Several faculty members in the School of Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics started the fall semester with promotions.
They're part of a group of faculty members whose promotions were recently announced by the College of LAS. The Board of Trustees approved the changes.
“These promotions are milestone moments for everyone involved—the faculty members, their departments, and the College of LAS,” said Venetria K. Patton, the Harry E. Preble Dean of the College of LAS. “These professors earned this achievement through hard work, ingenuity, and a sense of service to their field and the university. The college is proud to help them enter a new stage of their careers.”
The promotions in SLCL are as follows:
To the rank of associate professor
Felisa Reynolds teaches in the Department of French & Italian and the program advisor for French studies. In her research, she analyzes the post-colonial era in Francophone literature, post-1960. In particular, she focuses on the ever-lasting impact of colonialism and how it is represented in literary and artistic productions. Her latest publication is The Author as Cannibal: Re-Writing in Francophone Literature as a Postcolonial Genre (1969-1995) (Forthcoming, University of Nebraska Press, 2021). She has two children, 14-year-old Lourdes and 3-year-old Santiago.
Roderick Wilson teaches in the Department of History and the Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures. His research focuses on the intersection of people and their local habitats in Tokugawa and modern Japan. He is the author of Turbulent Streams: An Environmental History of Japan's Rivers, 1600-1930 (Brill, 2021) and is currently working on a second book about the urban and environmental history of Tokyo. At the University of Illinois, he also teaches a variety of courses on Tokyo, Japan, East Asia, and global environmental history.
To the rank of teaching associate professor
Pilar Martinez Quiroga teaches in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese. She received the LAS Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by Instructional Staff in 2020-2021. Her research focuses on literary representations of communities of women from a multidisciplinary perspective that includes political, sociological, economic, philosophical, and anthropological issues, while paying special attention to instances of resistance, social change, and citizenship reflected in recent narratives written by Spanish women from a feminist and postcolonial perspective.
To the rank of senior lecturer
Reynaldo Pagura teaches the theory and practice of Translation and Interpreting in the Program for Translation and Interpreting Studies, with a focus on community and conference interpreting. A widely recognized expert in interpreting theory, he also has many years of experience in interpreter training and as a professional conference and court interpreter in English and Portuguese. His research focuses on second language assessment and the pedagogy of interpreting in multilingual contexts.
To the rank of senior instructor
Raquel Castro Goebel teaches in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese and the director of the Portuguese language program. She is a lawyer in her native Brazil, but in the United States she found her passion for teaching her language and culture to others. For the past ten years, she has been delivering programs that provide students with the foreign language skills and cross-cultural awareness they need to live and work abroad and communicate effectively. Goebel is praised for her willingness to learn new things, making her an enthusiastic and caring instructor who fosters a dynamic class environment.
To the rank of assistant professor
Anna Torres-Cacoullos teaches in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese. Her research interests are interdisciplinary and span a broad range of topics in literature, film, and philosophy of the late 19th to early 21st centuries. Although her current research spotlights practices of experimental film writing in Spain in the early twentieth century, including literary-cinematographic scripts and novelized film plots, her work has also considered questions of gender, philosophy, and race in contemporary literary and filmic productions within Spain. Her interdisciplinary approach to research has led her to develop teaching strategies that promote historical, cultural, and artistic connections.
Dania De La Hoya Rojas, College of LAS
Editor's note: A version of this story first appeared on the College of LAS website.