Cultural Studies and Languages: Related Content
![Partire è un po’ morire](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/Partire-e-un-po-morire-image_300x225.jpg?itok=AZStt6Qj)
My final project in the class America in Italy was a paper looking at relations between the United States and Italy by analyzing characters of a book, Vita by Melania Mazzucco, and a documentary about Italian immigration called Finding the Mother Lode by director-couple Gianfranco Norelli and Suma Kurien. I focused on the stories of women and connected their situations through my thesis, which was that female immigrants that had freed themselves from men were able to find independence and success. The relationship between characters from the book and from the documentary was interesting, and the importance of education for immigrants and especially for immigrant girls seemed to be the most important thing to emancipate the entire family.
–Lucia Pompetti
![Tipping the Scales](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/Feitlowitz-AWP_300x225.jpg?itok=X1AKviUB)
Marguerite Feitlowitz was on a panel at the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) in February, called "Tipping the Scales: Addressing Gender Imbalance in Literature in Translation,” which was highlighted on Words Without Borders.
![Albertine](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/FestivalAlbertine300.jpg?itok=DsVC8SQa)
In an interview with The New York Times about the upcoming Festival Albertine, Ta-Nehisi Coates mentioned faculty member Maboula Soumahoro's work and called her "really brilliant." Soumahoro will speak at the Festival on Saturday, November 5 at 5:00 PM.
![Elena Ferrante, Alfano](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/Frantumaglia-Book-Cover300.jpg?itok=-EPBTHeS)
Barbara Alfano published an essay on Elena Ferrante’s La Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey, in Stanford’s Arcade in response to Claudio Gatti's exposé of Elena Ferrante’s identity.
![Student presenting literary criticism on The Joy Luck Club](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/LANG_Chinese_600x450.jpg?itok=FTPa8hF8)
Cultural conflict and resolution in the mother-daughter relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club
Thesis by Mai Tran '16
![Screen shot from French web project](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/LANG_French_600x450.jpg?itok=qrMoY9IM)
In La Fontaine in Motion, Sophie Sauvayre '16 adapts the works of French poet, Jean de La Fontaine, into a series of comics as part of a combined art, research, and translation project.
![Poster for The Song Behind the Machete](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/afiche.jpg?itok=lXKaU_ue)
Jamie Weaver ‘15 continues work she began at Bennington as a Fulbright Fellow working in community theater in Quito, Ecuador.
![Hut in rural Patagonia](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/SCT_Morrison_Patagonia_600x450.jpg?itok=bzZDrRFh)
Mint Use as Measurement for the Current Status of Mapuche Medicine in Northwestern Patagonia
Thesis by Tessalyn Morrison '16
![Stack of brochures for GANAS](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/APA_GANAS_1200x750.jpg?itok=Nh8uA6eV)
Born out of student response to community need, supported and informed by study with faculty, GANAS brings together students, migrant workers, and organizations focused on promoting healthcare, human rights, and education for the undocumented workforce supporting Vermont's dairy industry. WEBSITE.
![Words Without Borders logo](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/WordsWithoutBorders_logo.jpg?itok=qpNAVJut)
Marguerite Feitlowitz pens an essay in Words Without Borders about teaching in translation.
![The Wall Street Journal](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/WSJ_WallStreetJournal_logo_1200x750_0.jpg?itok=w-yJpMpg)
The Wall Street Journal profiles Ann Goldstein '71, who translated works by Elena Ferrante, Jhumpa Lahiri and Primo Levi, and has become a rare celebrity among translators.
![Art Display at Usdan Gallery](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/ChinaDialouges_UsdanGallery_1200x750.jpg?itok=dQZmIQbM)
In a new project at the Usdan Gallery at Bennington College, artists, dancers, curators, students, and thinkers from China and the U.S. are turning the process of collaboration into a form of art. The gallery is open Tuesdays through Saturdays 1:00 to 5:00 pm; admission is free.
![Japanese students standing on Commons Lawn](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/LANG_JapaneseVid_600x450.jpg?itok=y6zB6Hml)
Bennington was well represented in Vermont's Japanese Speech Contest, with students Thomas Melvin ’15 and Hoa Nguyen ’16 winning first place in the intermediate division, and Ella Peake ’17 and Carolina Roque ’17 taking second in the introductory division.
![French student teaching elementary school children](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/LANG_NBVS-French-class_1200x750.jpg?itok=9Lzs73mS)
A collaboration between Bennington College and the newly independent Village School of North Bennington has students as young as 5 years old speaking a foreign language.
![Alfano Barbara Book Poster](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/AlfanoBarbara_TheMirageOfAmericaInContemporaryItalianLiteratureAndFilm_600x450.jpg?itok=9x7GLaUE)
Faculty member Barbara Alfano’s new book, The Mirage of America in Contemporary Italian Literature and Film, examines the use of images associated with the U.S. in Italian novels and films released between the 1980s and the 2000s. The book explores how the individuals portrayed in these works—and the intellectuals who created them—confront the cultural construct of the American myth.
![Feitlowitz' book cover](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/Feitlowitz_lexicon_sfw.jpg?itok=47p6ViJw)
In his column in the Buenos Aires Herald, celebrated journalist and human rights hero Robert Cox dubbed faculty member Marguerite Feitlowitz's book on Argentina's infamous Dirty War "the most important book to appear so far on the consequences of the vicious cycle of terror and violence that enveloped Argentina in the 1970s."
![Community Outreach in 2010](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/FWT_2010_CommunityOutreach_600x450.jpg?itok=aCOY65Nq)
Participating in Bennington's new Local Field Experience program, 16 students spent Field Work Term volunteering at 11 organizations in Bennington and North Bennington, including schools, counseling services, family support centers, and other community-based agencies.
![Ahmad Yassir](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/ahmad.yassir%206.jpg?itok=coDUQdbB)
Field Work Term is Bennington College's annual work-learning term during which students gain hands-on experience and test their classroom ideas in the world of work.
This photo contest brings those experiences to life. Students use #FieldWorkTerm to share photos of themselves making, working, and learning to tell the story of their unique work exploration over Field Work Term.
![Image of Rosario de Swanson](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/faculty/de%20Swanson%2C%20Rosario_320s230.jpg?itok=kowNXk-a)
Rosario M. de Swanson combines creative writing with scholarly research. Her work centers on Women writers from Latin America, the literature of Equatorial Guinea, and Afro-Latin American Writers.
![Jeff Peer](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/alumni/peer_jeff_460x640.jpg?itok=oL0YD4NQ)
Fulbright fellow who studies a form of 20th-century Mexican literary journalism, crónica urbana. Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at The Graduate Center of CUNY.
![Image of Sophie Brunau-Zaragoza](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/faculty/brunau-zaragoza-sophie_320x230px.jpg?itok=F5ruzkUw)
Sophie Brunau-Zaragoza is a professor of French language, cultures, and literatures. Her research brings together contemporary French literature and environmental activism through questions of relation, matter, community, and the human.
![Sui Duan](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/faculty/Duan_Sui_320x230px.jpg?itok=W7tv0XXB)
Sui Duan has taught language and culture in colleges in China and the United States. His most recent research focuses on Chinese beliefs and philosophy by examining Chinese arts and literature. He writes poems and stories.
![Image of Leah Pappas](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/faculty/pappasleah_320x230px.jpg?itok=dHPvMfqx)
Leah Pappas is a documentary linguist who collaborates with language communities in Indonesia. She researches language and gesture to understand how socially-mediated interaction with the environment results in linguistic diversity.
![Forest Abbott-Lum](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/alumni/Abbott-Lum_Forest_640x460.jpg?itok=1oBbP5hf)
Awarded Princeton-in-Asia fellowship to work on legal reform and energy issues in the fight against climate change with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Beijing. She now works for the NYC Compost Project
![Photo of Ann Goldstein, Bennington College class of 1971](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/alumni/Goldstein_Ann_640x460.jpg?itok=KfCUb4VV)
New Yorker editor, translator, and the public face of the secretive, critically acclaimed Italian author Elena Ferrante
Photograph © Peter Ross (Wall Street Journal)
![Ben Underwood](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/alumni/Ben_Underwood2-640x460.jpg?itok=-UoVfu4j)
Co-Founder and President of Resonant Energy, which brings solar energy to underserved communities. Fulbright scholar who studied biogas in China and recipient of Davis Projects for Peace Grant, with which he developed five urban biogas projects in Kathmandu.