Our Faculty

Chairperson		Dr. Fernanda L. Ferreira Associate Professor Foreign Languages Tillinghast Hall  332 (508) 531-2298 (508) 531-1781 (fax) fferreira@bridgew.edu Web Site: http://webhost.bridgew.edu/fferreira/
		Dr. Duilio Ayalamacedo Professor Foreign Languages  Tillinghast Hall 321 (508) 531-2450 (508) 531-1781 (fax) dayalamacedo@bridgew.edu
		Dr. Ryan LaBrozzi Assistant Professor Foreign Languages  Tillinghast Hall 324 (508) 531-1477 (508) 531-1781 (fax) ryan.labrozzi@bridgew.edu Web Site: http://webhost.bridgew.edu/rlabrozzi/
		Dr. Leora Lev Professor  Foreign Languages Tillinghast Hall 322 (508) 531-2449 (508) 531-1781 (fax) l1lev@bridgew.edu Web Site: http://webhost.bridgew.edu/L1Lev/
		Dr. Atandra Mukhopadhyay Associate Professor Foreign Languages Tillinghast Hall 318 (508) 531-2452 (508) 531-1781 (fax) mukhopadhyay@bridgew.edu
		Dr. Minae Yamamoto Savas Assistant Professor Foreign Languages  Tillinghast Hall 317 (508) 531-2511 (508) 531-1781 (fax) minae.savas@bridgew.edu

Dr. Fernanda Ferreira

My research interests encompass language contact situations, Ibero-Romance linguistics, Creole language studies, Phonetics and Phonology. I am especially interested in the differences and similarities between Latin American varieties of Spanish and Portuguese. My doctoral dissertation was a comparative study of the plural /s/ morpheme in Brazilian Portuguese and varieties of Caribbean Spanish. I try to incorporate my research into my teaching by fostering respect for social and regional dialects in all of my language classes. While teaching Portuguese at Bridgewater State University, I came into contact with several heritage learners of Portuguese. I have since then conducted research into the particular issues that concern heritage language pedagogy.

Dr. Ryan LaBrozzi

Professor LaBrozzi received his PhD from The Pennsylvania State University. His research examines ways to facilitate classroom second language acquisition for adult learners. This research specifically investigates the effect of study abroad and individual cognitive differences on processing redundant lexical and morphological cues in a second language. He teaches all levels of Spanish classes, as well as courses in Linguistics.

Dr. Leora Lev

Dr. Leora Lev received her AM and PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University. She contributed several essays and an interview with filmmaker John Waters to Enter At Your Own Risk: The Dangerous Art of Dennis Cooper (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2006), an anthology she also edited, and which was reviewed as "a knockout book" by internationally-acclaimed writer Scott Heim and won the BSU Distinguished Faculty Research Award. She has also published, internationally, essays, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries on Hispanic cinema, European art and fiction, and transgressive aesthetics; an exhibit catalogue (Kavi Kupta Gallery); and New York Times editorials. She has been interviewed by the New York Times and the Village Voice, and was an invited speaker at symposia in Abu Dhabi, Ireland, France, and at NYU and the University of Pennsylvania. She teaches art history in Paris in the summers.

Dr. Minae Yamamoto Savas

Minae Savas is an Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies in the Department of Foreign Languages at Bridgewater State University. She received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Literatures from The Ohio State University in 2008. Prior to joining BSU she taught at Colgate University and Hamilton College in New York, where she offered courses on Japanese literature and culture as well as all levels of Japanese language. She also taught Japanese in the Summer Immersion Program at Middlebury College in Vermont. She has been an Associate in Research at Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University since 2008. Minae Savas' primary research interest is the dynamic nature of Noh plays, which come together as negotiations between political, cultural, feminine, masculine, and aesthetic forces and perspectives. Her current interest is the historical construction of gender in the performance of feminine madness as depicted in Noh theatre. Most recently she has received a research grant to pursue her project, "Feminine Madness in the Japanese Noh Theatre." She has interviewed professional performers in order to explore how contemporary Noh performers negotiate medieval Noh texts on the theme of feminine madness. She sought such performers' opinions about what they bring to their interpretation of these texts of medieval provenance and how they situate these texts in the larger ecology of their performances. She is particularly interested in the question of how Noh and Kyogen performers negotiate female roles in Noh and Kyogen, which are traditionally the exclusive purview of male performers.

Publications:

"Current Issues in the Study of Traditional Japanese Theatre and Translation: The Kyogen Play Bōshibari (Tied to a Pole)" (with Toshihiko Sekiya) in a refereed journal, Geninōshi kenkyūkai, The Journal of Japanese Society for History of the Performing Arts Research (forthcoming Winter 2013). Kyoto, Japan.

"Familiar Story, Macbeth—New Context, Noh and Kurosawa's Throne of Blood" in a refereed journal, Education About Asia, Asia: Visual and Performing Arts: Part 1, vol. 17, no. 1 (Spring 2012). Association for Asian Studies, Ann Arbor, MI.

"The Art of Japanese Noh Theatre in Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood" in Bridgewater Review, vol. 30, no. 1 (December 2011). Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, MA.

"The Influence of Noh on Kumonosu-jō (Castle of the Spider’s Web)" in Noh (October 2011). Kyoto Kanzekai, The Association of Kanze School of Noh, Kyoto, Japan.

"The Challenges of Translating Poetry: Rhetoric to Invoke the Inner Landscape of the Madwoman," in Research Center for Ars Vivendi Journal (Winter 2010). Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan.

"Oko Sako: Wawashii Woman in the Kyogen Oko and Sako," in a refereed journal, Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 24, no. 1 (Spring 2007). Eds. Jonah Salz and Julie Lezzi. University of Hawai'i Press.

Virtual Kyoto: Exploring the Past, Present and Future of Kyoto (edited by Yano Keiji, Nakaya Tomoki, and Isoda Yuzuru, translated with Philip Brown) Kyoto: Nakanishiya shuppan (Nakanishiya Publishing Company), 2007.

 

 

 

Last Modified: May 21, 2012