Alumni Visits

KU Alumnus Emmanuel Dalavai joined us for lunch and a talk on Thursday, April 17, 2008. Discussion included his company, EVD Enterprises, multicultural literacy, and the impact of foreign language education.

Passionate about cultural awareness and improving the multicultural literacy quotient of his clients, Emmanuel (Vittorio) Dalavai teaches people from around the world to understand each other better. He has lived in London, Paris, Geneva, Lyon, and Hyderabad, and has traveled extensively for work and pleasure. Emmanuel’s corporate career began in technical sales with Southwestern Bell/SBC/AT&T.  From that position he was promoted to risk analyst and finally business analyst before leaving the company to devote himself to training and education. As a world ambassador, his goal is to promote the positive aspects of increased cultural awareness, to bridge the cultural divide among various people groups, and to deliver cross-cultural and global language solutions to companies worldwide.  His corporate clients include Marriott International, Peerless Manufacturing, Radio Shack and NASA. In addition to working with big business, Emmanuel lectures on global commerce and cross-cultural communication at the University of Kansas and University of Dallas.  He also works with MBA students at Texas Christian University.  Keen to expose young adults to new experiences, he facilitates international business study tours in conjunction with Envision EMI, LLC.  He has taken students to China, Australia, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, and Venice. Emmanuel received his Bachelor of Arts degrees in both chemistry and French from the University of Kansas.  He earned his MBA from Texas Christian University and the University of Dallas.  He holds a certificate in telecommunications management from the University of Dallas and a degree in project management from Stanford University and is a Stanford-Certified Project Manager (SCPM). He is fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, and Telugu.

 

Guest Lecturers for Spring 2008 Laurence M. Porter
Laurence M. Porter is Professor Emeritus of French at Michigan State University.  His lecture is entitled "The Paradoxes of Fictional Un-creations: Erasing the Protagonist in Modern Literature."

Laurence M. Porter lecture: Thursday, April 3, 2008 4:00-5:30 PM, English Room, Kansas Union Lecture will be followed by a reception.

 

Guest Lecturers for Fall 2007

Barbara C. Bowen

Barbara C. Bowen is Professor Emerita of French at Vanderbilt University.  Her lecture is entitled Renaissance Wit: Verbal, Visual, Edible

Barbara C. Bowen lecture: Tuesday, October 2, 2007 3:30-5:00 PM, Hall Center for the Humanities Conference Hall Lecture will be followed by a reception. In a university career spanning nearly 40 years, Dr. Bowen taught most of the undergraduate French language courses in her department, as well as literature surveys, the literature of the Renaissance, and the 20th-century comic book. On the graduate level, she taught research methodology, history of the French language, and Rabelais and Montaigne. She also taught Humanities and Comparative Literature courses when opportunity offered, and once (when the department was really desperate) taught Italian 101. Her research specialty is the French Renaissance, but like most Renaissance enthusiasts she has branched out into Neo-Latin, Italian, German, intellectual history and art history. Her research topics have included comic theater, Renaissance jokes (facetiae), emblems, scatological rhetoric, Rabelais, Montaigne, numerous other 16th-century writers, and pictorial versions of the goddess Venus with her shell. Of her five major books, she prefers the two most recent, Enter Rabelais, Laughing (1998), and Humour and Humanism (2004), an anthology of her articles.  She has edited French farces, Renaissance jokes, two homage volumes and one collection of conference proceedings. Barbara C. Bowen is hosted in association with the Hall Center for the Humanities Early Modern Seminar Series.