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Recent News
February 10, 2021
On Thursday, February 4, 2021, the UW Spanish and Portuguese Studies department hosted the second event within the series Crossroads: A Dialogue Between the Global South and Global North. While the first event encompassed anti-racism and racial literacy in Brazil, this second event was focused on the linguistic and cultural history of Tének, an indigenous language in Mexico spoken in the states of San Luis de Potosi and Veracruz. The event, titled “Tének: Imágenes de una lengua y su cultura” [... Read more
February 10, 2021
Juan Felipe Arroyave, a 2019 MA and PhD graduate of the Spanish and Portuguese Department at the University of Washington (UW), has published his translation Cien poetas, cien poemas in e-book format. The original anthology of classical Japanese poetry Hyakunin Issuhu crossed Juan Felipe´s scholarly path while he was studying at the Spanish and Portuguese Department at UW where he took Japanese and Japanese literature classes simultaneously. A successful intersection of spaces... Read more
January 26, 2021
Leigh Mercer, Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies and Comparative Literature Cinema and Media Studies, has obtained for the second time in her career the 2021 Society of Scholars fellowship through the Simpson Center for the Humanities.
Her book project, Identity by Design: ... Read more
December 22, 2020
For twenty years, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies has maintained a tradition of giving to a local community charity connected to our mission and core values. According to Emily Gaggia, education coordinator at Casa Latina, “the Day Workers program has a membership of over one thousand workers." Before the COVID 19 pandemic, there were about 150 workers actively seeking employment through Casa Latina. Each year, SPS faculty, staff and graduate students have purchased gifts for... Read more
December 18, 2020
Article written by Isabella-Yasameen Azar, undergraduate student in Political Science
On Thursday October 29th, 2020 the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies and the Center for Global Studies hosted the event Crossroads: A Dialogue Between the Global North and Global South which in its first meeting examined the issues of race through a conversation about anti-racism and racial literacy in Brazil. The event featured two speakers: Henry M. Jackson School of... Read more
November 17, 2020
COVID-19 is preventing us from having in-person classes, meetings, and conferences. However, our SPS faculty keeps actively engaged in promoting and sharing their knowledge within our community in different ways. The Washington Association for Language Teaching (WAFLT) was held virtually this year, and three of our SPS faculty members collaborated to deliver a joint presentation at the October 2020 Conference: ¨Apart, But Together.¨
Jorge González... Read more
November 12, 2020
Farris Anderson was a professor in the Spanish and Portuguese Department from 1966 until his retirement in 1999. He served as chair from 1995-1999. He gained emeritus Professor status in 2000 and worked as a part-time retiree until 2005, both teaching classes and acting as a consultant for the Cádiz program. He passed away October 7, 2020. Our sincerest condolences go out to his family. You can find... Read more
October 30, 2020
Eduardo Viana da Silva, Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at the UW, has received the 2020 Teacher of the Year Award from the Washington Association for Language Teaching (WAFLT). This award recognizes the work of language teachers in the State of Washington for their excellence in the teaching of world languages.
The WAFLT Association highlights on its website that this award "celebrates the promotion of cultural awareness, intercultural... Read more
October 23, 2020
A broad definition of a heritage speaker, according to Fishman (1981, 2006), “is anyone who has an ethnic, cultural, or other connection with a language, regardless of whether that person learned the heritage language as a child” (In: Benmamoun, Montrul, and Polinsky, 2013). This definition applies in different degrees to the UW Indigenous students: Elsa Vásquez, Karol Janet Cruz Escamilla, and Nancy Mendoza Ruiz, who participated in a panel discussion on February 22nd, 2020, at the Heritage... Read more
October 9, 2020
Article by Sabrina Spannagel-Bradley
During this pandemic, remote teaching is the “new normal” for faculty. A year and a half ago, however, all classes were face-to-face, with first and second-year language classes meeting five days a week in the classroom. This is a convenient routine for students living on or near campus, but not for all students. Last year, I identified an unmet need for some non-traditional students trying to fulfill the language requirement by taking... Read more