405 Q Ul v. 23-27 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/universityofilli2327univ UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AJ URSANA-CHAMPAIGN Twnfc &w* ' THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER October, 1969 Director: Prof. Anthony M. Pasquariello Vol. XXIII, No. 1 Editor: Maxwell Reed Mowry, Jr. Dear Colleagues: In this first issue of the 23rd year of the University of Illinois Modern Foreign Language Newsletter, it is my privilege to send greetings to readers and colleagues throughout the state and to wish you all a successful year. A special welcome this year goes to Prof. Anthony M. Pasquariello, who on Sept. 1 assumed the headship of the Dept. of Spanish, Italian, & Portuguese at the U.I. He will also serve as Director of the Newsletter. He succeeds Prof. William H. Shoemaker in both capacities. At this point it would seem appropriate to salute Prof o Shoemaker for his long service both as department head and as Director of the Newsletter. All of his colleagues and friends will join me, I am sure, in thanking him and wishing him well. Two professors return to the Urbana campus after a year's sojourn in Europe. They are Prof. Francois Jost, who returns to direct again the Graduate Program in Comparative Literature, and Prof. Bruce Mainous, returning to his post as Head of the Dept. of French. Prof. Mainous spent the past year in Rouen, France, as Director of the Illinois-Iowa Year-Abroad Program; Prof. Jost spent a sabbatical year in Switzerland under the auspices of the Center for Advanced Study and also lectured at the Univ. of Innsbruck during the summer of 1969. We welcome them back, and also welcome Prof. Philip M. Mitchell as Acting Head of the Dept. of Germanic Languages & Literature during the coming year. He replaces Prof. Harry G. Haile, who is on sabbatical leave during 1969-70 in Vienna. More detailed reports on the activities of these gentlemen will be found in the Notes of the various departments and programs. Our best wishes also go to Maxwell Reed Mowry, Jr., the new Editor of the Newsletter. What will the coming year bring for us in the field of foreign language teaching? Last year at the U.I. we witnessed a strong movement to eliminate or at least to modify drastically the 2-year undergraduate foreign language requirement. A series of faculty meetings were held in the early spring of 1969 out of which emerged changes and a certain relaxation of former requirements. As an example, incoming freshmen are no longer required to complete their foreign language as early as possible. They may now postpone embarking on their college-level foreign language study to suit their convenience as long as they complete the requirement by the end of their I4. years. This relaxation of requirements is undoubtedly re- flected in my own department by a rather significant decrease (30$) in lst-year Russian enrollments. Another loosening of former requirements has been the decision to permit students to interrupt their sequence of language courses at their own option. Formerly, students were not permitted to do so except under very special circumstances. Perhaps the most significant changes in store for us will be those reflected in recommendations emerging from last spring's meetings that the l+th semester of the 2-year foreign language sequence be, if not completely eliminated, at least seriously overhauled and diversified. Departments have been requested to provide alternate tracks to suit individual student needs instead of the now-existing uni- form l;th-semester courses. Suggested options are such diverse courses (or sets of courses) as conversation courses, specialized technical or scientific reading courses, literary reading courses, culture and civilization courses, etc. In some cases the option suggested is that the readings be in the foreign language, but the discussion be in English. Needless to say, most of the foreign language departments are now in the process of reevaluating their l;th-semester offerings and preparing -2- new ones. Some, like the French Dept., have already established new courses along the lines suggested above. Whatever the long-range effect of the changes that face us, we look forward to an exciting year. May yours be both exciting and profitable. Clayton L. Dawson, Head Dept. of Slavic Languages & Literatures PROP. ANTHONY M. PASQUARIELLO It is a great pleasure to begin the Newsletter for 1969-70 with a welcome to its new Director and the new Head of the U.I. Dept. of Spanish, Italian, & Portuguese, Prof. Anthony M. Pasquariello, and to his wife Dorothy. Mr. Pasquariello, a native New Yorker, holds his B.A. from Brooklyn College, his M.A. from Columbia, and his Ph.D. from the Univ. of Mich. He has taught at the Univ. of Mich., at the Univ. of Colo., and at Penn. State Univ. He was also Chair- man of the Dept. of Spanish, Italian, & Portuguese, both at Colorado (I963-6I4.) and at Penn. State (1961+-69). His publications, teaching, and other academic activities, many and varied, range from pedagogy and methodology to several areas of specialization in liter- ature; among the latter; the 19th and 20th centuries in Spain, the picaresque novel, the colonial period in Spanish America, and especially the theatre--an interest which, in 1967, led Prof. Pasquariello to found Modern International Drama , which he will continue to co-edit. Those of us who know Mr. Pasquariello have always appreciated his many personal qualities; we are indeed fortunate to have him at Illinois. The Spanish Dept. of Champaign-Urbana, much to the credit of Mr. Pasquariello' s predecessor, Prof, Shoe- maker, and of many dedicated colleagues, is one of the best in the country. We can look forward with confidence to a continuing record of excellence under Prof, Pas- quariello. Welcome to Illinois. Edwin Jahiel FLA CONFERENCE The 3rd annual U.I. School-University Foreign Language Articulation Conference will be held on Thursday and Friday, Nov. 6-7, in the Illini Union, with Prof. U. Henry Gerlach of the Dept. of Germanic Languages & Literature as chairman. The theme is "Teacher Education--A Continuous Process." The guest dinner speaker on Thursday will be Mr. F. Andre" Paquette, Executive Secretary of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. The guest luncheon speaker on Friday will be Mr, Albert Marzo of Aurora West High School, Aurora. A new feature of the conference will be exhibits of books ana teaching materials by various publishing houses MIDWEST MLA MEETING The 11th annual meeting of the Midwest Modern Language Association will be held Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 23-25, at the Chase-Park Plaza Hotel, St. Louis, Mo. The host institution will be St. Louis Univ. The theme of the meeting is "Criticism and Culture," with the following keynote addresses: "The Plight of a Man of Letters" by Paul Goodman, New York City; "Cultural Elitism and the Study of Literature" by Louis Kampf , MIT, and "Reflections on Contemporary Criticism" by Alfred Kerzin, SUNY-Stony Brook. IFLTA MEETING The fall meeting of the Illinois Foreign Language Teachers' Association will be held Friday and Saturday, Nov. 7-8, at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel, Chicago. There will be meetings of the various AAT groups on Friday, w ith FLES meetings and sym- posiums on Saturday. Further information may be obtained by writing: Mr. Wilbourne Bowles, Proviso East High School, Maywood, 111. 601^3. -3- ACTFL MEETING The 3rd annual meeting of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages will be held Friday-Sunday, Nov. 28-30, at the Roosevelt Hotel, New Orleans, La. The program will be "The Teacher as an Architect of Learning" with the keynote address by Mr. Kai-yu Hsu of San Francisco State College. Further information can be obtained from Mr. F. Andre Paquette, Exec. Secretary, ACTFL, 62 Fifth Ave., New York, N. Y. 10011. MLA CONVENTION The Modern Language Association Convention will be held Friday-Tuesday, Dec. 26-30, in Denver, Colo., with the Univ. of Colo, as the host institution. The full pro- gram will be available in the Nov. issue of PMLA. COMPARATIVE LITERATURE NOTES -- by Prof. Barbara Smalley PROF. JOST RETURNS Members of the Comparative Literature Program are pleased to welcome back to the 111. campus Prof. Francois Jost, Director of the Program. Prof. Jost, who has been in the Center for Advanced Study for the past year, carried on his research in Europe. During May and June he delivered a series of lectures at the Univ. of Inns- bruck and the Univ. of Fribourg. He also lectured at the Univs. of Ttlbingen, Mainz, and Bonn. GRADUATE YEAR ABROAD The Comparative Literature Program plans to establish a Graduate Year Abroad. While in Europe Prof. Jost had the opportunity to consult with a number of institutions that have expressed willingness to serve as possible centers for the Year Abroad. Among those ready to undertake this program are the Univ. of Bonn, the Univ. of Mainz, the Univ. of Ttlbingen, the Univ. of Zurich, the Univ. of Fribourg, and the Univ. of Innsbruck. We hope to provide further information regarding the Comparative Literature Program Graduate Year Abroad in the very near future. FACULTY NOTES Prof. A. Owen Aldridge, a member of the Advisory Board of the American Society for 18th-century Studies, attended the meeting of the society in Chicago on Sept. 5. During Sept. 11+-31 Prof. Aldridge attended the 11th Congress of the International Federation for Modern Languages & Literatures at Islamabad, Pakistan, and delivered a paper entitled, "The Influence of North American Revolutionary Propaganda in South America." During Oct.