2012 Award of the Association of Indian Teachers of French

Professor Bénédicte Mauguiere was awarded the 2012 Award of the Association of Indian Teachers of French. The Award was given on February 16 during the sixth International AITF Conference on ‘Etudes Francophones: Enjeux et Perspectives’ (Francophone studies: issues and perspectives) in association with t
he Department of French, Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU). French teachers from over 25 countries and from various parts of India took part in the meeting.
Sarah Goldstein ’08
Goldstein, a 2008 French Studies and International Studies Double Major, recounts some of her experiences from abroad of her life after Colby.  Some highlighted blog posts from Ghana, Morocco, and Paris can be found below.Ghana
Click here for the Ghana blog post.Morocco

Click here for the Morocco blog post.ParisClick here for the Paris blog post.
Megan Browning ’10
After spending her first year after graduation working on a farm in Massachusetts, Megan spent this past summer living on a beautiful property in Praiano, on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, where she worked as a Garden Restoration Intern. The property, known as “Casa L Orto,
” consists of terraced land that was abandoned for many years. Megan worked to bring it back to fully functioning farm land. Over the summer she wrote, “This town is absolutely gorgeous and life is so peaceful here. Most people only speak Italian so I’ve been practicing every day and getting better and better. Thanks to all [my Italian] classes, I really am able to communicate over here, and it’s so exciting.” As part of her internship, Megan set up a Facebook page called “Casa L Orto,” which can be accessed at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Casa-L-Orto/192369970814720.

Pictured here are Megan and Clementina, a veteran Italian gardener who shared her knowledge with Megan over the course of her internship.

Maria Ryden ’09
After graduating in 2009, Maria won a highly competitive English Teaching Assistantship through the Lombard Department of Education. She was placed in an istituto superiore (high school) in Edolo, a small town near the Italian border with Switzerland. While Maria spent most of her time at the scuola superiore, she also taught at nearby elementary and middle schools, where her duties included everything from grading to lesson plans, conversation classes, lectures, and teaching an entire middle school to sing “Jingle Bell Rock” for their Christmas program. Eventually, Maria designed and taught three after-school cl
asses by herself, and when one of the English teachers went on extended leave, she took on her teaching schedule. Maria writes: “Living in insular Alpine towns meant that while my Italian skills grew immensely (no English here!), I often got a lot of stares and many of my host families spoke exclusively in dialect. It required some extreme flexibility and I was at times very discouraged and lost in translation but I’m so glad I went!”
Talkin’ the Talk: Language Tables
Take an inside look at Colby’s language tables care of insideColby here.
Queer International Film Series
Faculty members Allison Cooper and Sarah Keller will be presenting Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 film Teorema as part of the Queer International Film Series on Thursday, April 28 at 7 p.m. in Miller 14.
Undergraduate Research Symposium
Italian Studies minor Rachel Gleicher will be presenting her honors thesis in anthropology at the Undergraduate Research Symposium on Thursday, April 28 at 12:20 p.m. in the Whitney Room of Roberts.

Phi Beta Kappa Recipients
Phi Beta Kappa celebrates and advocates excellence in the liberal arts and sciences. Congratulations to the following seniors for their election as members into the Society!

Rachel Gleicher (International Studies, Italian Minor)
Susannah Hatch (French Studies, International Studies)
Amanda Hetherington (English, Italian Minor)
Sara Ramsay (Anthropology, French Studies)
Roundtables on the Holocaust at the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine
French Majors led three roundtables on Holocaust memory at the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine, Augusta.

French majors Kristin Nissen, Sara Ramsay and Aileen Evans lead a roundtable on Holocaust memory.

Kristin Nissen, Sara Ramsay, and Aileen Evans pose with Prof. Audrey Brunetaux.

Aileen Evans Studying Abroad in Senegal

Aileen Evans ’12 is a French Studies major. She is pictured here with her host family in Senegal, where she studied abroad for a semester. A blog recounting her semester can be found here.

Susannah Hatch Studying Abroad in Senegal

Susannah Hatch ’11 is a French Studies major. She is pictured here with her host siblings in Senegal.
Theater Workshop – Spring 2010
Students in French performed Eugene Ionesco’s The Lesson.

From left to right: Liz Frothingham, Courtney Cronin, Caity Murphy, Prof. Audrey Brunetaux, Preston Kavanagh, Aileen Courtney Cronin and Caity Murphy perform.

Tate Kaneshige, Caity Murphy, and Preston Kavanagh perform.

Courtney Cronin and Caity Murphy perform.
Theater Workshop – Spring 2009
Students performed Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot.