* on leave January 01 - June 30, 2026
Associated with Cultural Studies

Research interest: 20th-century Italian theatre and literature, literary studies, semiotics

Education

Ph.D. in Italian Studies, University of Toronto
“Laurea” in Lettere e filosofia, University of Rome La Sapienza

About

Donato Santeramo earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Rome, “La Sapienza” and his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. He is the Head of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Queen’s University and is cross appointed to the School of Drama and Music.  He is also associated with the Cultural Studies Graduate Program and holds an appointment at the Graduate School of the University of Rome II. He taught, from 2000 to 2013, at Middlebury College’s Summer School and at the Centre for the Study of Diaspora at the University of Calabria. He has published on Italian literature, theatre, film and Semiotics. His most recent publications are: M. Bertone, A. Nicaso and D. Santeramo, eds., Cahiers de narratologie, 36/2019 : Rhétorique et représentations de la culture mafieuse. Images, rituels, mythes et symboles, 2019; M. Gieri and D. Santeramo eds., XX-Century Italian Filmmakers, Universitalia 2019, 2 vols.); Il laboratorio teatrale pubblico di Edward Gordon Craig, (Sinestesie, 2018); Gavrilovich D., Pizza M. & Santeramo D. eds., Franca Rame: Una vita mille avventure, One Life: A Thousand Adventures, (Universitalia, 2017) and Capozzi, R, Nardi,F. Pietropaolo D. & Santeramo, D., Twentieth-Century Italian Playwrights, (Universitalia, 2016. 2 vols.). 

He has also translated and staged works of contemporary Italian playwrights and is on the Editorial Boards of several academic journals. He has also participated in several creative and artistic endeavors including the art exhibit Chromosomes (Rome 2008 and Lisbon 2009) and co-edited the book Red Cars – An Original Screenplay by David Cronenberg. In 2004 he was the recipient of the Queen’s Alumnae Teaching Award.

Teaching

Prof. Santeramo teaches the following courses:

LLCU 200: Semiotics
LLCU 214: Mafia Culture
LLCU 215: Dante
LLCU 257: Pirandello's Theatre 
LLCU 395: The Semiotics of the Arts

Research interests: Language teaching, cultural studies, gender studies, history of Spain; literature of the Spanish Golden Age; Peninsular Literature, Translation.

Education

Ph. D. in Cultural Studies, Queen’s University, 2015
M. A. in Spanish Language and Literature, University of Western, 1984
B. A. in French, Spanish, English, York University (Glendon College), 1981

About

Professor Rotermundt-de la Parra has been teaching all levels of Spanish at Queen’s since 1989. In her teaching, she fosters student learning through offering guidance and positive support. In addition to the goal of helping her students to communicate effectively in Spanish, she aims at exposing them to the richness and diversity of cultures in the Spanish-speaking world.

Her current research project centers on a Jungian analysis of Cervantes’ last novel, Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda. She is also working on an advanced grammar-through-translation textbook.

Teaching

Professor Rotermundt-de la Parra teaches the following courses:

SPAN 301: Gramática avanzada y composición I
SPAN 401: Advanced Grammar Through Translation I
SPAN 111: Beginning Spanish I
SPAN 112: Beginning Spanish II

Queen’s National Scholar

Research interests: Syntax, syntax-semantics, morpho-syntax, field methods; Algonquian, Scandinavian, Bantu

Education

Ph.D.  in Linguistics, University of Southern California, 1999.
B.A. (Joint Honours) in Swahili and Linguistics, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, 1985

About

As a graduate student at University of Southern California, Professor Reinholtz worked primarily on Danish, her mother tongue, and the larger group of Mainland Scandinavian languages. She took a special interest in Germanic ‘verb second’ which is the focus of her Doctoral Dissertation, Verb Second, Mood and Operator Licensing. She began to work on Cree when she came to Canada in 1993.

Professor Reinholtz’s primary research areas are syntax, morpho-syntax, and the syntax-semantics interface. Much of her research deals with quantifiers, the syntactic-semantic relations in which they participate, and the functional categories with which they are associated. Her current research deals with polarity items and indefinite pronouns. Other topic areas on which she has worked include hierarchical structure and so-called nonconfigurationality, discontinuous constituents, negation, question formation and clause-typing, focusing particles, and post-nominal demonstratives.

Teaching

Professor Reinholtz teaches following courses:

LING 100: Introduction to Linguistics
LING 330: Morphology
LING 340: Syntax
LING 415: Semantics
LING 475: Field Methods

Research interests: Enlightenment, Weimar Classicism, Fascism

Education

Ph. D. in German literature, University of Toronto, 1986
M. A. in German, King’s College, University of London, England, 1982
M.A. in Classics, St John’s College, Oxford, England, 1974

About

Professor Pugh teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on German language and literature and an undergraduate course on European fascism.

Professor Pugh is the author of Dialectic of Love: Platonism in Schiller's Aesthetics (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996) and Schiller’s Early Dramas: A Critical History. Series: Literary Criticism in Perspective. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000, as well as numerous articles on 18th century German literature, Weimar Classicism and Heinrich Heine.

Teaching

Professor Pugh teaches the following courses:
GRMN 419/LLCU 319: Roots of Fascism: Resistance to Liberalism in the 19th Century
GRMN 420/LLCU 320: Fascism in Europe: From Napoleon to Hitler
LLCU 205: Cultures of a Nation: Germany

Research and teaching interests: Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature and Music; Hispanic Avant-Garde Movements; and the Political Song in Latin America (1960-1990), particularly in Mexico.

Education

Ph.D., University of Toronto, 2013
M.A., McGill University, 2009
B.A., McGill University, 2007

About          

Claudio Palomares-Salas joined the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in 2014. He has taught Latin American and Spanish literature, culture, music, and cinema courses, as well as Spanish language and translation courses, at McGill University, the University of Toronto, Trent University and Queen’s. His research and teaching interests are Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature and Music; Hispanic Avant-Garde Movements; and the Political Song in Latin America (1960-1990), particularly in Mexico.

Books

Mexican Canto Nuevo: Music, Politics, and Resistance (Oxford University Press, 2025)

The Spatiality of the Hispanic Avant-Garde (Brill, 2020)

All publications

Publications: Claudio Palomares-Salas

Teaching 

LLCU 248: Introduction to Latin American Cultures
LLCU 205: Investigating Nations (Mexico)
LLCU 244: Hips don’t Lie? Music and Culture in Latin America
LLCU 249: Latin Lovers: Love, Sex and Popular Culture
LLCU 311: Hispanic, Latino, Latinx? Hispanic Cultures in the US and Canada
LLCU 395: Modern Latin American Fiction

Please contact Prof. Palomares-Salas for any inquiries about our Latin American Studies minor.

Research interests: Modern German and comparative literary studies, European literary relations, Translation studies, Narrative and narratology

Education

Doctor of Literature, Ireland, 1994
Ph. D. in German Language and Literature, Queen's University, 1972
M.A., Ireland, 1968

About

Professor O'Neill is author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on German, English, and comparative literature and on aspects of narrative theory and translation studies. His books include:

• Günter Grass: A Bibliography, 1955-1975 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976)
• German Literature in English Translation: A Select Bibliography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981)
• Ireland and Germany: A Study in Literary Relations (New York: Peter Lang, 1985)
• Critical Essays on Günter Grass, ed. (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1987)
• The Comedy of Entropy: Humour, Narrative, Reading (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990)
• Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994)
• Acts of Narrative: Textual Strategies in Modern German Fiction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996)
• Günter Grass Revisited (New York: Twayne; London: Prentice Hall, 1999)
• Polyglot Joyce: Fictions of Translation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005)
• Impossible Joyce: Finnegans Wakes (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013)
• Transforming Kafka: Translation Effects. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014)
• Trilingual Joyce: The Anna Livia Variations (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018)
• Finnegans Wakes: Tales of Translation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022).
• Anna Livia Plurilingual: Exploring a Joycean Macrotext. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2025. xxi + 199 pp.

Research interests: Calabrian mafia (known as 'ndrangheta), organized crime

About

Professor Antonio Nicaso is a bestselling author, and an internationally recognized expert on organized crime. He has published over 60 books focusing on the Mafia and Mafia-type criminal organizations, offering in-depth analysis of their structures, evolution, and global influence.

He regularly serves as a consultant to governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide, providing strategic insight into criminal networks and emerging threats. In addition to his extensive research on traditional organized crime, Professor Nicaso has significantly expanded his work into the study of the intersection between organized crime and artificial intelligence (AI), cybercrime, and social media. His recent research examines how criminal organizations exploit digital technologies, including the use of AI for fraud, data manipulation, and disinformation, as well as the role of social media platforms in recruitment, reputation-building, and illicit market expansion. He also analyzes the growing convergence between cybercriminal groups and traditional Mafia structures, highlighting new hybrid models of transnational crime.

Professor Nicaso is actively involved in academia and lectures at several institutions, including the Italian School of Middlebury College and the University of Naples.

He serves on the Advisory Board of the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security, is a member of the International Advisory Council of the Italian Institute of Strategic Studies Niccol Machiavelli and contributes to the Cybrec initiative of the Magna Grecia Foundation world-wide.

He is also the President of the Centro Scuola e Cultura, where he promotes cultural and educational initiatives within the Italian community in the Greater Toronto Area.

Teaching

LLCU 213: The Social History of Organized Crime in Canada
LLCU 214: Mafia Culture and the Power of Symbols, Rituals and Myth
 

Associated with Cultural Studies

Research interests: Jewish Latin American Literature, Latin American Women’s Literature, Latin American Film, Latin American Development, Indigenous Issues of Latin America and Politics of Minority Identities in Latin America.

Education

Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese, Stanford, 1993
A.M. in Spanish and Portuguese, Stanford, 1987
M.A. in Spanish, University of British Columbia, 1984
B.A. (Hons.) in French and Spanish, University of British Columbia, 1978

About

Professor Mennell is passionate about Latin American culture in all its manifestations, from music to art, film and literature. Her main interest is the issue of identity and minority cultures, especially in the Southern Cone region of Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay.

At the present time, she is finishing a manuscript on Argentine Jewish women novelists, and is beginning a new project on the marginalized indigenous cultures in Argentina and their struggles for recognition and preservation of their heritage.

Teaching

Professor Mennell teaches the following course(s):
 
LLCU 310: Jewish Latin America
SPAN 351: Panorama literario latinoaméricano I
SPAN 352: Panorama literario latinoaméricano II
SPAN 428/LLCU 328: Gender, Development and Film in Latin America
SPAN 302: Gramática avanzada y composición II
SPAN 354: Cultura femenina latinoamericana
SPAN 458: Cine latinoamericano

Research interests: Portuguese as a foreign/heritage/second language, Portuguese literature and culture; foreign/heritage/second language acquisition; Intercultural Communication; Cultural Studies; Diaspora Studies

Education

PhD Student in Cultural Studies - Queen’s University, 2021-2025
M.A. in Portuguese as a foreign/heritage/second language - University of Minho (Portugal), 2015
Licentiate Degree in Portuguese and English (Teaching) at the University of Minho (Portugal), 2001

About

My name is António Macedo and I am a teacher. I fell into it almost by accident and now I can’t imagine doing anything else. I joined the Languages, Literatures and Cultures Department in 2013, after holding Teaching Appointments in English and Portuguese at different educational institutions in Portugal.  After having extensive experience in teaching foreign language acquisition to people from all walks of life, diverse backgrounds, and distinct outlooks on the world, I am now more intent in examining culture and diaspora in all its manifestations.

In my language classes, music is an integral part of the classes, as I believe it to be the ultimate vehicle of cultural identification of a people. I believe that using a language is primarily for communication, so students should first and foremost be able to improve their practical language skills in the classroom by incrementing communicative competencies. I maintain individualized interaction with my students by tracking and monitoring them closely. In my culture lectures, I try to integrate all types of multimedia applications to illustrate the course content in a fun, but also effective way, which will, hopefully, resonate with the students. I advocate that the instructor is the guide who will gradually, but ultimately, lead the learner to actively seek self-advancement and awareness of what is being taught, and develop independent output and reflection from the proposed research on a path to self-improvement, growth and mindfulness in an attempt to gain perspective on the wonderful differences between cultures.

Teaching

Professor Macedo teaches the following course(s):

PORT 103: Beginning Portuguese and Culture I
PORT 104: Beginning Portuguese and Culture II
LLCU 111: Introduction to Cultures

Research interests: Spanish as a second language, Spanish and Spanish American literature, myths and legends of El Salvador, Central America, and music as a learning and teaching tool

Education

M. A. in Spanish, Queen’s University, 2000
B. A. in Agricultural Science, University of El Salvador, El Salvador, 1980

About

Professor Lizano held Teaching Appointments at different educational institutions in Canada and at the Bader International Studies Centre in UK. At Queen’s, he has been teaching Spanish courses since 1996 when he became a graduate student.

In his classes, he creates an active learning environment, in which he energetically engages students and makes the material more comprehensible. He aims to provide a student-centred environment to encourage class participation and student motivation. By using music in his classes he is fostering the development of oral communication skills, as well as phonological and phonemic awareness and overall fluency. Songs learned in the class also expand vocabulary, promote words and retell stories.

Professor Lizano strongly believes that through the study of Spanish, students gain a knowledge and understanding of the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world and that mastering of the language occurs only when the awareness of cultural contexts is achieved.  

A former student Elena Champagne in the article  “I Want to Give My Teacher … a GOLD STAR!” in The Kingston Whig - Standard (30 Mar. 2004) speaks about Professor Lizano's teaching style: “Max conceives of all sorts of fun activities, which allow us to participate and learn at the same time…and every student seems to walk out of Max’s class knowing much more than just Spanish. We now have an open mind and an understanding of different cultures.”

Teaching

Professor Lizano teaches the following course(s):

SPAN 111: Beginning Spanish I
SPAN 112: Beginning Spanish II
SPAN 204: Intermediate Spanish
SPAN 205: Advanced Spanish
SPAN 206: Spanish Conversation and Culture