Faculty and Staff News

Kelly Arispe received her Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics at the University of California, Davis with a Designated Emphasis in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in 2012. She has taught Spanish Linguistics and Spanish language courses at the University of New Mexico, San Jose State University, and Sonoma State University. In addition, she has extensive experience teaching online and in the hybrid format and has co-taught annual workshops in Salamanca, Spain to train Spanish teachers and professors on how to effectively integrate technology in their language courses.

Since Fall 2012, she has been teaching in the Department of World Languages at Boise State University, namely upper-division Spanish courses (Advanced Conversation and Writing) and Spanish Linguistics (Sociolinguistics; Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics), as well as Methods for Foreign Language Teaching. She is a certified Oral Proficiency Interview Tester through the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Her current research looks at advanced language proficiency and the possibility for Web 2.0 materials to help mitigate the fact that language learners need 720 instructional hours to reach the advanced level and only receive 320 of those hours in a typical Foreign Language Program (at University). Thus, she examines the possibility for technology to augment time on task in the target language to benefit proficiency while simultaneously contributing to digital fluency.

View Kelly Arispe’s Publications on ScholarWorks

World Languages Department
Office: Albertsons Library L140B
Hours: Monday – Friday 7-11 am

History Department
Office: Albertsons Library L191
Office Hours: Monday –
Friday 11:30 am – 3:30 pm
(208) 426-1350
MS 1925

Teresa Boucher earned her undergraduate degree magna cum laude in Spanish with high honors from Dartmouth College, where she studied abroad in Spain and in France. She was awarded an M.A. in Spanish from Middlebury College, including year of study in Madrid. She earned a master’s degree in French from Middlebury including a year of study in Paris. She holds an M.A. and the Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Princeton University.

In 1994, Teresa joined the faculty at Boise State and has taught 22 different upper-division courses over the years, but her area of specialty is the literature, film, and cultures of Spain. Her book of literary criticism and the majority of her scholarly articles focus on the Spanish novelist Miguel Delibes (1920-2010). She is currently working on the translation into English of a novel by Delibes, Cartas de amor de un sexagenario voluptuoso. She is a member of the editorial board of L’Érudit franco-espagnol.

Teresa served as department chair from 2001-2012. During this time, six new languages were added—American Sign Language, Arabic, Basque, Chinese, Korean and Latin—in addition to the original four: French, German, Japanese and Spanish. New minors have been established in ASL, Basque Studies, Chinese Studies, and Latin Language and Literature.

View Teresa Boucher’s Publications on ScholarWorks

Fàtima Maria Cornwall arrived from the Azores Islands, Portugal, in 1993, and enrolled at Boise State University where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish in 2002. In 2007 she earned her Master of Arts in Spanish from the University of California – Santa Barbara.  She has been at Boise State since 2002 and currently teaches Spanish upper-division courses, including Introduction to Court Interpretation. She is a federal and state certified court interpreter for Spanish and Portuguese, as well as a certified medical interpreter for Spanish.

View Fátima Cornwall’s Publications on ScholarWorks

Since arriving at Boise State University in 2005, I have had the pleasure of teaching over a dozen different courses on film, literature, politics, language and culture. Three classes that I have created include a film class on the depiction of social outcasts in contemporary French cinema, a literature class on the representation of the femme fatale in French literature from the 18^th-century to today, and a politics course on the French presidential elections. I find that my research interests are continually influencing my teaching and vice versa. In fact, my “Social Outcasts in French Film” course inspired me to research and write my most recently published article—“Reinterpreting Cinematic Utopia in Coline Serreau’s Chaos (2001)” (The French Review, April 2012).

I earned a Ph.D. in French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BA in French from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. My research combines theories of feminism and narratology (the study of narrative) as a method to examine the role and representation of women and otherwise marginalized figures in twentieth- and twenty-first-century French and Francophone literature and film. In my book, Wandering Women in French Film and Literature: A Study of Narrative Drift (Palgrave Macmillan, October 2013), I examine the destabilizing narrative effect of wandering women in 20^th-century French film and literature. Currently, I’m researching the role of the female concierge character in 20^th– and 21^st-century French film and literature.

Thanks to Boise State’s affiliation with USAC (University Studies Abroad Consortium usac.unr.edu/), I’ve been able to teach French film courses in Pau, France, to American students. While in France, I have been able to see—and hear!—Boise State University students use the French that they have studied in our classrooms in Boise.  It is so very rewarding to see their hard work pay off as they express themselves in French to native French speakers.

Advising French majors and minors is an important and rewarding aspect of my work. If you are interested in pursuing a major or minor in French, please do not hesitate to contact me for more information.

View Mariah Devereux Herbeck’s Publications on ScholarWorks

Kristi Dorris has been an American Sign Language instructor in the Department of World Languages at Boise State University since 2014.  She received her Bachelor’s degree in History with a minor in Geography from California State University Northridge in 2005.  She, then, graduated from Gallaudet University with a Masters degree in Sign Language Education in 2019. Kristi, being young, had a lot of interest in history, especially when it comes to the achievements in the Deaf History. Her ambition for ASL was ignited by starting a teaching practice in her local community. With her rich experience, sign language teaching is what she wanted to excel in and improve her teaching skills by attaining a masters degree in Sign Language Education. She also has a lot of passion and motivation when it comes to learning more kinds of foreign sign languages.

Tetsuya Ehara received his B.B.A. in Business Administration from Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan and B.A. in Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine.   He also holds an M.A. in Anthropology (socio-cultural anthropology emphasis) from Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.  He was a faculty liaison for the concurrent enrollment program and is currently an advisor for Japan club.

Tetsuya is also the Japan Programs Coordinator for the Center for School Improvement and Policy Studies (CSI & PS) in the College of Education.  He has taken initiatives with the collaboration of Japanese K-12 schools and Boise State for the educational leadership field study and the direct exchange programs with Hosei University in Tokyo, Japan and Chukyo University in Nagoya, Japan.

View Ziortza Gandarias Beldarrain’s Publications on ScholarWorks

María Alicia Garza earned her Ph.D. in Hispanic American Literature at the University of Arizona in 1996.  In the same year, she joined the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Boise State University. Dr. Garza’s research and teaching areas are Chicana feminist theory, popular culture, gender and sexuality, and the body in Chicana literature.  In 2003, she was the recipient of the Carnegie Idaho Professor of the Year award.

View Alicia Garza’s Publications on ScholarWorks

Brittney Gehrig is a French Lecturer in the Department of World Languages. She has lived in Boise since 2010 when she came to study at BSU. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature and French from Boise State. She has spent time living in France as an English language assistant with the TAPIF program and during several study abroad sessions with USAC. She has taught French and AVID at the Junior High and High School levels in Boise and taught French classes as an adjunct at Boise State from 2017-2020. She has served as treasurer and secretary of the Alliance Française of Boise and as the secretary for the Idaho Association of Teachers of Language and Culture. She received her MA in French with a specialization in Pedagogy and Linguistics from Middlebury College in Vermont in 2022. Brittney will be advising the BSU French club.

Dr. Heike Henderson joined the faculty at Boise State University in 1997. Besides her administrative duties as Associate Chair of the Department of World Languages and Literatures and German Section Head, she teaches a wide variety of upper-division German classes. She was born and raised in Germany and holds a Ph.D. in German Literature with a Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research from the University of California, Davis. Her dissertation was entitled “Re-Reading and Re-Writing Multiculturalism: Turkish Women Writers in Germany.”

Heike Henderson’s major research interests include minority discourse, representations of food (and cannibalism!) in contemporary German literature and, most recently, mystery novels with a culinary focus. She has also translated poems by Turkish-German author Zehra Çirak, collaborated with cultural geographers (resulting in two publications about Geographies of Food), and contributed to the Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s World (Sage Reference 2011) and the Encyclopedia of Motherhood (Sage Reference 2010).

View Heike Henderson’s Publications on ScholarWorks

After earning a B.A. in French at the University of Wisconsin (1993), I spent a year studying at the Université de Nanterre-Paris X as part of my M.A. in French from Middlebury College, Vermont (1995).  I then returned to Madison, Wisconsin, for my Ph.D. in French (2002), for which I wrote a thesis on the philosophical implications of quest in the works of Franco-Algerian writer Albert Camus.

Ever since, my research has, with some exceptions, taken one of two directions.  I continue to research and write on Camus (examining, for instance, topics such as philosophical approaches to literature, lovers’ discourse and theatre) and, since 2009, serve as Coordinator of the North-American Section and Ex-officio Vice-President of the Société des Études Camusiennes.  I am currently working on an article that examines the theatrical in Camus’s works for the Cahier Camus to be published by Éditions de L’Herne in 2013.  I also focus on literature of the French Caribbean and, in particular, evolving narrative forms of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and how these forms relate to expressions and constructions of identity.  In this vein, I have written articles and book chapters—as well as conducted interviews—on topics such as Caribbean intertextuality, detective fiction and jazz improvisation.  My current research in this area involves a book-length project tentatively titled, Architextual Authenticity: Constructing Literature and Literary Identity in the French Caribbean.

Having been at Boise State University since 2005, I feel fortunate to work at a university where I am not only able to actively pursue both of these avenues of inquiry in my research, but where it is furthermore possible for me to create and teach courses in these varied areas of interest.  Advanced courses I have taught include: The Caribbean Detective Novel, Albert Camus’s Absurd Heroes, Haiti, Of Minds and Men: Camus & Sartre and 21^st-Century French-Caribbean Literature.

One of the particularly rewarding ways in which I have been able to combine my teaching and research has been in the form of interviews that my students and I have conducted with writers of the works we study.  One such interview, conducted with Haitian author Évelyne Trouillot, was published in The French Review in 2009; an interview with French Martinican author Fabienne Kanor is forthcoming in the same journal.

I cannot stress enough the importance of studying abroad—not only as a means to better understanding and speaking a second or third language, but in order to view one’s own culture through the eyes of others and to more fully comprehend theirs in return.  Boise State University is a founding partner of USAC, whose study abroad programs I highly recommend.

Amber Hoye received her Masters of Educational Technology (MET) and a graduate certificate in Online Teaching for Adult Learners from Boise State University. She also holds two Bachelors degrees in Mass Communication and Spanish. Her current responsibilities as Director of the World Languages Resource Center include supporting faculty implementing educational technology and other innovative practice, maintaining the department’s website, offering consultations and workshops for faculty, as well as scheduling and supervising the department’s many conversation labs. Amber also instructs WORLD 300: Career Exploration and Portfolio Development, a preparatory class for language majors that helps them to prepare for entering graduate school or the job market.

View Amber Hoye’s Publications on ScholarWorks

Adrian T. Kane, Ph.D. is a Professor of Spanish at Boise State University. He received his Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of California, Riverside in 2006 with an emphasis on twentieth and twenty-first century Latin American literature, and a secondary concentration in Mexican and Central American fiction. He also holds an M.A. in Spanish from the University of Rhode Island and a bachelor’s degree from St. Bonaventure University in New York.

Dr. Kane teaches Survey of Latin American Literature I and II as well as Senior Seminar and Special Topics Courses on the environment in Latin American literature and culture, Central American literature and culture, and the discourse of modernity in Mexican fiction.

Dr. Kane’s research focuses on twentieth and twenty-first century Latin American fiction, including contemporary environmental novels, postmodern fiction, and the historical avant-garde. He is the author of Central American Avant-Garde Narrative: Literary Innovation and Cultural Change 1926-1936 (2014) and the editor of The Natural World in Latin American Literatures: Ecocritical Essays on Twentieth Century Writing (2010).

View Adrian Kane’s Publications on ScholarWorks

Nere Lete, a native of the Basque Country, attended Basque schools during Franco’s dictatorship in Spain. Nere received her first Basque language teaching certificate from Euskaltzaindia when she was 15. And later, she studied Basque Philology in the Basque Country. While pursuing her studies, Nere translated and adapted scripts, worked as a voice-over actress and a puppeteer for Basque television.

She received a grant to teach Basque at the University of Nevada in Reno in 1988. She has taught Basque and Spanish in the Basque Country, University of Nevada – Reno, University of Iowa and Boise State University. In 1994, Nere received her Master of Fine Arts degree in translation from the University of Iowa.

Now, a Professor of Basque at Boise State University, besides teaching Basque language she also teaches Basque culture, literature, art history, and cinema in Spanish and English. Nere keeps a close working relationship with the Basque Museum and Cultural Center of Boise, the Etxepare Institute, and with the Boiseko Ikastola, the first Basque language preschool in the United States, which she helped to create.

Primary research interest: Language pedagogy and translation.

View Nere Lete’s Publications on ScholarWorks

Beret Norman received her PhD in Germanic Literatures from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst; she teaches all levels of German language, literature and culture courses, as well as UF 200 and Honors Colloquium courses.  Her research interests lie in the areas of contemporary German and Austrian literature, film and culture, and she has published and presented papers on authors Julia Franck, Julia Schoch and Antje Rávik Strubel, as well as on filmmaker Barbara Albert.  Dr. Norman is co-advisor of the German Club and greatly enjoys advising students.

View Beret Norman Publications on ScholarWorks

Marino Perea, a native from Colombia earned his BA in Modern Languages from Santiago de Cali University in Colombia. Marino earned his MA in Bilingual Education from Boise State University in 2010. He is currently working on his doctorate in education.

I have been teaching German for 21 years, since I graduated at Boise State with my Bachelor’s of Arts in German in 1998.  I received my Master’s of Arts in German from the University of Washington in Seattle in 2001 and have been a German lecturer at Boise State since 2003.  I am one of the advisors for the German Club.

Dr. Carolina I. Viera joined Boise State University in Fall 2016 and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of World Languages. She received her Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics from the University of California, Davis specializing in second language acquisition, and her M.A. in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of New Mexico. Previously she was an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Roanoke College before coming to Boise State and a Lecturer and Coordinator of Spanish lower-division courses at University of Dallas, TX. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and applied linguistics. Her more recent research analyzed distinctive aspects of the discourse produced in conference presentations in Spanish in the United States. At Boise State University, she has taught  Spanish 412: Advanced Grammar of Spanish, and SPA 303: Advanced Conversation and Composition. In Summer 2016, she led a group of students participating in an immersion program in Cordoba, Spain.

Dr. Viera was born in Uruguay where she lived until 2002. In Uruguay, she completed her B.A in Secondary Education with an emphasis in Foreign Language Teaching and taught Secondary Ed classes for nine years. Due to her life background, she is committed to contribute to a more diverse campus life. For this reason, she became a mentor for the First Forward Program at Boise State University.

View Carolina Viera Publications on ScholarWorks

Dr. Sharon Wei is a Mandarin Chinese lecturer in the Department of World Languages at Boise State University.  Sharon Wei received her undergraduate and graduate training in Taiwan in Economics and received a doctorate degree in Urban Studies from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

In addition to her Chinese language training and translation activities, Dr. Wei teaches courses on contemporary China, Chinese foreign policy, Confucianism and Chinese culture and contemporary Chinese politics.  Dr. Wei has organized educational and cultural visits to China for small groups seeking language training in China and obtaining a better understanding of current environmental, social, and political developments in Asia.

Sharon Wei has over 20 years of teaching, research, and export-import business management experience.  As a native Mandarin Chinese speaker, Dr. Wei implemented specialized language training programs for U.S. corporations conducting business in Chinese speaking countries.  A frequent traveler to China and Taiwan, Dr. Wei evaluates current economic, social, and political developments in Asia.