February 2026 Recap
Events
We had the opportunity to learn about the research of some of the graduate students working with our faculty at our Spring Graduate Symposium, which was held in February. The following students shared what they've discovered through their research:
- Andres Giudice Grillo (Italian & Spanish): "Variation and Change in the Pronunciation of Consonants in Peruvian Spanish"
- Jasmine Rice (CTL, OISE): "'It's Like Seeing the World Through My Ancestors Eyes': Aligning Language Ideologies and Kanien'ké:ka (Mohawk) Language Pedagogies for Urban Adult Learners"
- Evelia Raphael (French): "A Postcolonial Land Ethic: The Preservation of Indigenous Toponyms as an Ecological Act"
We look forward to hearing about more graduate research at future symposiums!
Our French students gathered for lunch with Prof. Rosa Hong, concluding our Meet your French Professor series. We hope that everyone enjoyed the opportunity to chat informally with our faculty!
A big part of learning a new language is also getting the chance to experience new foods and culture. In February, we welcomed in the Year of the Horse with a celebration of the Chinese Spring Festival. Activities included exploring Chinese Spring Festival traditions and zodiac culture, writing lucky characters (福, 春), and enjoying New Year games and crafts. Take a look at our recap of the event!
Program selection is one of the most important decisions students make in university. With Type 2 and 3 program selection opening in March, we wanted to host an event to demystify the process. We were happy to meet several of our students at the Department of Language Studies Student Group Advising / Meet & Greet event, and we hope the session was useful for all who attended!
Guest Lecture
We held a Q&A session with multi-award-winning Italian author and novelist Melania G. Mazzucco this month. She joined ITA221H5S Italian Authors (20th Century Italy) for a conversation on her critically acclaimed novel Vita (2003; 2014 edition), which explores the experience of Italian immigrants in America.
Faculty Publication
We're happy to announce that Prof. Adrien Rannaud's new book, Reines des ondes, reines des cœurs : L’élection de Miss Radio-Télévision au Québec, 1939-1972, has been published!
What do Muriel Millard, Janine Sutto, Béatrice Picard, Janette Bertrand, and Dominique Michel have in common? They were all Queens of Radio and Television. Admired by their peers and beloved by audiences, each of these artists was, at some point in her career, chosen to represent Quebec’s artistic community after winning a highly publicized annual competition: the Miss Radio‑Télévision contest. By tracing the history of this popular competition—organized by the magazine Radiomonde from 1939 to 1972—the book offers a unique window into Quebec’s cultural life from the eve of the Second World War to the Quiet Revolution. It brings to life public figures from radio, stage, and television while offering a critical look at the complex relationships between a society, its culture, and the ideals of celebrity it constructs.
In the Media
Prof. Aqsa Ijaz was recently interviewed by The Juggernaut as an expert on the origins and transregional journey of the Persian love story Laila and Majnun. The piece draws on her work on classical Persian poetry and examines how this Arab-Persian legend was transformed through Niẓāmī’s masnavi tradition and went on to become central to the literary and cultural history of South Asia. It also traces the story’s movement from early Arabic oral traditions to its Persian literary canonization and subsequent Indo-Persian reinterpretations, highlighting how Persian classics took root in the subcontinent and acquired new meanings in South Asian contexts.
In the Community
We took a moment in February to come together–students, faculty, and community members–to mourn, reflect, and support one another in light of the violence, arrests, and repression in Iran. This event was jointly organized by the Departments of Historical Studies and Language Studies. Our thoughts are with all those affected.
