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Supported by the Department of Hispanic Studies and the Philpott-Pérez grant, Clare Yee, a senior double majoring in Hispanic Studies and Art History, conducted summer research in San Juan, Puerto Rico, during a week-long faculty-student research trip with Professor Carlos Rivera Santana.
HISP alum, translator, and doctoral candidate Arianna Afsari (HISP & Russian and Post-Soviet Studies '19), and HISP Prof. Silvia Tandeciarz publish a highly praised translation of Juan Gelman's Notas (1979)
Local newspaper Diario de Cádiz features W&M students, led by Prof. Garrote Pascual, as they are welcomed at the Universidad de Cádiz
The Hispanic Studies program is proud to share that three students majoring in HISP were selected among the outstanding cohort of Spring 2026 inductees.
May was a month full of excitement as our community of HISP students gathered together to celebrate the end of this chapter and the beginning of a new one.
Assistant Professor Thenesoya Martín De la Nuez was recently interviewed on Radio Canarias about her forthcoming critical edition of Alfonso García-Ramos’s novel Tristeza sobre un caballo blanco and her work on newly recovered manuscripts.
Hispanic Studies is delighted to announce that Teaching Professor Paulina Carrión has been named University Professor of Teaching Excellence, a three-year term recognizing sustained excellence and inclusive teaching in the classroom
In conjunction with AMP, Hispanic Studies recently welcomed Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Caitlin Dickerson for a standing-room-only lecture on U.S. immigration, titled “Deportation Nation,” followed by an engaged Q&A with students.
This colloquium commemorated the 50th anniversary of the 1976 coup that ushered Argentina into its deadliest dictatorship, during which 30,000 people were forcibly disappeared. It also marked the 10th anniversary of President Obama’s visit to Argentina, which initiated a process of “declassification diplomacy” between the United States and Argentina.
Teaching Professor and Hispanic Language House Advisor Paulina Carrión has been selected as a Fall 2025 recipient of 鶹ƽ’s Values in Action Award, which recognizes faculty and staff whose work exemplifies the university’s core values.
It is well known that museums are a very rich site for practitioners of cultural studies to apply their training in meaningful ways. This is what Clare Yee ('27), a double major in Art History and Hispanic Studies, found out last summer, as she interned at the Chrysler Museum of Art thanks to generous funds from the Woody Internship in Museum Studies.
Dr. Matías Oviedo, 鶹ƽing Assistant Teaching Professor of Hispanic Studies, presented on “future readers” and Anthropocene temporality in Cristina Rivera Garza’s short story “Todo se está despidiendo” at the Bellini Colloquium
Hispanic Studies Professor Regina A. Root has co-edited The New Latin American Fashion Reader, a landmark volume that examines Latin American fashion through the lenses of decolonization, sustainability, and agency
A bilingual production of Argentine playwright Diana Raznovich’s Personal Belongings was presented at PBK Studio Theatre on February 20–21, 2026, followed by post-show conversations on memory, theatre, and human rights featuring Hispanic Studies faculty
On December 11, 2025, the community of Hispanic Studies majors, minors, faculty, and interested students gathered together to celebrate the end of the semester with music, food, and good conversation.
Hispanic Studies faculty Carlos Rivera Santana and Rebeca Pineda participated in the Bellini Colloquium panel, “Critically Thinking Through Gen AI in the Classroom,” on October 23
Teaching Professor Paulina Carrión receives the 2025 Building Connections & Bridging Differences Award for her decade of service to the Modern Languages department and the Hispanic Studies community.
Wondering how an experience abroad can lead to a successful research project? The classes and the internships offered in the various W&M programs in La Plata, Argentina (semester study abroad program; and the Human Rights Summer Intern Fellowship) have proven to be a fertile ground for in situ research for what eventually become honors theses and peer-reviewed publications.
Assistant Teaching Professor Catherine Brix was competitively selected to be a faculty mentor for a one-credit internship reflection course piloted by the Charles Center.
The Hispanic Studies program is proud to share that six students majoring in HISP, and one student minoring in HISP, were selected among the outstanding cohort of Spring 2025 inductees.
After a couple of years earning work experience related to social justice, Soleil Ephraim (HISP & Sociology ’21) is currently exploring the intersection between environmental health and public health as she pursues a MSc in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The Hispanic Studies program strives to underscore the connections between training received inside the classroom and the world beyond campus.
A warm welcome to the spring semester! We reflect on the close of the fall term with highlights including our winter graduation recognition, student awards, and the Bellini Colloquium featuring fascinating research by our faculty.
Paulina Carrión, Teaching Professor of Hispanic Studies, publishes two new books
Professor Riofrio gives a lecture as part of Latine Heritage Month and the Culture & Conversations Lecture Series, organized by the Center for Student Diversity
Prof. Rivera-Santana presents a lecture as part of Latine Heritage Month and the Culture & Conversations Lecture Series, organized by the Center for Student Diversity.
Education in languages other than English is cornerstone in training future global citizens that can address both domestic and global issues in culturally sensitive ways. Unsurprisingly, several students in the HISP program are inspired to select the professional path of education. And they thrive in it.
Professors Professors Ramanathan and Brix publish translations of selected essays of Diamela Elti
Professor Rivera Santana reincorporates after research leave, during which he advanced his research
The Hispanic Studies department honors its majors, presents awards, and celebrates graduating students
It is well known that museums are a very rich site for practitioners of cultural studies to apply their training in meaningful ways. This is what Natalie Simpson, a senior double-majoring in American Studies and Hispanic Studies, found out last summer, as she interned at the Jamestown Settlement Museum thanks to generous funds from the Woody Internship in Museum Studies.
Students in Hispanic Studies enjoy multiple opportunities to carry out original research under the mentorship of our faculty. Among said opportunities is working as a research assistant that collaborates directly with a faculty member on a specific project. Such was the case when Dr. Rivera Santana invited Malvika Shrimali (HISP & ENSP ’24) to work on a film that focuses on Puerto Rico’s colonial status within the US.
New summer program in Ecuador
Hispanic Studies Program abroad in La Plata, Argentina, featured in World Minded Newsletter
Silvia R. Tandeciarz, Chancellor Professor of Hispanic Studies, has been honored for her translation of Juana Iris Goergen's poetry book Mar en los huesos.
Baylee manages to multiply herself and teach English to immigrants and refugees at the Washington English Center, and to both professionals and K-12 students at a Korea-based startup. Her main activity, however, consists of implementing the State Department’s International 鶹ƽor Leadership Program, and developing programs and opportunities to bring foreign leaders to the US in support of US foreign policy goals. At the IVLP, Baylee was recently promoted to Senior Program Associate.
Sam is excited to open a new chapter of her life this coming fall, and advance her skills for research and service, as she will start a Master’s degree in Spanish Literature and Culture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This program will allow Sam to enhance her pedagogical profile.
Estonia is the next destination of PBK inductee Tom J. Plant (HISP & IR ’22). Thanks to a most prestigious and extremely competitive Fulbright Research Award, Tom, currently an analyst at Valens Global, will spend 9 months designing and analyzing wargames as media literacy for national defense that can serve address the dangers of mis/disinformation as a national security threat.
The Hispanic Studies program caught up with Dr. Álvaro Garrote Pascual, the newest tenure hire in Hispanic Studies, after his first full semester teaching at 鶹ƽ. Dr. Garrote Pascual is an Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies. Here is what he has shared about his work and first months at W&M, during the Fall 2022 semester.
Álvaro Garrote Pascual specializes in Medieval literatures and cultures.
Silvia Tandeciarz receives 2021 Plumeri Award
Please join me in congratulating Lu Ann Homza on the publication of her book: Village Infernos and Witches’ Advocates: Witch-Hunting in Navarre, 1608-1614, published January 19, 2022 by Pennsylvania State University Press.
The following books by 鶹ƽ faculty members were published in 2021.
Alexandra Wingate (HISP & LING '18), is beginning her second semester of an MLS degree at Indiana University (Bloomington, IN) and recently finish an MA at the Institute of English Studies, University of London. Last December, Alex’s MA thesis, entitled “'Prosigue la librería': Understanding late seventeenth-century Navarrese Book Culture through Lorenzo Coroneu’s Bookstore," won the Royal Historical Society’s Rees Davies Prize, a high honor and award for the best Master’s dissertation in a UK university.
The Society’s historic origins are located in the heart of 鶹ƽ. PBK’s very first meeting, comprised of five W&M students, took place on December 5, 1776 in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia. Two hundred forty-three years later, on December 5, 2019, W&M’s Alpha Chapter of PBK initiated fifty-one outstanding undergraduates as new members; a second round of selection and initiation of new members will be held in the spring. Six of the 51 initiates are Hispanic Studies majors who offer these reflections about the opportunities and transformative experiences they found in our academic and cultural offerings.
Having been selected from a highly accomplished cohort on new inductess, on December 8, 2017, Alex Wingate (HISP & LING '18) addressed her fellow new member of PBK and delivered the customary salutatory remarks. Alex's words represent a firm call to recall the origins of the liberal arts, and to embrace interdisciplinarity.
