The fall 2024 LLS newsletter is here! Read the letter from LLS chair Gilberto Rosas below and check out the full newsletter letter here.
Letter from the Chair
The fall semester may be well underway, but I want to send my congratulations to our spring 2024 graduates. We were honored to have LLS major Jesse Carmona deliver a speech at our convocation ceremony.
You can read her speech, “The Spaces We Create,” here. The LLS Major Symposium brought together students, faculty, and family to celebrate the wonderful research our students produced for their senior theses and to celebrate our graduates and award winners. Find photos from the event and see the list of graduates, award winners, and paper titles here. Please read more about the accomplishments of our undergraduate and graduate students below and learn about the success of the graduate student conference.
I’m proud that our department continues to demonstrate teaching excellence. Congratulations to the 22 LLS faculty, affiliates, and TAs who were ranked as outstanding by their students in the spring 2024 semester. I would also like to welcome our new affiliate Mariselle Meléndez (SLCL). Please read more about faculty and affiliate accomplishments below. Thanks as always to our dedicated staff members Sean Ettinger, Marisol Hughes, and Heather Gernenz for all the work they do to support our department.
This fall we welcomed professor Claire Jiménez for a lecture titled “Noise as Meaning: An Exploration of Voice” and professor Richard T. Rodriguez, a former LLS faculty member, for a talk about his new book A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad. We were also pleased to co-sponsor professor Elena Guzman’s Interseminars lecture “From Reel to Ritual: Worldmaking through Cinéritual in African Diasporic Film” and professor Irma A. Velasquez Nimatuj’s lecture “Sexual Violence Against Indigenous Women and Transnational Justice: The Case of Guatemala.” In December we look forward to welcoming professor Omaris Z. Zamora for an event. Thank you to our speakers for their engaging lectures and to everyone who attended these events.
I am buoyed by the faculty, staff, students, allies, and larger LLS community for their ongoing support of our unit, and for the world-shaping impact of their work. We are committed to supporting struggles for academic freedom and social justice from Gaza to Puerto Rico to the encampments at the U of I. Meanwhile, we are readying ourselves for what is to come.
As always, I welcome your feedback.
Saludos,
Gilberto Rosas
Chair, Latina/Latino Studies
Professor of Anthropology and Latina/Latino Studies
Conrad Humanities Fellow, College of Liberal Arts, 2020-25