Foreign Language Faculty

"A Rose, maybe, is a rose, but it is not une rose, is not eine Rose, but multiple ways of viewing and talking about roses."
~ Claire Kramsch, Context and Culture in Language Teaching ~

Full-time Faculty

Paula Straile-Costa, Convener
Associate Professor of Spanish

Rosetta D'Angelo
Professor of Italian

Niza Fabre
Associate Professor of Spanish

Val Flenga
Associate Professor of French
Dr. Flenga's web page

Monika Giacoppe
Associate Professor of Comparative World Literature

Iraida H. López
Associate Professor of Spanish

Natalia Santamaría Laorden
Assistant Professor of Spanish

Ira Spar
Professor of History and Ancient Studies

Adjunct Faculty

Leonardo Castano, Italian
Sandra Martin, Spanish
Ryohei Ohtaka, Japanese
Lauren Ralston, French
Stephen Shearier, German
Orazio Tanelli, Italian

Visiting Faculty

Mahmoud Abdelghany Abdelfattah, Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant / Arabic
Farisco Maria Assunta, Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant / Italian
Mao Jongjuan, Shanghai Normal University / Chinese
Federica Iacoponi, Italian
Julia M. Ivanova, Volgograd State Pedagogical University / Russian
Natacha Paul, Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant / French

aula Straile-Costa (Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Pennsylvania State University) works principally in the Spanish, English, and Portuguese languages. Her doctoral dissertation, a comparative study of the issue of miscegenation in literature by women in the Americas, was completed in 1997. Before coming on board at Ramapo College she worked at Hampton University for six years, three of which she served as department chair.

Her most recent work includes:
•“Myth and Ritual in The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea, Cherrie Moraga’s Xicana-Indigena Interpretation of the Medea.” Medea: Mutations and Permutations of a Myth. Anne Simon and Heike Bartel, eds. Forthcoming with Oxford’s Legenda Publishing.

•"The Pillory/Pelourinho in Open Air Museums in the U.S. and Brazil: A Site of Racism and Racial Reconciliation." Erasing Public Memory: Race, Aesthetics, and Cultural Amnesia in the Americas (Voices of the African Diaspora). Eds. Joe Young and Jana Braziel. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2007

•"Redeeming Acts: Religious Performance and Indigenismo in Cherrie Moraga's Feminist Revision of Chicano Activist Theater." American@ Vol. III, Issue 1 The Anticapitalist Struggle of Native Peoples in America. Fall 2005.
http://www.uhu.es/hum676/revista/index.htm
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She is very interested in research on second language acquisition and in the ways in which issues such as racial and cultural miscegenation, race, feminist theory and criticism, sexuality, national identity, history, and spirituality intersect with Latin American literatures. Her article on representations of the history of people of African descent in open-air museums in Bahia, Brazil and Colonial Williamsburg came out of her travel to Brazil in the Summer of 2000 where she visited the state of Bahia researching Afro-Brazilian culture and history. She loves down-hill skiing, yoga and cooking.

pstraile@ramapo.edu

osetta D'Angelo (Ph.D. in Italian Literature and Language, Rutgers University), a native of Italy, teaches all levels of Italian language, culture, and literature, in addition to Italian business and cinema courses. She has published a poetry book, Accademia del Sol (Rome: USPI, 1988), a critical work on the manuscript of Il Poemetto dell Intelligenza (Quattroventi Publisher, 1990), two widely used textbooks, L' Arte di Communicare (Kendall Hunt Publishing Co., 1993) and Eccoci (Wiley, 1997), and articles on contemporary poetry, women writers and literary criticism. The recipient of the poetry award Nuove Gemme Letterarie in 2003, she is currently working on a second book of poetry that will appear in the fall of 2004. Her poetry has been included in anthologies published in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. She has organized workshops and presented scholarly papers in the U.S. and abroad.

Professor D'Angelo is an active member of several modern language associations, including the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the Association of Italian-American Educators, in which she serves as Executive Vice President. She is also a member of an Italian-American Commission to promote Italian language and culture in higher education, in Trenton, New Jersey. In addition to language courses, she teaches First-Year Seminar and courses on women’s studies and international literature by women. She has been a Scholar in Residence at New York University, a delegate in a trip to South Africa that focused on foreign language teaching and assessment, and is the founder and former Convener of the Foreign Language program at Ramapo.

rdangelo@ramapo.edu

al Flenga (Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Florida) teaches all levels of French and literature. As a specialist of 20th century French literature and literary theory, Dr. Flenga has published on contemporary literary figures such as Camus, Ionesco, Duras, and Genet. In her works she explores the intricate relationship between literary theory and literary practice. During the past three years her research and publications have focused on the works of Jean Genet.

Her articles, "Clamence, metteur en scène" and "Passages: L'Impromptu de l’Alma ou Le Caméléon du Berger d’Eugène Ionesco", have appeared in the international academic journals Revue de Lettres Modernes: Albert Camus 15 (1993) and Essays in Theatre/Etudes Théâtrales 16.2 (1998). "Genet's Political Brothels" and "Théâtre-Ruine" have been published in the American journals Text and Presentation 22 (2001) and Chimères XXVI (Spring 2002). Another paper presented at Cerisy and entitled "Les Accessoires de Genet --Lecture des Paravents" is forthcoming in Actes de Colloque de Cerisy, a collection of new critical approaches on Genet. The volume features articles by internationally renowned Genet specialists, including Jacques Derrida.

Dr. Flenga is currently working on a book-length study that explores the concept of the political in the fictional and political writings of Jean Genet and is presenting papers on Genet in national and international conferences.

vflenga@ramapo.edu

onika Giacoppe (Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Pennsylvania State University) teaches a wide range of literature courses, as well as English Composition and French language classes. While at Ramapo, she has developed courses on Inter-American Literature, African Literature, Feminist Theory, Margaret Atwood, and Caribbean Literature and Society (with Professor Iraida López). Her research interests include Inter-American literature, international women's writing, francophone literature, and literary translation.

The Transparent Girl and Other Stories, Professor Giacoppe's translation, with Professor Christiane Makward of the Pennsylvania State University, of short fiction by Swiss-French writer S. Corinna Bille, was published by Lexington Press in 2006. Her essay, "Women at the End of the World in the Fiction of Anne Hébert and Corinna Bille", was published in The Art and Genius of Anne Hébert: Essays on Her Works, Night and Day Are One (Fairleigh Dickinson U. P., 2001). Another essay, on "The Task of the Translator in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Mauve Desert," appeared in a special issue of the Bucknell Review.

mgiacoppe@ramapo.edu

raida H. López (Ph.D. in Hispanic Literatures, The City University of New York) teaches all levels of Spanish language and literature. She is the author of La autobiografía hispana contemporánea en los Estados Unidos: a través del caleidoscopio (Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), a study of transnational and border identities and their intersection with gender, race, and class in U.S. Latino/a autobiographical narratives. She is co-author of the textbook Cofre literario: Iniciación a la literatura hispánica (McGraw-Hill, 2003), designed to introduce beginning students of Spanish to Hispanic literature.

Her work has appeared in such journals as Revista Iberoamericana, Cuban Studies/Estudios cubanos, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Anales del Caribe, Hispanic Review, and Revista/Review Interamericana. Among her research interests are contemporary Caribbean literature and popular culture, Latino/a literature, especially memoirs, in the context of the Americas, second-language acquisition, and gender studies.

Prof. López's most recent work includes:

•“Daring to Go Back: Cuban Exile Narratives or Diasporic Memoirs?” Forthcoming in Contested Contours: Essays on Latino Autobiography. Eds. Silvio Torres Saillant and Inmaculada Lara-Bonilla. New York: Oxford University Press.

•"Trading Sea(wo)men and Tillers of the Soil: A Review of Three Anthologies on Short Fiction from Cuba” [on Havana Noir (New York: Akashic Books, 2007), ed. Achy Obejas; New Short Fiction from Cuba (Northwestern University Place, 2007), eds. Jacqueline Loss and Esther Whitfield; and Cuba on the Edge: Short Stories from the Island (Nottingham, GB: CCC Press, 2007), eds. Mary G. Berg, Pamela Carmell, and Anne Fountain]. Forthcoming in Caribe.

•"Reading Lives in Installments: Autobiographical Essays by Women of the Cuban Diaspora. ” Forthcoming in Negotiating Identities in Art, Literature and Philosophy: Cuban Americans and American Culture. Eds. Isabel Alvarez-Borland and Lynette Bosch. New York: SUNY Press, 2009.

'•"That's My Theme: The Human Adventure.' An Interview with Ena Lucía Portela." Forthcoming in The Portable Island: Cubans at Home in the World. Eds. Ruth Behar and Lucía Suárez. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

•"Hogar, ¿dulce hogar?: Asedios a casas de La Habana en la narrativa femenina de hoy.” A Living Legacy: CCNY Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures Undergraduate Alumni Conference. Eds. Bettina R. Lerner and Juan Carlos Mercado. New York: Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2006.

Professor López has been the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Fellowships, a Research and Dissertation Award from the Latino Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), a PSC-CUNY Research Award, and co-recipient of a grant from the Ford Foundation.

ilopez@ramapo.edu

atalia Santamaría Laorden ( Ph. D. in Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University) teaches all levels of Spanish language, literature and cinema courses. She just completed her dissertation in the Fall of 2007. It is entitled "El Retorno de las Carabelas": Debates Finiseculares entre Autores Españoles y Latinoamericanos sobre el Regeneracionismo Español (“The Return of the Ships”: Fin-de-siècle Debates among Spanish and Latin American Authors on the Spanish Regeneration Movement). Her dissertation explores the importance of considering the debates on “regeneracionismo” from a transatlantic perspective, to allow a better understanding of the connections between the philosophical and the political discourses at the end of the nineteenth century. Specifically, she focuses on the debates among Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío, Uruguayan essayist Enrique Rodó and Cuban Anthropologist Fernando Ortiz and Spanish writers Miguel de Unamuno, Ángel Ganivet and Joaquín Costa.

Professor Santamaría Laorden has been the recipient of several grants from the European Union (Erasmus-Socrates Grant) and Harvard University (the GSAS Dissertation Completion Grant, the Real Colegio Complutense Scholarship and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Term Time Grant). She has also won several awards for her teaching (three Bok Center Teaching Awards and a Nomination to the “Study Travel Prize” for Outstanding Teaching).

nsantama@ramapo.edu

ra Spar (Ph.D. in Ancient History, University of Minnesota) specializes in assyriology and archaeology. His Ph.D. thesis addressed commercial and legal aspects of the Neo-Babylonian economy based on his translation of previously unpublished cuneiform tablets. At present he is Professor of Ancient Studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey and Research Assyriologist in the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at Metropolitan Museum of Art. From 1987-1997 he was Co-Director of the Tel Aviv University/New Jersey Archaeological Consortium excavations at Tel Hadar, Israel. Dr. Spar has taught courses in ancient history, archaeology, ancient law, and ancient languages at Ramapo College for thirty years. He has offered language courses in Akkadian and Biblical Hebrew. He has also taught at the University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin, and Western Michigan University. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art he has been working on a multi-volume edition of the Museum’s cuneiform tablet collection for the past twenty-five years. Two volumes of the series have now been published, and a third volume is in press. Professor Spar is presently working on his fourth volume, Cuneiform Texts from First Millennium B.C., Temple Archives.

ispar@ramapo.edu