Department of World Languages
College of Arts and Sciences
Three world languages faculty members recently attended the 115th annual conference of the Pacific Ancient Modern Language Association (PAMLA) conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii.Mariah Devereux Herbeck, professor of French, presented a paper, “From All-Seeing to Absent: The French Female Concierge in Les Fiançailles de M. Hire (Georges Simenon, 1933), Panique(Julien Duvivier, 1946) and Monsieur Hire (Patrice Leconte, 1989).” In her paper, Devereux Herbeck analyzed the significant narrative role the female concierge character plays as focalizor in Simenon’s novel, the character’s subsequent erasure from the novel’s two filmic adaptations and, in conclusion, the greater implications of the female figure’s erasure from both French films and society.
Heike Henderson, professor of German, participated in the food studies panel at the PAMLA. The title of her presentation was “Dying for Foie Gras: Murder, Politics, and Ethical Food Production.” Henderson analyzed a culinary mystery by German author Ella Danz, Geschmacksverwirrung (Taste Confusion), that focuses on animals’ rights, factory farming and ethical food production. She also discussed the suitability of culinary crime fiction to explore troubling issues within the world of food and how these texts can prompt readers to examine their food choices.
Jason Herbeck, professor of French, presented on a panel addressing the topic of architecture, space and literature. As a means of illustrating construction of identity in the postcolonial French-Caribbean, his paper, “Reflections on Interior Design: Constructions of Identity in Daniel Maximin’s L’Île et une nuit,” examined Guadeloupean Maximin’s novel in terms of both architecture (constructions in literature) and architexture (the construction of literature).