Congratulations to Jennifer Markovtis Rojas for her Dissertation Defense
Congratulations to Jennifer Markovtis Rojas who recently completed her dissertation defense for her Ph.D. in the Bilingualism and 2nd Language Acquisition program here at Rutgers. Her final dissertation is called "Heritage Aymara Bilingual in the North of Chile: Evidence of a Language Contact Situation to Enrich Intercultural Education."
Abstract: Despite Spanish being the socially dominant language in many countries in South America, the indigenous language, Aymara, is widely spoken in Bolivia, southern Peru, and northern Chile (Adelaar, 2012). Consequently, most Aymara people in the north of Chile are early bilinguals who acquire both the ancestral and socially dominant Spanish languages at an early age. However, the sociopolitical status of the Aymara language within a Spanish-dominant country influences the language acquisition and results in Aymara speakers in northern Chile being heritage speakers (Hs). Hs are a particular type of bilingual since they are Aymara native speakers with low proficiency levels when they speak Aymara, but they may have higher comprehension abilities. However, within the educational system, Aymara students are, in linguistic terms, monolingual Spanish with a strong indigenous identity. This misconception is reflected in the current Chilean language intercultural curriculum. Current intercultural education programs for Aymara communities pursue teaching Aymara to strengthen language development and identity in combination with Spanish (MINEDUC, 2019). However, these programs are designed for L2 Aymara learners, ignoring the ancestral language's early exposure, which can be an advantage in learning the target language. Furthermore, the current Spanish literacy courses for Aymara students are designed for monolingual Spanish children, disregarding the cognitive effects of Aymara's early exposure to the acquisition of Spanish as a second language. Therefore, my dissertation project aims to enrich intercultural programs and education for the indigenous community in Chile by examining on the one hand, the level of indigenous languages acquired by bilingual Aymara heritage children. On the other hand, the present investigation attempt to analyze the degree of cross-linguistic influence between the ancestral language and Spanish in the comprehension and production of bilingual past narration discourse. In addition, the present investigation aims to examine the effect of sociolinguistic factors when students comprehend and produce past bilingual narrations. The results will provide valuable information to enrich current indigenous revitalization programs and, at the same time, to redesign current Spanish literacy courses to move from a monolingual approach to a bilingual literacy approach.
Bio: Jennifer is an Assistant professor at Chile's Universidad de Playa Ancha (UPLA). She recently completed her Ph.D. in the Bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition program at Rutgers University. Her work has focused on intercultural education, specifically on curriculum design for revitalizing indigenous languages in Chile and Spanish as a second language for indigenous heritage bilingual speakers in the region. In addition, she has led projects to improve living conditions for migrants in Chile, developing material for teaching Spanish as L2 for the Haitian community in her country.
Research Interests: Indigenous languages, heritage speakers, languages in contact, and intercultural education.
PhD Student Jian Ren is Awarded the History & Political Economy Project Summer Research Grant!
Jian Ren, PhD candidate in History at Rutgers, has been awarded the History & Political Economy (HPE) Project Summer Research Grant. The HPE program supports awardees to undertake research in the summer of 2023 on topics related to their mission to understand how neoliberalism has been developed, implemented, and contested around the world. The History & Political Economy Project seeks to use the tools of historical inquiry to counter rising inequality, economic dislocation, and political alienation. HPE, therefore, supports new research, fosters connections among scholars working in different temporal and geographic contexts, and draws lessons for contemporary efforts to challenge the hegemony of neoliberal ideas and modes of governance.
Jian's project is called, "The Political Economy of China-Latin America Relations, 1960-1990."
Bio: Jian Ren is a History PhD candidate at Rutgers University. His research examines China-Latin America relations in the Cold War period. His dissertation investigates how diplomats, politicians, intellectuals, trade negotiators from China and Latin America and Chinese immigrants in Latin America developed trust and mutual understanding between 1949 and 1989. Before coming to Rutgers, Ren received his B.A. in Political Economy and Spanish from the University of Sydney and his M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago.
Congratulations to Jian!
Evelyn Saavedra Autry Scholarly Profile
CLAS and Rutgers have had many great additions over the past few years, one being Dr. Evelyn Saavedra Autry who is a 2020-2021 American Council of Learned Societies Emerging Voices Fellow and a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in Race, Racism, and Inequality at the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) at Rutgers University. She received her Ph.D. in Latin American Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Georgia. Her research creates a conversation between various fields of knowledge, particularly Indigenous epistemologies and pedagogies, literature, cultural studies on (de)coloniality, and gender studies, through the analysis of Andean women’s identity formations.
In her current book project, Race, Gender, and Memory in Narratives of the Andes, Dr. Saavedra Autry constructs a genealogy of gender-based violence that offers an in-depth examination of the colonial mechanisms behind the objectification of Indigenous women. This book asks, in what ways do cultural productions configure racialized women? How do traditional and contemporary narratives of gendered violence represent indigenized female bodies? How is knowledge production about Indigenous women’s experiences shaping memory politics and human rights discourses? Responding to these questions, the book is propelled by the necessity to examine a diverse corpus that includes chronicles of the Spanish conquest, foundational indigenista works, popular Indigenous art, and literature of Peru’s armed conflict. By reading these materials together and drawing from the fields of literature, history, and studies on coloniality, gender, and memory, the book traces how Indigenous female bodies have been understood, constructed, and commodified as sites of conquest, free labor, sexual availability, and justified violence. In addition to her monograph, she is currently drafting the articles “Indigenous Herstories of Resurgence: Mama Quilla and Peru’s Cultural Productions of Armed Struggle” and “Mobilizing across National Lines Against Totalitarianism: Andean Women’s Indigenous-Led Activism and Protest in Peru and the United States.”
In relation to her research interests, her article “Insurgent Memories of War: Self-representation by Female ex-Combatants in Peru” (Forthcoming Fall 2024) will be published by Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism Journal. Recently, Dr. Saavedra Autry submitted her essay “Singing Feminist Ch’ixi+Art Music from Las Rajaduras: Renata Flores, Isqun, and the Fractured Locus” to Feminist Formations Journal. She published “Construcción de identidades femeninas andinas” in The Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Her article “Testimonio, ficción y las batallas por las memorias en Insensatez” appeared in Vernacular. It is worth noting that she has also published works on colonial studies and the Peruvian Avant-garde. “Mitos fundacionales en los Comentarios Reales de los Incas” was published by Caracoles. Her article titled “El pobre más rico: heterogeneidad y transculturación en el teatro quechua colonial” appeared in Lamar Journal. Her study “Magda Portal: procesos de modernización, vanguardismo y compromiso” was published by Entre Caníbales and listed as an essential work in the volume Magda Portal: Bibliografía Esencial.
Over the last ten years, Dr. Saavedra Autry has gained significant experience teaching graduate and undergraduate courses. At Rutgers, she has developed and taught graduate and undergraduate seminars on contemporary feminist theory, decolonial and Indigenous feminism, and social justice movements. At the University of Georgia, where she taught Latinx Studies and Spanish, she developed syllabi and materials for face-to-face and online instruction. As a scholar committed to advocating for Indigenous studies, she is designing future courses that engage with anti-racist theorizing and decoloniality. Some of her proposed courses include Feminist Genealogies: Decolonial and Indigenous Feminisms; Indigenous Women, Art, and Resistance; Images of Indigenous Women from Abya Yala to Turtle Island in Literature, Popular Art, and Film; Andean Women in War: Gender, and Memory in Peru’s Armed Conflict; Film and Literature of the Andes; and Human Rights Histories in 21st Indigenous Latin America.
Moreover, promoting diversity, institutional service, and creating a bridge between academia and the community has been central to her commitment as a scholar. At Rutgers, she participates in future/ongoing initiatives that include mentoring students in the WGSS’s Ma Track in Feminist Practices For Social Change. She has also collaborated with the organization of departmental events and joined Rutgers’ Faculty Learning Community in their efforts to create opportunities for post-traditional students. In addition, she has participated in the RCHA-Repairing the Past Project as a faculty fellow, coordinated the first Andean Studies Working Group at Rutgers, represented WGSS at the SAS Major & Minor Fair (Fall 2023), and served as a committee member for both MA and Ph.D. students.
The Puerto Rico Archival Collaboration Project has been Featured in Puerto Rican Newspapers!
April 9, 2023
WIPR, Sin Comillas, and Metro are a few online newspapers that have featured articles about the ongoing Puerto Rico Archival Collaboration. If you haven't heard yet, CLAS and director Aldo Lauria-Santiago are currently collaborating with sister institutions in Puerto Rico to help them preserve and make accessible important archival collections and periodical publications, in coordination with the research needs of a working group of faculty and graduate students who study Puerto Rico History.
This project involves the Coleccion Puertorriquena of the University of Puerto Rico Library, its Digital Collections held at the Coleccion Digital Puertorriqueña, and the General Archive and National Library of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña.
Also, the collaboration is actively recruiting partners (from foundations and professors who do research on Puerto Rico and the institutions that support their work) who can leverage research assistance resources for this project and their own archival goals.
See the link above to learn more about the project's progress since it began in March 2022.
It's wonderful to see all the hard work being recognized in various Puerto Rican publications!
The CLAS Conference was a Great Success!
April 4, 2023
The 2023 CLAS conference was held on March 31st and was a great success! We had 17 presenters and most of them were graduate students, and we could have had even more!
It was great for faculty and students to reconnect after such a long period of Covid isolation and distance! Looking forward to doing something similar in the Fall!
We'd like to send thanks to Daria and the work study students who helped with the setup and food, the admin support from Maria and Christina, our Grad Student Rep. Laura de Moya who helped organize the program, and to the 17 presenters and other participants!
See the conference page for more photos and to see the conference program.