Hispanic Studies Graduate Student Profiles

Master's Students

Liceth Bohórquez

Favourite part of the program:Being able to share your culture and get to know others is what I like the most about the program.

Camilo Delgado

Mi investigación trata sobre el creciente activismo digital en lenguas indígenas, específicamente, del wayuunaiki, idioma wayuu del norte de Colombia y Venezuela. Muchos activistas wayuu de manera colaborativa usan los medios digitales como las redes sociales y la wikipedia para la revitalización de su lengua, lo que involucra nuevos retos en la escritura de esta y el acercamiento de las comunidades a la tecnología. Mi interés es visibilizar este proceso y dar cuenta de los aportes que la ciencia lingüística y antropológica pueden ofrecer en este proceso. Favourite part of the program:La diversidad de temáticas y en los cursos poder interactuar con otros investigadores que han desarrollado trabajos muy interesantes. Además, la posibilidad de poder en los mismos cursos ir desarrollando el proyecto de investigación.

Jun Chen

Hispanic phonetics/phonology Favourite part of the program:The international environment, fantastic professors from the Hispanic world collaborative programs. international environment, fantastic professors from the Hispanic world, collaborative programs.

Jose Javier Ponce de León

My research explores the representation of the cult of the Santa Muerte in popular American TV shows and movies of the last decade, including Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (2020), Better Call Saul (2015-2022), Breaking Bad (2008-2013), Bad Boys for Life (2020) and Peppermint (2018). Favourite part of the program:I really like that I can continue studying in the language that I love most, and how the program is made to help you in every step. Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/39949911-jos Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/rolfo012345/

Gabriela Martínez Loyola

My master’s project is about the perceptions of heritage and L2 speakers of Spanish towards Cuban, Mexican and Peninsular varieties of Spanish. Favourite part of the program: My favourite part of the program is how welcoming and helpful everyone in the program is. Facebook: Gabriela Martinez Loyola

María Julieta Ferrer

En mi proyecto me propongo reconocer y describir la importancia y el accionar de la militancia a favor de la legalización del aborto en Argentina. Dentro de la llamada “Marea verde”, decido trabajar sobre la participación y la militancia juvenil femenina y LGBTQ+, retomando las estrategias (discursivas y performáticas) que este actor expresa a través de los lemas y canciones con las que ha copado las calles de todo el país. En cuanto al período temporal que elijo trabajar es desde marzo de 2018, momento en el cual el Proyecto de Ley de interrupción voluntaria del embarazo (IVE) se discute por primera vez en el Congreso Nacional argentino, hasta diciembre de 2020 cuando finalmente se aprueba como ley nacional. Retomaré específicamente el accionar de dicho actor social, en convocatorias masivas llevadas a cabo en espacios públicos. También tendré en cuenta la aparición de la politicidad que conlleva la militancia y el ejercicio de ciudadanía que subyace. Debido al seguimiento de la temática, en los años señalados, se puede notar claramente que ha habido un cambio clave en el discurso militante: se ha pasado de un debate que planteaba “aborto si o aborto no” a poner el foco en “aborto legal o aborto clandestino”. Este aspecto acarrea por detrás una gran cantidad de ideas, lemas, canciones y consignas influyentes que son las que me propongo específicamente recopilar y analizar. El interés en realizar esta investigación nace, entre otros aspectos, en el acto de vivenciar con la propia experiencia, un momento histórico en la Argentina. Además, me gustaría trabajar sobre una temática que ponga en juego mi ser mujer joven en la actualidad Latinoamericana. Favourite part of the program: De lo que he conocido hasta ahora, me gustan las materias, los profesores y compañerxs son personas muy amables y accesibles. Me interesan mucho las temáticas que se abordan en el cursado. No podría definir, sin embargo, solo una parte que me guste más que otras.

Eloísa Auat García

My MA research is related to exploring and describing routes of memory of the massacre survivors in El Salvador, in the period that includes years from '80 to '90 of last century. Oral and documented memory placed at specific geographical spaces for surviving, that constitutes a whole representation of a collective identity even in our days. Favourite part of the program: I like the width of opportunities to make networks between people around the world and their experiences, especially in what is related to topics of research and intercultural knowledge construction.

PhD Students

Emilio Calderón Reyes

His research focuses on analyzing cultural networks combining quantitative and qualitative methods. In addition, he examines the digital transformations of cultural organizations to understand how they innovate and envision creative solutions. His PhD thesis is a case study on BanRepCultural, the cultural office of Colombia's central bank. Favourite part of the program: The program's unique opportunities for transdisciplinary research. Twitter: @emili0calder0n Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0528-1975

Zayra Marcano

My PhD project focuses on the acquisition of the subjunctive mood in noun clauses by monolingual children and Spanish-speaking children as a heritage language. I aim to examine to what extent the acquisition of the subjunctive mood in Spanish noun clauses may differ between the two groups I analyze. I also propose to identify the stages in the acquisition of this morphosyntactic category, as well as to determine what linguistic factors are related to the selection of the subjunctive mood by monolingual children and child Spanish heritage speakers. The results will be a contribution to the study of morphosyntactic acquisition in Spanish, and to the investigation of linguistic development by monolinguals and early bilinguals. Favourite part of the program: Studying Linguistics at Western has been a great experience! I have had very good professors who have always been willing to guide my ideas in a very professional and supportive way. I have also enjoyed my role as a Spanish instructor, and I have learned a lot while teaching in a multicultural classroom!

Sari Heru

My work focuses on violence and the Colombian cinema of the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries. I am interested in the representation of institutional spaces controlled by the State. Understanding how the State has influenced over the violence cycle in Colombia is relevant because institutions through the State have had an active role in the perpetuation of violence. My PhD thesis analyses the representation of the State and its institutions in the Colombian cinema (1981-2018). The selected corpus comprises fiction films of violence from different periods: the bipartisan violence called La Violencia, the guerrilla violence, and the urban violence related to drug trafficking. These films are: Canaguaro (1981), Cóndores no entierran todos los días (1984), Pisingaña (1986), Confesión a Laura (1993), La toma de la embajada (2000), La primera noche (2003), Los actores del conflicto (2008), Retratos en un mar de mentiras (2010), Silencio en el paraíso (2011), Antes del fuego (2015), and Matar a Jesús (2018). This work examines social, political, economic and gender issues. In the first part I focus on state agents like the priest, the militaries, the ministry of justice, etc. and how they represent the symbolic power of the State. In the second part I emphasise on the house as a metaphor of the State. Finally, I study the absence of the State, and how alternative actors (paramilitaries, guerrillas, and sicarios) participate in the violence cycle in Colombia. Favourite part of the program: I think this program offers many opportunities to postgraduate students to grow personally, academically and professionally. Teaching Spanish and working collaboratively with my colleagues and undergraduate students for different projects of the Spanish department have been the most rewarding experiences I have had because I have acquired and developed communication, critical thinking, problem-solving and interpersonal skills that I am sure will be valuable in future jobs. Academia.edu Profile: Dewi Sekar Sariningrum Heru/ Sari Heru

Marth Lorena Rojas Castañeda

My research is about voices, gender, and cinema. Since the incorporation of the sound synchronized with images, the voice and the speaking word changed narrative in cinema. Michel Chion defined sound cinema as "vococentrist", because the presence of a human voice hierarchizes the rest of sounds (1982). The voice becomes a disruption of the image on screen. At the moment it appears on the scene it complements or changes the sense of the visual narrative. Considering what Laura Mulvey said about the male gaze at the cinema(1975), many studies have thought about the relationship between voices in films with this male gaze, showing that the feminine voices exist and are represented in a different way than the masculine’s voices do. My research proposal is to study the disruptions these feminine voices provoke in the images of films directed by Latin American women, in order to understand how the materiality of the feminine voices is inscribed in the narrative of the films and also to think about the filmmaker’s voices in a metaphoric and symbolic way. All of this, with the objective of understanding whether it is possible to conceptualize the use and the representation of the voices in the Latin-American films to see if there are any changes in the use of feminine voices over time in relation to the gender imageries and discourses in a broader sense (i.e. socio-political context). Favourite part of the program: My favourite part of the program is to share and learn with so many different people of diverse backgrounds and disciplines. It really enriches the process of learning and also it is a great way to diversify your knowledge and to consider other ideas and points of view not only at the academic but all aspects of life.

Yadira Lizama Mué

My research focuses on the exploitation of digital methods to assist Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction efforts. My thesis explores computational approaches to identify data patterns (geographical, temporal, language) that describe the impact of War, Peace Negotiations and Post-Conflict initiatives on children and their relation with the six grave violations against children during armed conflicts. Favourite part of the program: My favourite part of the program is the rich cultural diversity in our grad students. We come from many different places around the world, and we have the opportunity to learn about new languages, cultures, literature in a safe learning environment. I also enjoy the flexibility of the program that provides the means to interact and connect your research interests with many other disciplines on campus. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yadira-lizama-mu%C3%A9-7623b9114/

Ana Ruiz-Segarra

I am a Humanist and Computer Graphics engineer. I specialize in data analysis and visualization, web design, and coding. My Ph.D. research focuses on developing VR games and digital experiences for humanities courses. My research interests also include the analysis of cultural phenomena data to understand the interactions of humans and cultural objects. Favourite part of the program: The Hispanic Studies program allowed me to learn more about the Hispanic world with a focus on languages, culture and literature. In this program I have the opportunity to work at the CulturePlex lab where I apply this knowledge along with my computer programming skills to better understand cultural data. Twitter: @AnaRuizS1 GitHub: https://github.com/AnaRuizS

María Paula Espejo

I am building a creative method that leverages innovation to strengthen peacebuilding through gastronomy in post-conflict societies. I am working on a roadmap that will enhance cultural networks between sustainability, citizenship, and reconciliation that will advance on the betterment of society by introducing responsible and conscious use of local natural resources. Favourite part of the program:The cultural and disciplinary diversity. LinkeIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mar%C3%ADa-paula-espejo-duarte-b29412165

Luis Miguel Herrera Bejines

My project focuses on the literature of Ecuatorial Guinea, specifically, I work with the novels of Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo. I am particularly interested in literature of migration and how the State takes part in the mobilization of people. In other words, how the State through biopolitics or necropolitics propels the migration of its citizens and how these politics are represented in the narrative of Ndongo-Bidyogo. Favourite part of the program: I love the multicultural scenarios and contexts from the program. Diversity and pluralism.

Zeina Dghaim

My Ph.D. thesis focuses on digital curation and learning strategies to improve online education and curatorial design for a collection of artifacts at the Aga Khan Museum. I integrate cultural networks, digital art, and motion design to create innovative story destinations through interactive online experiences. In addition to the educational benefits, this approach has an economical use that museums can leverage by focusing on their collections for in-person and digital exhibition and educational program design. I view my PhD research project as an act of community building and creating beauty, for an unimaginative and aesthetically starved life diminishes hope, mutual understanding, and humanity. When I activate objects from the collection, I aim to transfer their stories into inspiring experiences through different creative and communication channels, offering a sense of discovery for visitors of all ages. Favourite part of the program: I cherish the cultural diversity of our department and the opportunities to cultivate relationships through the spirit of collaboration and knowledge sharing. I am also grateful to work with hardworking colleagues and dedicated faculty members that support our research paths, plans, projects, and personal goals.

Riham Hafez Mohamed

My PhD project is about the production of Wh-questions in bilingual children and adult heritage speakers of Spanish and Egyptian Arabic living in Canada Favourite part of the program: My favourite part of the program is the outstanding and valuable hands-on teaching experiences.

Yudith Rojas Tamayo

My research focuses on the study of three Cuban cultural magazines, Bohemia, Social and Carteles between the years 1920-1930. The objective is to analyze the Cuban cultural thought of the stage, taking into account that the Republic in Cuba (1902-1958) is a period that arouses much interest among national and foreign researchers, taking into account its cultural richness. The study of the magazines will allow me to analyze part of the history of the country, its cultural tendencies, influences, ways of approaching national problems, ideologies of the writers, as well as the topics addressed. The aim is to rescue the magazines as cultural heritages in the safeguarding of the construction of the Cuban national identity, in the midst of agitated political scenarios. Favourite part of the program: My favourite part of the program is the Literature and Culture area. I was precisely interested in the Ph.D. taking into account the interdisciplinary approaches and the intersection of Hispanic literature with Film, History, Music, and Visual Arts, as well as Digital Humanities. It is a reality that, throughout my studies at Western, I have been engaging in research-oriented learning, beginning with an introductory Transatlantic Studies Seminar, where I can interact and develop projects alongside internationally recognized scholars and guest speakers. Research Gate:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yudith-Rojas-Tamayo

Qiyao Wang

Living in one of the most multicultural and multilingual countries, Canada presents me with a great opportunity to examine the interaction of languages. With linguistic diversity on the rise, my research area is concerned with how languages are learned by speakers who already speak two languages; more specifically, I work on third language acquisition (L3A) of Spanish morphosyntax. Favourite part of the program: My favourite thing about our program is the research assistantship. I get to work with experienced researchers, and the invaluable experience informs me how to design and conduct my own empirical research in the real world.

Aka Sébastien Kouakou

Sebastien Aka specializes in Hispanic Studies / Migration and Ethnic Relations collaborative programs. His research work suggests a thematic analysis of narratives of migration in 20th – 21st-century Afro Hispanic literary works that describe and provide an understanding of migrant and refugee experience. He is looking at the experience from the perspective of Spanish authors writing about the contemporary migration crisis which involves migrants from Africa trying to reach Spain and other European countries by crossing the Mediterranean Sea. The questions at the center of his research are: (1) What is the connotation of crisis for Africans in their migration process to Europe? (2) Is the concept and perception of the migration crisis, as evoked by sociopolitical discourses and media, akin to the experience of crisis by Afro migrants? In other words, how do Afro migrants experience the contemporary migration crisis? (3) What is the role of the 20th – 21st-century Afro-Hispanic literature in offering literary productions over the virulent migration issues? The work suggests that the 20th – 21st-century Afro-Hispanic literature of migration not only offers a new window to Afro migrants to voice their perspective of migrant crisis through their stories and their experiences of migration but also demonstrates that it was already agitating the red flag about the global migrant crisis. Favourite part of the program: The Teaching opportunity, the talks, and the collaborative programs. .Personal Website: https://www.glfci.org/

Carlos García

I am interested in researching areas of Contemporary Cuban Literature, Theater and Independent Cinema from the nineties to the present using a multidisciplinary approach that analyzes the historical-cultural archive mainly from a biopolitical perspective. Favourite part of the program: I enjoy the interdisciplinarity of the Hispanic Studies program, as well as the diversity of students in terms of nationalities, cultures and academic backgrounds.

Aldean Ellis

The treatment of history and (counter) memory in the construction of post-colonial Caribbean identity in the works of the Afro-Cuban Poet, Jesús Cos Causse. Favourite part of the program: I was first drawn to the course design component of the program—a more practical approach to the traditional comprehensive exams. I also find the collaboration with Migration and Ethnic Relations (MER) to be a great way of moving out of my comfort zone while exploring other relevant and interdisciplinary areas of study.

Maylin Ortega Zulueta

I am a Cuban-Canadian musician who learned to overcome barriers affecting foreign-trained professionals by leading my career development with emotional intelligence. Motivated by helping other musicians within the Cuban community in Toronto to achieve the same goal, my research studies the possible connection between emotional intelligence and their professional development. The struggles of this community have been previously studied by Brigido Galvan and Marie E. Gallaugher and the utility of emotional intelligence in leadership by Daniel Goleman. My research establishes a connection between these works, the experiences of members of the community documented through interviews, and a self-assessment survey conducted on Cuban musicians living in Toronto that identifies emotional intelligence limitations. The preliminary results show that the studied group can benefit from receiving emotional intelligence as a form of adult education to improve their career development in Canada. Favourite part of the program: Being in the PhD program has also given me the opportunity to expand my research interests in music education and colonial Cuba and to publish my work at the Scattered Pelican, the graduate student journal of Comparative Literature.

Lorena Moncada de Meza

My research studies the diversity of the Venezuelan crime novel within the literary context of Latin America and the transformation process that it has undergone in the police genre in the region. Unlike other Latin American countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Cuba, the contribution of Venezuelan literature to the Latin American neo-police genre has been little studied in a systematic way, despite the rise of novels and authors of the noir genre in recent decades. This work seeks to study the Venezuelan neo-policeman as a heterodox and multiform proposal for the expression of a complex social reality, a recreation of universes that are increasingly in crisis, in which there are displacements of points of view and traditional elements of the police narrative such as they are the meaning of the crime and the construction of the figure of the detective. In particular, this research studies the contribution of Francisco Suniaga's novels and his most emblematic works such as La otra isla, 2005, El Pasajero de Truman (2008), Esta gente (2012) and Adiós Miss Venezuela (2016). Some characteristic points of his narrative are determined, such as the self-reflexivity around the literary genre, his ethical and political intentions, and the feeling of defeat as a recurring element in the configuration of his characters. Favourite part of the program: The development of a research area, from the course designs to the final dissertation. Academia.edu:https://westernu.academia.edu/LorenaMoncada

Arameh Khadjevand

Films have long been known to be valuable resources in teaching foreign languages (FL). There are countless reasons to use films in FL classrooms: increasing students’ motivation, facilitating the language learning process, and providing cultural content, among others. However, historically films have been an underutilized resource. My goal is to increase the use of the film in the FL classroom by providing Spanish teachers with insight into the benefits of the use of film, resources for using them, and the skill set to use them. Favourite part of the program: The variety of cultures and languages.

Hanna Barnett

Analyzing visual depictions of the 1918 Influenza in Canadian newspapers from 1918 to 1920. Favourite part of the program: Working closely with professors. LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanna-barnett-53b3911a0

Martha Black

Adult learners acquiring an additional language in the formal-instructed setting are believed to rely more extensively on explicit knowledge and declarative memory than those acquiring a new language in a naturalistic setting or at an earlier age (Paradis, 2004). My thesis research aims to examine the impact that differentiated task demands and learner differences (motivation, attitudes, metacognitive awareness, proficiency, and multilingualism) may have on performance with grammatical gender as a problematic feature for the late acquisition of morphosyntax (e.g., McCarthy, 2008; Montrul et al., 2008). I examine how both adult native speakers and nonnative learners of Spanish perform with grammatical gender during differentiated tasks, including both written and oral grammaticality judgement tasks that contrast aural and written stimuli and that are administered under both self-paced and speeded conditions. I employ a dynamic systems approach (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008) to measure performance in terms of both grammatical accuracy and intra-speaker variation as two dependent variables that indicate the current state of development of the dynamic language system in both native and nonnative speakers. My research recognizes the fundamental role that individual differences play in language performance and intentionally diverges from the idealized native speaker norm by analyzing performance and variation in both native and nonnative speakers. Furthermore, I aim to highlight and explore the linguistic diversity in and among language users by analyzing the effect of multilingualism on novel language performance. Favourite part of the program: I love the interdisciplinary spirit of the department in which application of theory to different fields is highly valued and supported. I've also immensely benefited from the opportunities to collaborate on research with different professors. Finally, I love the teaching component both in regards to designing my own course and also teaching beginner and intermediate Spanish courses. Our program has provided me with great work experience in both research and teaching! Academia.edu:https://westernu.academia.edu/MarthaBlack

Daniel Zapata

Ideología de género en Colombia. Favourite part of the program: La diversidad de los temas de los cursos. Personal Webiste:www.musatura.com Twitter:@zapataescribe

María Laura Flores Barba

I am using digital tools to analyze the social networks of painters in Colonial Mexico from 1650 to 1750. Using primary and secondary sources, I built a database with information about the painters' lives, relationships and paintings. I will then use that information to generate social network graphs and maps, which will help me ask and answer questions about how the painters established connections and how these connections relate to regional styles and/or schools of painting. Favourite part of the program: I love being a Spanish instructor, meeting students from all kinds of backgrounds and watching them learn and thrive. I never thought I would enjoy teaching Spanish that much! It is a great opportunity to learn about myself and share my culture with others. Twitter: @luaramai

Giulia Cortiana

My dissertation will be the first to examine the L3 acquisition of naïve bilinguals - that is with no previous knowledge - learners of Spanish and Italian. My project will contribute to the new field of L3 speech learning by answering the following three research questions: (1) What is the relative degree of transfer from L1 in comparison with L2 into L3 (i.e., Spanish and Italian) speech learning? (2) Does the degree of L2 proficiency modulate the degree of L1 and/or L2 transfer? And (3) Is there an L1-specific orthographic effect in L3 speech learning? This innovative research project will help us move closer towards modelling L3 speech learning by investigating whether (a) difficult L3 sounds can be acquired by learners whose L1 differ typologically, (b) language dominance/proficiency affects, and (c) if orthography plays a role when the learners’ L1 does not have a Roman alphabet. This research line will also have pedagogical implications for pronunciation teaching of Spanish and Italian. Favourite part of the program: Our department is a pool of diverse people, cultures, experiences, and points of view. What I truly love about this environment is how you always have a chance to connect with so many people who discuss and enlighten you on so many different topics, without judgment nor resentment. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giuliacortiana

Barbara Romero-Ferron

My research focus on cultural heritage data, Favourite part of the program: Our department is a pool of diverse people, cultures, experiences, and points of view. What I truly love about this environment is how you always have a chance to connect with so many people who discuss and enlighten you on so many different topics, without judgment nor resentment.