
Student Award Winners
Congratulations to the 2023 LALIS Award Winners:
Outstanding LALIS Majors
Lily Miller
Outstanding Service to the Richmond Hispanic Community
Leah Kulma
Outstanding Assistant Teacher in LALIS
Nicky Ramírez

Facilities Staff Contribute to Latest Museum Exhibition
The Department of Latin American, Latino & Iberian Studies and University Museums asked custodial staff for their input on an exhibition by Latinx artist Jay Lynn Gomez focusing on the value of domestic workers. Staff shared their impressions on the art and its layout, and provided comments and opinions that were integrated into the exhibition’s educational initiatives, catalogue, and informational panels.
“Collaborating with facilities employees offered an opportunity for talking about the vital energy involved in a work that implies much more than keeping up cleanliness and beauty of physical spaces, and for exploring the meanings of work and working time,” said exhibition co-curator Karina Vázquez, director of UR’s Spanish Community-Based Learning Program.
Faculty Highlights

While on a Fulbright Scholar Award in Brazil, Mariela Méndez, associate professor of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies and women, gender, and sexuality studies, delivered the presentation “Impertinências feministas no arquivo clariceano: Proposta para uma aproximação material sensorial e performática às intervenções feministas” [“Feminist Impertinences in the Claricean Archive: Proposal for a Material Sensorial and Performative Approach to Feminist Interventions”] at a roundtable on Impertinências Feministas na Literatura Latinoamericana [Feminist Impertinences in Latin American Literature] organized by the Feminist Lab at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.
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Mariela Méndez, associate professor of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies and women, gender, and sexuality studies, published the chapter “Que(e)rying Femininities: Clarice Lispector’s Correio Feminino on TV Globo” in After Clarice: Reading Lispector’s Legacy in the Twenty-First Century.
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Elizabeth Kissling, associate professor of Spanish and applied linguistics, published the article "Exploring Boundedness for Concept-Based Instruction of Aspect: Evidence from Novice L1 English Speakers Learning the Spanish Preterite and Imperfect" in The Modern Language Journal.
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Elizabeth Kissling, associate professor of Spanish and applied linguistics, published the article "From Rule-Based Explicit Instruction to Explicit Knowledge: A Pilot Study on How L1 English Speakers Interpret Pedagogical Rules about Spanish Preterite and Imperfect" in Instructed Second Language Acquisition.
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Contact Information
Mailing Address:
Department of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies
University of Richmond
211 Richmond Way
Carole Weinstein International Center
University of Richmond, VA 23173
Phone: (804) 484-1543
Fax: (804) 484-1544
Department Chair: Dr. Mariela Méndez
Academic Administrative Coordinator: Sarah Helen Studebaker
Director of Community-Based Learning: Dr. Karina Vazquez
Director of Spanish Intensive Language Program: Mr. Ted Peebles