April 1: 'Pan Lingua: Undergraduate Conference on Languages & Cultures'

Monday, April 1, 2019
8:15 AM - 4:00 PM
Centennial Student Union

KEYC TV coverage

Mankato, Minn. – Minnesota State University, Mankato’s Department of World Languages & Cultures is hosting “Pan Lingua: Undergraduate Conference on Languages & Cultures” Monday, April 1 from 8:15 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the University’s Centennial Student Union.

The conference is free and open to the public. Event panel sessions will be presented in various languages, to include English, Dakota, French, German, Russian and Spanish. A conference schedule with session titles and room locations is available online.

The conference will feature more than 75 presentations on film, literature, linguistics, culture, anthropology, politics and more. Other session topics include Asian studies, Chinese films, German history, Russian politics, immigration issues, Hispanic literature and cultural studies, gender issues in the Francophone world, Lakota orthography and many more.

The event’s keynote presentation will be spoken in English by Kelly McDonough, an associate professor of Spanish and Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. McDonough will speak from 1:30-2:30 p.m. in Ostrander Auditorium about her book, “The Learned Ones: Nahua Intellectuals in Postconquest Mexico.”

According to an event preview, McDonough explored specific cases of Nahua writing and intellectualism from the past five centuries in order to challenge the commonly held assumption that Indigenous intellectual activities in Latin America ceased or decreased dramatically with the advent of the European conquest and colonization.

Media members with questions about the event may contact Amber Power, director of communication and endowed programs in Minnesota State Mankato’s College of Arts & Humanities, by phone at 507-389-1066 or by email at amber.power@mnsu.edu.

Approximately 80 students will give presentations at the event. The participating students are from Minnesota State Mankato; University of South Dakota; South Dakota State University; University of Wisconsin-River Falls; Briar Cliff University; St. Olaf College; University of St. Thomas; and Macalester College.

Minnesota State Mankato event sponsors include the Nadine B. Andreas Endowment Program, Global Education, Institutional Diversity, the Honors Program and Department of World Languages and Cultures.

Minnesota State Mankato’s Department of World Languages and Cultures is part of the University’s College of Arts and Humanities.

Minnesota State Mankato, a comprehensive university with 14,227 students, is part of the Minnesota State system, which includes 30 colleges and seven universities.