Author: wpadmin

View all Russian Studies Newsletter articles > As another eventful academic year comes to an end, let’s take pause to congratulate our stellar majors and minors who finish their degrees this spring. One major, Julia Zuercher (featured below) walked in May, and a dozen or so others (some featured in photos below) successfully completed the […]

Our recent star graduate, Julia Zuercher, completed her degree this spring with a double major in Russian and international studies. Having successfully completed UF’s AFROTC program, she has been commissioned into the U.S. Air Force as a second lieutenant, where she will commence work as an intelligence officer. Julia also completed an outstanding honors thesis […]

What have you been up to since leaving UF? After graduating with a Russian language and literature degree, and double minors in Spanish and English, I worked for over two years in humanitarian aid. Beginning on the heels of Kabul’s collapse in 2021, I worked in the heightened-risk department of Intensive Case Management (ICM) at […]

The fall of 2023 found Mikhail Mikhaylov growingly frustrated by a sense of helplessness with the ongoing war in Ukraine, so he decided to channel his energy into something more constructive. Months later, he had co-founded the Ukrainian Rebuilding Initiative, a project-based non-profit working to help Ukrainians in five areas: civil engineering, public health, prosthetics, […]

Julia Zuercher joins Hannah Bogard (neé Harris) as the recipient of the Russian Major and author of a successfully completed honors thesis (profiled above). Hannah’s thesis, completed in December 2024, won her the prestigious Undergraduate Essay Contest of the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, the largest regional chapter of our national organization, covering a territory […]

This past Summer A 2022, twenty-five UF undergraduate students in French participated in our study abroad program UF in Paris — Culture & Language in Context led by Dr. Hélène Blondeau, assisted by Nathalie Ciesco. Students lived with French host families for 4 weeks, took a course about French art and architecture with a local […]

While I was applying for graduate programs in Architecture, I wondered whether my French & Linguistics background would be at all useful to me. Now, having received my Master of Architecture degree, I can say with confidence that it made me one of the most sought-after candidates. The architecture department chair told me as much […]

Dedicating my time to learning French was always a decision made out of love for the language and maintained by a life goal of being bilingual. The persistence in studying and practicing French has proven to not only be intrinsically valuable but has played a significant role in many facets of my life. Learning French […]

Haitian Creole Conversation Club Wednesdays | March 11, 18, 25, April 1, 8, 15, 22, 2020 | 11:30AM-1:00PM 1317 Turlington Hall — Language Lab Studio Tables All levels of Haitian Creole speakers are welcome!  Bring your lunch and beverage and meet new people!

As the director of the FFRI, it is my pleasure to report that this past year the FFRI has been active and productive through organization, sponsoring of varied activities involving several UF departments, centers, and units. The FFRI 2017-2018 annual research project, led by Dr. Blum as Principal Investigator, was titled “Deaf Cinema” and dedicated […]

“I am a graduate student from Rennes 2, and in order to complete my studies and further develop my personal interests and professional aspirations, I am doing an internship at the French department of the University of Florida during the 2018 Spring semester. After a bachelor’s degree in English and Spanish languages, literatures and civilizations, […]

Led by Dr. Hélène Blondeau and Dr. Alioune Sow, a special project funded by the French Embassy has examined “French in contact” across multiple locations and its implications for cultural productions. During the academic year 2017-2018, we have welcomed internationally recognized scholars. In September 2017, Dr. Gudrun Ledegen, Professor of Language Sciences and Sociolinguistics at […]

Report on the Bi-Annual Meeting of the Rousseau Association (University of Florida, June 2017) This conference was co-organized by Brigitte Weltman-Aron (LLC, UF), Peter Westmoreland (Philosophy, UF), and Ourida Mostefai (Brown University). It was sponsored, among others, by the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, the France Florida Research Institute, and the Center for the […]

Closed Captioning, Audio Description, and the Reinvention of Silent Film The one-day symposium included three presentations and a roundtable involving the speakers, UF faculty and graduate students in Film studies. It was organized by Dr. Richard Burt, English Deprtment of English, and Dr. Sylvie Blum-Reid, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. It took place on […]

Esther Heboyan, associate professor of American literature and film at the University of Artois, Arras-France, visited the University of Florida for two presentations on March 12 and March 14, 2018. She is a professor, a translator (Turkish/English/French), and a creative writer. Dr. Esther Heboyan’s visit allowed French and Francophone Studies to develop University of Florida […]

Theresa Antes I am currently on a research sabbatical, continuing my investigation into the acquisition of fixed expressions by second language learners. Since the last newsletter, I have published two articles, one in Foreign Language Annals entitled “French Interrogatives: A New Pedagogical Norm for the 21st Century” and the other in Language and Sociocultural Theory […]

Erin Davis Since joining the program in Fall 2017, I have been teaching French 1134, Accelerated French Review. The transition from raising a family to graduate school has required adapting to a challenging schedule combining teaching and my own academic endeavors. A supportive network of advisors, professors, and experienced teaching assistants has made the process […]