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Class of 2010

Award Recipients

Andrés Bello Award – Daniel Safavi

Offered by the Consul of Chile to a senior who has excelled in Spanish.

Wendy Berson Language Award – Mark Schott

Given to a senior who has demonstrated excellence in the area of Romance Languages in general, but more specifically, to one with the ability to speak one or more of them with great expertise.

Princess Grace of Monaco Award – Claire Duggan

Offered by the Consul of Monaco, in conjunction with the Consul of Chile, to a senior who has excelled in French.

The Figurito Family Award for Scholarly Achievement in Italian – Justin Sileo

Presented in the name of Joseph Figurito, Professor of French and Italian at Boston College for one half a century, to a student for scholarly achievement in Italian.

RLL Honors Theses

Claire Duggan
Thesis Director: Régine Jean-Charles

Immigration from Senegal to France: The Experience of Senegalese Women
The subject of my thesis is that of immigration between Senegal and France, with a focus on the experience of women from the moment they make their decision to leave Senegal to their current situation in France. The great majority of the women in this study migrated from Dakar, the capital of Senegal, to Toulouse. The goal of my work was to document these women’s expectations before migrating, their actual experiences, and their process of assimilation into French culture. But perhaps most importantly, I wanted to give these women a voice and the opportunity to speak for themselves in a male dominated sphere.

Katharine C. Moore
Thesis Director: Ourida Mostefai

The Heroine’s Misfortunes: Seduction, Desire and Fate in a Comparison of ‘Claire d’Albe’ by Sophie Cottin and ‘Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse’ by Jean Jacques Rousseau
This thesis is a comparison of two 18th century French epistolary novels: Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse (1761) and Sophie Cottin’s Claire d’Albe (1799). In comparing these two texts, I seek to show that Claire d’Albe is a reworking of Rousseau’s Julie, which was the most widely read novel of its time. My goal is to determine Sophie Cottin’s message in reworking Rousseau’s novel: what is Cottin trying to communicate to readers through Claire’s letters? To answer this question, I analyze three key scenes I call “Seduction,” “The Fall,” and “Death” described in three of Claire’s letters in Claire d’Albe. I compare these to the three scenes of “Seduction,” “The Fall,” and “Death” in Julie in order to examine the differences between the two novels and uncover Cottin’s message.

Stephen Rice
Thesis Director: Irene Mizrahi

New Age Dictatorship in Latin America: The Dominion of Daniel Ortega
The landmark dictator novel El Señor Presidente by Miguel Angel Asturias revolves around a cruel, nameless dictator, refusing also to specify a country or time-line for its action. This ambiguity allows the novel to remain hauntingly relevant for the numerous Latin American dictatorships throughout history. My thesis analyzes the current administration of Daniel Ortega and ultimately observes that many of the underlying themes of dictatorship still persist. However, the way in which they manifest themselves have become increasingly politicized and masked given today’s globalized world.

French Book Awards

Stephanie Albright, Andrew Alemian, Dania Al Humaid, Rosemary Bailey, Michael Becker, Kettianne Cadet, Caysie Carter, Morgan Chalfant, Matthew Charest, Jennifer Fagan, Victoria Farrell, Jill Forgash, Sofia Garza-Villalobos, Kelly Gerson, Samuel Griffin, Catherine Hadshi, Elizabeth (Grace) Horner, Maureen Keegan, Courtney Kipp, Megan Koch, Melissa Lahullier, Gabrielle Lewine, Erica Lewis, Michal Malachowski, Emma Marr, Mary Kate McAdams, Jordan Mendoza, Katharine Moore, Lindsay Oliver, Maria Perez, Cristina Reyes, Sean Riordan, Mark Schott, Catherine Smith, Emma Staffaroni, Christopher Terris

Italian Book Awards

Danielle Auriemma, Jessica Calandra, Catherine D’Ascoli, Joseph Forgione, Nate Hibner, Hannah Krulewitch, Isabelle Martinez, Sofia Martinez, Kate Mirino, Serafina Spink, Ian Thomas

Hispanic Studies Book Awards

Lila Abed, Mark Arnold, Cecily Brennan, Wilma Michaela Carvajal Leon, Audra Cimino, Ryan Crane, William Daley, Chris Finan, Jeanny Fuentes, Erin Harvey, Monica Llado, Brittany Lewis, Erin Lytwyn, Adriana Marzan, Rebecca Muessle, Gabriel Orlowitz, Sarah Peluso, Michael Phelan, Christopher Rakovec, Stephen Rice, Jordan Schultz, Sheila Serafino, Sarah Smith, Patrick Vale, Christopher Wahoff

Sophomore Scholars

Michael Becker, French Major, Economics Major
Sofia Garza-Villalobos, French Major
Emma Marr, French Major, Communication Major
Meg Talewsky, Hispanic Studies Major, English Major

Dean's Scholars

Kathryn Goettl, French Major
Theresa Donohue, Hispanic Studies Minor, Music Major

Peer Advisors

Cecily Brennan, Hispanic Studies Major
Jessica Calandra, Italian Major, Biology Major
Claire Duggan, French Major, Sociology Major

Class of 2009

Award Recipients

Andrés Bello Award - Hannah Donoghue

Offered by the Consul of Chile to a senior who has excelled in Spanish.

Wendy Berson Language Award - Amanda Pastyrnak

Given to a senior who has demonstrated excellence in the area of Romance Languages in general, but more specifically, to one with the ability to speak one or more of them with great expertise.

Princess Grace of Monaco Award - Elisabel Santos

Offered by the Consul of Monaco, in conjunction with the Consul of Chile, to a senior who has excelled in French.

The Figurito Family Award for Scholarly Achievement in Italian - Joseph A. Forgione

Presented in the name of Joseph Figurito, Professor of French and Italian at Boston College for one half a century, to a student for scholarly achievement in Italian.

RLL Honors Theses

Hannah Donoghue
Thesis Director - Professor Elisa Rhodes

Paradigms of Representation in Three Films about Immigration

Although this fact has to date escaped the notice of critics, contemporary films about immigration embody distinct paradigms of representation, which suggest a recurrent pattern within this specific film genre. Three in particular, which treat Central American immigration into the U.S. and sub-Saharan African immigration into Spain, exemplify these paradigms: Alambrista (dir. Robert Young; 1977), El norte (dir. Gregory Nava; 1983), and Las Cartas de Alou (dir. Montxo Armendáriz; 1990). Three facets of this generic paradigm are (1) illumination as a signifying technique; (2) the conflict between realityand mythology in the immigrant experience; and (3) the theme of identity in the immigrant context. Significantly, to date, all directors of films of immigration have been from the dominant group of the country that receives the immigrants. This inevitably entails a problematic relationship between the director and the film; consequently, this project suggests the need for further exploration of the message that each director conveys about the experience of immigration and immigrants themselves.

Alexander Ramos
Thesis Director - Professor Harry Rosser

The Children's Stories of Horacio Quiroga

This thesis offers a literary analysis of the children's stories of Uruguayan author Horacio Quiroga and seeks to identify literary differences from Quiroga's short stories of adult fiction that maintain themes of death, mortality, and the human perceptions of and interactions with nature. Cartas de un cazador and Cuentos de la selva establish a unique mode of didacticism that functions to mature an adolescent reader without using absolute directives to impose a particular reading onto a story. These children's stories are far from being forgotten and are still read in the schools of Latin America.

Anastasia Semel
Thesis Director - Professor Irene Mizrahi

"Fathers and Sons: An Analysis of the Paternal-Filial Relationship from Calderon's 17th Century La vida es sueno to Barroso's 20th Century film Extasis."

This thesis investigates the theme of power in the paternal-filial relationship as portrayed in Calderon's Golden Age play La vida es sueno and Mariano Barroso's 1998 film Extasis. This analysis discusses the distinct roles that the father and son play in their tenuous relationship. The investigation focuses on the son's struggle to form an identity separate from his father's and the father's reluctance to relinquish his position of authoritarian power.

French Book Awards

Kim Addison, Rachel Banke, Nitchel Bastien, Claire Duggan, Victoria Farrell, Jill Forgash, Chris Griesedieck, Melissa Hartge, Maureen Keegan, Courtney Kipp, Viviane Knierim, Erica Lewis, Luigi Manzini, Emma Marr, Caitlin McGovern, Alexandra Mitropoulos, Katharine Moore, Mia Neagle, Alex Nerguizian, Lisbeth O'Brien, Lindsay Oliver, Elisabel Santos, Christopher Terris, Christine Turner, Kelly Yeda, and Peter Zimmermann.

Italian Book Awards

Danielle Auriemma, Jessica Calandra, Joseph Forgione, Kelsey Garrison, Lauren Gaspary, Meghan Lane, Justin Sileo, Lucie Toutain, Shauna Twohig, and Alexandra Ward.

Hispanic Studies Book Awards

Sebastian Amaya, Cecilly Brennan, Alison Chou, Christopher Lemming, Brittany Lewis, Caitlin Lortie, John Lowell, Anne Matsko, Katherine McBride, Charles Miller, Amanda Pastyrnak, Christopher Rakovec, Stephen Rice, Alyssa Rivera, Colin Ryan, Daniel Safavi, Thomas Smeallie, Joseph Turnage, Jose Vilaro, and Laura Zapata.

Sophomore Scholars

Laura Amrein, Hispanic Studies Major
Kathryn Goettl, French Major
Erin Daley, French Major, Economics Major

Dean's Scholars

Claire Duggan, French Major, Sociology Major
Courtney Kipp, French Major, Theology Major
Joseph Forgione, Biology Major, Italian Major

Peer Advisors

Carly DeFilippo, French Major
Amanda Pastyrnak, Hispanic Studies, Political Science Major
Miriam Michalczyk, Italian Major