Congratulations to Stephanie Russo Krilov! The French Linguistics PhD candidate successfully defended her dissertation, "The Imparfait Lorrain In the Context of Grammaticalization," on Monday, April 10th, 2017. Félicitations!

Congratulations to Stephanie Hotz! The Italian Studies PhD candidate successfully defended her dissertation, "The Italian Musicarello: Youth, Gender, and Modernization in Postwar Popular Cinema," on Monday, April 10th, 2017. Complimenti!

Congratulations to Audrey Doussot! The French Studies PhD candidate successfully defended her dissertation, "Mediated Authority: Portraits of the Writer in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction From Baudelaire to Beigbeder," on Monday, April 3rd, 2017. Félicitations!

Congratulations to Joshua Griffiths, who has recently been selected as a recipient of the Jeanne Marandon Fellowship from the Société des Professeurs Français et Francophones d'Amérique. This fellowship will allow Josh to begin the first phase of his dissertation research, "Native and Non-Native Processing of Variable Schwa Apocope." During this phase of his research, Josh will work closely with Dr. Bernard Laks at the Modèles Dynamiques Corpus (Modyco) laboratory at Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. At Modyco, Josh will work with large-scale phonological corpora to quantify rates of word-final schwa variation in native and non-native French, with the goal of proposing a quantitative psycholinguistic model of French schwa variation. Félicitations!

Congratulations to Maxence Leconte for his Foreign Language Teaching Excellence Award from the Texas Language Center! This teaching award is student-nominated and the department is proud of this recognition of his talent and devotion. Max is a third-year graduate student in French Studies and currently teaches FR 601C. Max received the award from Dr. Thomas Garza, the director of the Texas Language Center, and Dr. David Birdsong, the Chair of the Department of French and Italian.

 Congratulations are in order for French Lecturer Pat Kyle, who has been awarded a Professional Development Award from the Texas Language Center. This award will help her develop her ongoing project, "Intercultural Communication Online." Félicitations!

Congratulations are in order for Walther Fellow Adam McBride, who recently accepted an Assistant Professor position in the Department of French and Italian at Brigham Young University. He will begin his position this coming fall. Congratulations are also in order to his supervisor, Professor Barbara Bullock. Bonnes nouvelles et félicitations!

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Guy Raffa on the publication of his most recent article, "Longfellow's Great Liberators: Abraham Lincoln and Dante Alghieri", in the UT History Department's Not Even Past. Bravo!

Recently, the staff of Services for Students with Disabilities asked students to nominate faculty and staff members who they felt positively impacted and contributed to their academic endeavors. Our department is proud to recognize these instructors for all their hard work. Thank you Anne McCreary, Elizabeth Mayne, and Joshua Griffiths for your efforts and dedication to all students at the University of Texas.

"Anne McCreary was very gracious and understanding. She never gave me a hard time for being late to class and was very helpful when I had to miss class or sit out. She encouraged me to pursue my goals and not let my health problems define me."

Congratulations to Paola Bonifazio and Barbara Bullock! Both professors have been granted Faculty Research Assignments from the Office of Graduate Studies for the fall of 2017.

Congratulations to Douglas Biow and Cinzia Russi! Both Italian professors have been awarded College Research Fellowships by the College of Liberal Arts for the spring of 2018.

Congratulations to Nicholas Spinelli on his successful defense of his dissertation! French studies Ph.D. student, Nicholas Spinelli, successfully defended his dissertation, "Family Friendly: Homo-Affinity in the French Sentimental Novel, 1770-1850". Félicitations!