well as Indigenous Cultures of America in modernization."

María Barros García
Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern Languages-Spanish
Ph.D., Spanish Linguistics, University of Granada, Spain, 2011
"My ultimate goal is to apply the research findings to the design of pedagogical materials focused on the improvement of the communicative and intercultural competences of Spanish learners."

Novia Pagone
Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern Languages-Spanish
Ph.D. candidate, University of Chicago
"My current research focuses on the intersections of literature and journalism in contemporary Spain."

Emeritus Faculty

Carol Chase
Professor Emerita of Modern Languages

W.G. Fiedorow
Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages

Jorge Prats
Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages

Momcilo Rosic
Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages

Ross Vander Meulen
Professor Emeritus of German

Margareta I. Baacke
Professor Emerita of Modern Languages