Modern Languages Commons^™

Ancient Surgeons: A Characterization Of Mesopotamian Surgical Practices, Alison J. White, Jason Herbeck, Joann Scurlock, John Mayberry

World Languages Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: The Ancient Mesopotamian civilization, the earliest known, emerged in the fourth millennium BCE. While the advent of medicine is established, there is little understanding of surgery's origins. We sought to describe the characteristics and medical acumen of the surgeons of the first civilization.

Methods: Source documents and commentary on Mesopotamian medicine were systematically analyzed for evidence of surgery and physician descriptions.

Results: Early tablets reveal evidence of the incisional drainage of a scalp abscess and empyema, advanced wound care, fracture alignment, and possible caesarians without evidence of wound suturing, emergency procedures, trephination, or circumcision. While the asû and āšipu …

Us Central American Identities In Roberto Quesada’S Big Banana And Nunca Entres Por Miami, Adrian Taylor Kane

World Languages Faculty Publications and Presentations

Following several calls in recent scholarship for increased attention to the study of the Central American diaspora in the United States, this article offers readings of Honduran-born author Roberto Quesada’s novels Big Banana (1999) and Nunca entres por Miami (2003). Written in New York City, where he has resided since 1989, Big Banana highlights issues of Central American identity, migration, and immigrant experiences. Published four years later, Nunca entres por Miami continues to engage with these important topics. My readings of Quesada’s novels focus on the ways in which they construct cultural memory and identity by providing critical historical context …

Basque Studies At Boise State University, Ziortza Gandarias Beldarrain, Nere Lete

World Languages Faculty Publications and Presentations

Boise, the capital of Idaho that we Basques feel so close to and our own despite being far from the Basque Country, is a twinned city with Gernika-Lumo, known to us as the "eighth Basque province". Today, 12-15,000 people of Basque origin live in the state of Idaho. It can be unanimously said that the history of Boise and the history of the Basque diaspora have gone hand in hand since the discovery of gold in the American River in California in 1849. The first Basques arrived in Idaho in 1890, when silver was discovered in De Lamar and Silver …

Lost In Adaptation:The Silencing Of The French Female Concierge, Mariah Devereux Herbeck

World Languages Faculty Publications and Presentations

Fictional representations of the female concierge frequently underscore her negative attributes, above all her meddlesome discourse. The female concierge character in Georges Simenon's 1933 novel, Les fiançailles de M. Hire, however, provides an exception to the rule as local law authorities give credence to her word and base their investigation on her testimony. However, in two filmic adaptations of the novel—Duvivier's Panique (1946) and Patrice Leconte's Monsieur Hire (1989)—the female concierge character is practically absent. This article demonstrates how, from page to screen, the concierge's role is dissected, disembodied, and displaced in Duvivier's and Leconte's films, and finally reflects …