AMG 2026

My poster goes over the Exploding Hammer Festival in San Juan de la Vega. In my poster, I discuss what the Exploding Hammer Festival actually is and what all is a part of the festival. I also discuss the history of the festival and the cultural significance of it. Through the poster, I hope to educate people about a fairly niche but very interesting aspect of Mexican culture. A few key points hit on are the actual exploding hammer aspect of the festival, the reason the locals celebrate the festival, and the governmental response to the festival.

Music is an essential part of Spanish festivals and creates a lively atmosphere. Traditional styles like flamenco include strong rhythms, clapping, and singing. Music and dance bring people together during Spanish fiestas.

Studying traditional dances can give us insight into the practices and values of world cultures. This presentation focuses on three different types of dances from Mexico, Aragon, and Puerto Rico. The Quebradita, Jota, and Plena/ Bomba; respectively. For each dance, we researched the traditional and cultural values; dress expectations; movements; and how they have evolved over time. This study of dances shows us how different cultures can contribute to distinct and lasting pieces of cultural expression. By comparing their origins, musical influences, and social contexts, we highlight the similarities and differences that shape each form. We also examine how migration, globalization, and community celebrations have preserved these dances while allowing creative adaptation for modern audiences. Together, these perspectives demonstrate dance as a living record of identity and heritage across generations and geographic boundaries worldwide.

My presentation is about some of the most popular desserts/sweets from Latin countries. I chose this topic because I love to bake, and, of course, eat! What better way to familiarize oneself with cultures and their people than to create the food that is so loved and so prominent in those communities? Throughout the course of this poster, we will explore the most popular treat from some of the most populated Spanish speaking countries, including Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Spain, and Brazil. Readers will begin to see the similarities and differences in cultures, traditions, and ingredients. I hope to inspire the creation of these desserts in more homes.

My poster explores the evolutionary process of how the Italian language developed from Latin into its modern standardized form. I chose this topic because, as someone who is bilingual and hopes to join the men and women of Oklahoma in the study of medicine, I believe language is a vital part of culture and communication that should be shared with everyone, not divided. When I decided to take this course and work toward becoming trilingual, I wanted to break language barriers and better understand how languages evolve over time. This presentation will talk about how Latin spread across the Roman Empire and how the everyday spoken version slowly changed into early Italian through sound and grammar shifts. It also explains how Tuscan writers, especially Dante, helped shape a literary style that later became Italy’s national language. By looking at these stages, the poster shows how institutions, literature, and education all played a part in shaping Italian over time. The audience will learn that Italian didn’t just appear suddenly but developed little by little, showing how language and history are closely connected.

Hispanic music blends Indigenous, African, and European traditions. This poster examines the development and spread of Hispanic music.

There are so many varieties of festivals and once you have an idea of the culture and history of a language you want to learn, I believe that allows you to be able to understand that language much better! Festivals are an important component to forming connections with someone no matter where they are from. This poster expounds on Hispanic traditions. It is important to understand the difference between culture and history. One will need the knowledge of both of these to fully succeed in their journey to learning a new language.

My presentation is about Rosca de Reyes, or Three King’s Day, as celebrated in many Spanish-speaking cultures. I chose this topic because it reminds me of my Spanish classes in high school; we would always celebrate this holiday in class, and the cake was so delicious. In my poster, I explain what the tradition is, how Spanish-speaking cultures celebrate it, and the true meaning behind this annual tradition. This includes the day that it is celebrated and how the children put out their shoes filled with hay for the kings to place presents by. This tradition brings loved ones close together to remember the day when the Three Kings saw Jesus for the first time. Through this poster, readers will learn what Rosca de Reyes is made of, how the children were involved, and the story behind the tradition. Through this project, I have learned how Spanish-speaking cultures celebrate Christmas and what Three King’s Day means to them.

My poster is about the culture surrounding Italian cuisine and the concept of la dolce vita. I chose this topic because I am interested in how Italian cuisine is shaped by “the sweet life”. In my poster I explain how Italian cuisine is diverse and pulls from many different cultures. I also talk about how the Italian creed of la dolce vita affects the Italian attitude towards meals and cuisine. Through this poster, people will learn about Italian culture and cuisine.

Our presentation is about Latin’s influence on Spanish. We chose this topic because we are interested in law, and Latin is commonly used in various phrases. Additionally, we are interested in Spanish, which stems from Vulgar Latin. We will explain the history between Latin and Spanish, commonalities between them, and mention other languages which have a similar relationship to Latin and Spanish. Through this presentation, readers will learn about the romance language of Spanish and how it grew from Vulgar Latin. Readers will be provided with a condensed history of Latin, background information on the history of Spanish, and a comparison chart. This project helped us learn more about the history of Spanish and its relationship with Latin. We look forward to learning more about both languages and their histories as they will help us in our future careers.

Through this poster, I show how differences in culture and daily habits affect health and well-being in Italy and the United States. My piece focuses on the variations in schedule, transportation, food culture, and social patterns. By comparing the social factors, my poster emphasizes physical activity, diet, and civil interactions. I chose this topic because I learned about American tourists coming back from their Italian vacation feeling healthier or lighter even though they consumed heavier. That made me question why that is. Learning and writing about these lifestyle differences demonstrates how different environments shape health and well-being.

This is a project to teach people about the history and culture of Latin music and show how music is different in different parts of Latin America.

My poster, Natural Beauty vs. Trend Culture: Italy and the US, focuses on the differences between beauty standards in Italy and the United States. Beauty culture says a lot about a country’s values and everyday lifestyle. In my poster, I compare clothing choices, hairstyles, and makeup trends in both countries. My research shows that Italian beauty is usually centered on natural looks, timeless fashion, and simple makeup that enhances a person’s features. In contrast, beauty trends in the United States change quickly and are often influenced by social media, celebrities, and fast fashion. Through this poster, readers will learn how culture and media shape beauty ideals in each country and why these differences matter when thinking about self-expression and identity.

Semana Santa, also known as Holy Week, is one of the most significant religious and cultural celebrations in Spain. This poster explores the historical background of Semana Santa, tracing its origins to the Middle Ages and examining the role of Catholic brotherhoods and the Church in shaping the week-long observance. It highlights the key days leading up to Easter Sunday like Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. It explains the religious significance of each day and its importance within the celebration. The poster also discusses the traditions and symbols associated with Semana Santa, including robes and hoods, crosses, processional floats, banners, and traditional foods consumed during the week. In addition, it examines the cultural and religious importance of Holy Week to the Spanish people and their Christian faith. This topic is personally meaningful, as it allows for a comparison of how different cultures celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and how each day of Holy Week carries unique meanings and traditions that contribute to the observance of this Christian holiday.

My poster presentation is about Semana Santa traditions around the world. I chose this topic because I love learning more about how other cultures celebrate a faith that I share with them. In my poster, I will introduce holy week and its history, then I will write about traditions specific to different countries, Spain, Mexico, and Guatemala. In this poster, readers will learn about Semana Santa as well as more specific traditions. This project helped me learn more about Spanish speaking countries and traditions.

The poster covers wildlife native to Italy and how it compares to similar species in the United States. The Italian species I focus on are the Italian wolf, the Marsican Brown Bear, and the Bonelli’s Eagle. The species from the United States I compare them to are the Grey Wolf, the American Brown Bear, and the Golden Eagle. I have a special focus on the wolf as they are historically important to Italy and are currently facing many of the same problems as the Grey Wolf here in the U.S. Gaining knowledge of native species is important as it helps raise awareness of issues they face and can even help in understanding of other cultures.

My topic explains how science and engineering created the functional city of Venice, the “Sinking City”. I chose this because I was interested in learning about it myself. I’ve always wondered why people took the time to drive millions of stakes into the ground to build a city that appears to float on the water. Was it a whimsical idea, or did they need a city in that specific area for some reason? Why are there not more cities or towns that resemble the architecture/engineering of Venice? I present a summary of the engineering, how Venice is able to “sit” on top of water, and what functional purposes it serves. The readers of my poster will learn about how the engineering of Venice affects its citizens today, and whether it serves as an important landmark (such as for trade).

I will present three authors: Miguel de Cervantes, Rosa Montero, and Garcia Marquez. The poster includes a paragraph for each author with their own backstory, impact/ contribution to literature and relevant information regarding their efforts as writers. The poster also includes imagery that is relevant to the authors.

The term “Humanities” derives from the Renaissance course of studia humanitatis, consisting of grammar, literature, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy. Essentially, they are the language arts, the tools with which we tell our story. In short order, this course of study precipitated a world revolution, the Reformation, which showed that the Humanities are not just a matter of the mind that might be easily expanded with budgetary or other inconvenience: ideas, narratives, and communication create our worlds, they impact, shape, and have reality. Precisely here, in the interface between the real of the impact and the reflection of the instruction, pedagogies for teaching and learning world languages are also the most effective. My poster presentation highlights several strategies in which this pedagogy can be used not only to achieve superior learning results and create interest in world languages, but also to reach beyond academia into real-life contexts, where the stories we tell matter. These strategies include the creation of micro-courses that place emphasis on hands-on learning and community outreach; the creation of extra-curricular programs that invite the larger community to partake in the cultural and social discourse facilitated by academic learning; and finally, they comprise learning strategies with real-life community and career-building outcomes. In introducing these strategies, this presentation also outlines successful programs at Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at the University of Oklahoma.

This pedagogical paper explores the intersection of language, creative writing, and the study of history. I examine four different assignments from a sequence of upper division French courses at the University of Central Oklahoma that explore culture, history, and literature from prehistory through the 19th century. Among the learning objectives for these courses are: Express an understanding of the history of France from cultural, social, geographical, political, institutional, intellectual, and artistic points of view; Demonstrate French-language ability to discuss literature and social history of France (through discussion-leading, class participation, and writing assignments). In each class, a creative writing prompt is assigned to further students’ language skills while engaging with history on a personal level to demonstrate their understanding of the material. First, I explain the assignment, their learning objectives, and the grading criteria in the form of my rubrics. Then, I share examples of students’ creative work, emphasizing both the linguistic challenges and how they connected to the historical material presented in the class.

My presentation is about my experience attending Milwaukee German Immersion School for elementary school. I explain the main differences between an immersion school and a standard school. I talk about the benefits of language immersion at a young age and how this experience allowed me to learn a second language more easily than if I had tried to learn it later in life. In addition, I explain the cultural differences that I was exposed to in my immersion school and how that allowed me to broaden my understanding of the world. Overall, I will share how my experience going to an immersion school has impacted me, even in college.

The Al Harris Library received a generous donation of the archive of deceased astronaut General Thomas P. Stafford. This continually expanding collection now includes more than 200 boxes containing NASA reports, professional and personal photographs, videos, and other materials. Among the highlights are approximately 700 books used by Stafford and his co-author, Michael Cassutt, for research while writing "We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Race" (2002). About half of these volumes focus on the Soviet-era Russian, or USSR, space program. Cassutt has described this as the most comprehensive collection on the Soviet space program, with roughly half of the books written in Russian.

This program will explore the challenges of cataloging materials in a language unfamiliar to the catalogers and the creative solutions developed to ensure accuracy. Speakers will include Katherine Loving, Collection Management and Technical Services Librarian, and Phillip Fitzsimmons, University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, will discuss the contents of the Stafford Collection and provide an overview of the General Thomas P. Stafford Archives housed at the Al Harris Library on the Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) campus.

The lack of an official language in the U.S. Constitution has not prevented many states in the United States, including Oklahoma, from enacting language legislation establishing English as the official language. Yet, the constitution of Hawaii (1978) declares both English and Hawaiian as official languages of Hawaii; and the constitutions of Louisiana (1974) and New Mexico (1912) do not mention any official languages, but they enact provisions to protect the language rights of minorities living in the state: Spanish and French in Louisiana and Spanish in New Mexico. This paper offers a classification and analysis of the constitutions, organic acts, and statutes of territories of the United States (Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa) and the Freely Associated States (the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau), based on the kinds of language recognition they include. The analysis, which captures the essence of their language legislation, is based on the status (official or not official) of languages spoken in the territory or associated state, as declared in their constitutions, organic acts, statutes, and legal provisions written to protect the language rights of the citizens living there. Unlike many states in the United States which declare English as the sole official language, none of the territories and associated states declares English as the sole official language or establishes provisos that hinder the language rights of minority groups.

Puerto Rican playwright Ramón Méndez Quiñones’ (1847-1889) ¡Pobre Sinda! (1884) captivates the audience with its depiction of the “época de la odiosa esclavitud” in this play that remained unpublished until 1991 and has never been staged. Puerto Rico officially entered the sugar industry and the slave trade as a response to the decrease in production of sugar due to the Haitian Revolution (1794-1804). Slave trading ended by 1840 prompting discussions of alternative forms of labor. The significance of Méndez Quiñones’ work does not reside in the literary merits alone but, rather, as a document that provides a glimpse into the slave regime on the island. Equally important to bear in mind that texts that contain the thematic representation of slavery are scarce in nineteenth century Puerto Rican literature. Faced with the dearth of critical attention, the purpose of this presentation is to examine this play and argue that it belongs among the rich Caribbean anti-establishment literary mode that is representative of 19th century cultural production. In this view, the translation will provide a more accurate comprehension of that historical time period and racial attitudes on the sugar plantations on the island.

Fictional narratives allow authors to frame issues in ways that allow readers to learn about issues that affect migrant people. This method of drawing attention to social issues can be less abrasive and combative than presenting said issues in a purely educational context. Given the increasing hostile attitudes in the United States toward migrant people, it’s important to look for ways that the migrant perspective can be better understood. People form their opinions and beliefs based on fictional depictions and real facts, so narratives can have tangible effects on the ways in which individuals treat real migrants. The adolescent and infant point-of-view can especially present issues from an unbiased perspective due to the perceived innocence of the child narrator. The film Los Lobos (dir. Samuel Kishi, 2019), Antonio Skármeta’s novel No Pasó Nada, and Carlos Fuentes’s short story “La Pena” were used as examples of narrators in the adult and child perspectives. All perspectives provide scaling degrees of being able to teach and present migrant issues to spectators. Notably, the infant perspective can serve as a starting point but can’t teach readers/spectators much. The adult perspective can teach by itself but can tend to be more combative and alienating. This paper proposes that the best point-of-view allows readers/spectators to be able to process representations of migrant issues while also leaving them open to learning more, all in accordance with audience needs and educator purposes.

This presentation examines how climbing pedagogy uses technical language as a fear management tool, creating a discourse of productive failure that builds transferable resilience. Drawing from personal coaching experience and neuroscience principles, I argue that effective climbing instruction speaks directly to the amygdala through concrete, embodied metaphors rather than abstract encouragement. When coaching new climbers, I employ specific linguistic strategies: "Act like you have the last penny in America between your butt-cheeks" (proprioceptive anchoring), "It's just a wonky ladder" (demystification), "Let's program this move into your brain" (neuroplasticity framing). These technical instructions give the fear response actionable information rather than platitudes. My backwards problem-solving method—isolating scary sections, letting climbers hang in "dangerous" positions until the body learns they're survivable—rewires the threat response through controlled exposure. Climbing is 90% failing. Elite climbers like Emily Harrington, who fell dramatically on El Capitan before successfully summitting in under a day, exemplify the year-long failure cycles that characterize the sport. The climbing gym functions as a laboratory for productive failure: consequences are known, attempts are repeatable, and success requires reframing failure as data. I've worked on the same kilter board problem for 2.5 years, and my relationship to that persistent failure has fundamentally shifted from frustration to engagement. Informal research with gym climbers reveals unanimous agreement that climbing-developed confidence transfers beyond the wall. This presentation explores how discipline-specific language shapes not just physical technique but psychological resilience, offering insights into how communities teach courage through controlled risk.

Narrative-based learning is a pedagogical approach that employs stories as a means for learning. The main goal of narrative-based learning is to encourage students to use their imagination and curiosity and help them connect the stories to their own experiences, interests and beliefs. Narrative-based learning, or storytelling, can be a useful approach in the teaching and learning of world languages and cultures. In my presentation, I discuss the main reasons for using story-based teaching and learning and its key pedagogical benefits. I focus on how stories can provide cultural awareness by introducing and educating about different cultures and perspectives as well as promoting the development of empathy and emotional resonance. I share several types of story-based approaches, such as digital storytelling, narrative scenarios, anecdotes and parables and personal stories and I will provide specific examples for how to incorporate these stories to the world language and culture courses, both in a traditional classroom setting and in short-term study abroad contexts.

As an active singer and performer, I will be speaking about the experience of expressing my Mexican culture through music. I will focus on topics related to musical elements, specifically where they can be found (such as at parties, traditional festivals, etc.), and the different types of genres within Mexican music. As part of this presentation, I will also discuss how my own cultural experience intertwines with all the musical elements mentioned.

Italian art offers an ideal interdisciplinary framework for language acquisition. By combining visual literacy with linguistic development, this course fosters advanced communication skills, cultural competence, and intellectual engagement. The integration of art into language study creates a dynamic, immersive learning experience that reflects authentic Italian cultural expression.

In the field of theatre history, the dramatic arts are often thought of through the lens of the written text. Without a script (or description thereof), we have little indication of the details of any theatrical experience. Yet, within that theatrical experience, the language of physicality tends to be paramount. The message of any well-conceived production should be readily available to any audience member, regardless of the language they speak. This presentation would explore the various ways throughout history where the language of the body is formalized into practical dramatic practice, with investigations into classical Greek, Sanskrit and Japanese theatre, as well as ways in which contemporary theatre artists are communicating through a physical vocabulary.

Italy has long been a destination for British and American travelers. It was an obligatory stop on the Grand Tour for eighteenth century aristocratic youth and became one of the prime destinations for the early packaged travel tours of the American and British middle-class. Italy was the inspiration for the romantic writers of the early nineteenth century; American pilgrims in Italy were the target of Mark Twain’s sharp wit by mid-century; and Italy was the dramatic backdrop for E.M. Forster’s British expats by the turn of the century. At the interdisciplinary intersection of literature, language, and history, this paper looks at the impact that Anglo-American travel literature has had and how American tourists and students alike have experienced Italy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It argues that this literary genre serves as a powerful interpretive lens to this day by shaping (and misshaping) direct American travel encounters with Italian language, culture, and society. As such, it speaks to the power of literature in informing our lived realities and in framing our direct experiences with other peoples and culture. The paper concludes with a discussion of my own student study abroad experiences in Italy in which students follow in the footsteps of past literary giants and add their own new pages to the storied genre.

In this presentation, I share my experience of twice leading a short-term Study Abroad class in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The class itself was a team-taught class focusing on both biology and cultural studies. I explain how the class was organized and also discuss the many different activities we experienced while in Argentina. As part of this class we also visited Iguazú Falls, located in the very northern part of the country. I have led this class twice, once in January 2025 and then again in January 2026.