Faculty Focus

CMLL Welcomes New Faculty

Sarah Cantor, Instructor of Italian and Italian Languages Foundations Director

Sarah Cantor is delighted to be joining CMLL as Instructor of Italian and Italian Language Foundations Director this year. Her research interests include language pedagogy and Medieval and Renaissance Italian literature, in particular Renaissance epic poetry. She earned her PhD from UCLA with a dissertation on the relationship between orphanhood and heroism in epic poetry of the 16th and early 17th centuries. In addition to considering the evolution of epic poetry from antiquity to the Renaissance, she studies the ways in which early modern female poets modify epic motifs to promote proto-feminist ideas. She is currently working on an article on this theme in Lucrezia Marinella's 1635 poem, L'Enrico, overo Bisanzio acquistato.

Sarah is thrilled to be teaching all levels of Italian language at Texas Tech to her enthusiastic and hard-working undergraduate students. As the Italian Language Foundations Director, she creates the Italian language curriculum and coordinates the life of the program with her colleague, Dr. Victoria Surliuga. Having taught online and hybrid courses in the past, she continues to research and develop methods of engaging with students in virtual venues as well as in person. She has found the community of students, staff, and scholars at Tech to be extremely welcoming and looks forward to the continuation of this new journey.

Linda Gosner, Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology

Hello everyone! My name is Linda Gosner and I am the new Assistant Professor of Classical Archaeology here at Texas Tech. I am a Mediterranean archaeologist specializing in Iron Age and Roman archaeology and history.

My research examines local responses to Roman imperialism in rural and industrial landscapes of the western Mediterranean, especially in the Iberian Peninsula and Sardinia. I study the impact of empire on technology, craft production, labor practices, and everyday life in provincial communities. My work engages with broad questions about human-environment interaction, community and identity, labor history, mobility, and culture contact. I hold a PhD from the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University. Before coming to Texas Tech, I taught art history at Clark University and held a fellowship with the Michigan Society of Fellows and the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In my new job, I'll be teaching a range of undergraduate and graduate courses in classical archaeology here in our department. I am also an affiliate faculty member in the anthropology program in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work.

Right now, I am working on a monograph that explores the transformation of mining communities and landscapes in the Iberian Peninsula following Roman conquest. I am also completing an edited volume, Local Experiences of Connectivity and Mobility in the Ancient West-Central Mediterranean. As an active field archaeologist, I spend my summers working on archaeological excavations and surveys. I currently co-direct the Sinis Archaeological Project in west-central Sardinia. Safety permitting, I hope we can return next summer for our third season. Meanwhile, in my free time, I'm enjoying exploring outside in Lubbock and west Texas. I grew up in Arizona and it is lovely to be back in warm weather. I'm also doing a lot of yoga videos at home, trying all the local take-out options, and playing with my new cat, Edgar Bones. I am thrilled to join CMLL and I look forward to getting to know my colleagues and to being part of such a diverse department.

Bruno Penteado, Visiting Assistant Professor of French

I earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Brown University. I am Visiting Assistant Professor of French at Texas Tech, where I am currently teaching French language and French cinema. Most of my research deals with the intersections of literary and philosophical discourses, especially 18th- and 19th-century French literature and continental and French philosophy. As a comparatist, I am also interested in British literature and film studies. I have also been publishing on contemporary critical theory, particularly critiques of the descriptive turn in literary studies.

I really enjoy the study of languages and, in addition to French and English, I also speak Portuguese, read fluently in Spanish and Italian, and have been trying to learn German.

One of my greatest passions is the piano. Whenever I have some time, I clear my head by playing Beethoven, Schubert, and Prokofiev, my favorite composers.

Bernd Reiter, Professor of Spanish

Bernd Reiter is a political scientist and professor at Texas Tech University. He has experience as an instructor, researcher, institute director, study abroad director, and graduate program administrator.

Reiter has received the Distinguished Alum Award from the Political Science Department of the Graduate Center, City University of New York (2019), the William R. Jones Outstanding Mentor Award from the Florida Education Fund (2019), the Florida Education Fund President's Award (2016), the USF Faculty Global Achievement Award (2015), and the USF Status of Latinos Faculty Award (2014). Reiter has published over 50 books, book chapters, and peer-reviewed articles on topics related to democracy, race, citizenship, and decolonization. He is the editor of the Routledge Decolonizing the Classics Special Book Series and has presented his work at numerous national and international conferences, including the 2018 World Social Forum.

Brandon Rogers, Assistant Professor of Spanish

Brandon Rogers is from Los Angeles, California where he grew up an avid Lakers fan. He received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Minnesota. He specializes in the fields of phonetics, phonology, prosody, sociolinguistics, language contact, and translation. In line with this, his recent publications include work on sociophonetic and prosodic variation in Chile, the influence of Mapudungun on Chilean Spanish intonation, as well as the influence of Quechua on sociolinguistic variation in Lima, Peru. He has also investigated and published work on language contact and phonetic variation in Miami-Cuban Spanish and English. He continues to research the prosody of Mapudungun, as well as sociophonetic and prosodic variation in Chile and Peru. Within CMLL, he teaches classes on translation theory and practice and co-supervises the Translation Task Force. This year, he started a long-term project that looks to translate literary works from Mapudungun into English. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife and four kids, deadlifting (not with any of his kids), and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Ashley Voeks, Assistant Professor of French

Ashley Voeks joins CMLL as an Assistant Professor of French. She earned her Ph.D. in French Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. She specializes in early modern French literature, culture, and thought, with a focus on religious violence and the theory and practice of religious toleration. In her recent article “Rooms within the Room: Political Spatiality and Building Reform in ‘La Chambre dorée',” she examines 16th-century spaces of corruption from architectural and geographic perspectives. She also considers responses to corruption and injustice in her article “Performing Vengeance in Agrippa d'Aubigné's Les Tragiques,” focusing on the poet's demands for retribution for Protestants who suffered persecution in post-Reformation France. Her forthcoming article and current project consider literature as a means to foster tolerant mindedness in the wake of the French Wars of Religion and through the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Meixiu Zhang, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics

Meixiu Zhang joined CMLL as Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics. She is also responsible for directing the Japanese and Korean language programs. In her work, Meixiu is interested in understanding the potential of collaborative tasks in language classrooms, exploring language variation through corpus methods (i.e., computer-assisted analyses of language), and promoting the synergy between corpus methods and classroom-based research.

She received her Ph.D. in applied linguistics from Northern Arizona University in 2018. Before joining TTU, Meixiu has taught at Syracuse University, Northern Arizona University, and universities in China. Her work has appeared in journals such as Language Teaching Research, Journal of Second Language Writing, System, and Corpora, among others. In her free time, Meixiu enjoys outdoor activities, listening to audiobooks, and spending time with family!

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