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Open access publications by faculty, postdocs, and graduate students in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures.
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Item An AI Solution: Using ChatGPT to Counter Plagiarism and Boost Enrollments in Hispanic Literature Courses(Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies, 2023-12-28) McInnis Dominguez, MeghanThis study presents an exploration into the application of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT 3.5 in the context of two Hispanic literature survey courses at the University of Delaware during the Spring 2023 semester. The introduction of ChatGPT into these learning environments aimed to address two key challenges in teaching Spanish and Latin American literature: falling enrollment rates and rising instances of plagiarism. ChatGPT’s role was two-pronged: it served as a component of in-class discussions and a resource for final papers. A total of twenty-one students participated in a follow-up survey designed to gauge their perceptions of ChatGPT as an innovative learning tool. The outcome revealed mixed, yet promising, responses to the use of AI technology in a literature classroom. The data suggest that the ongoing incorporation of cutting-edge tools like ChatGPT into literature courses holds the potential to captivate a diverse group of students and potentially increase enrollment. In addition, the data collected, along with the professor’s analysis of final papers, indicate that ChatGPT can be effective in curbing plagiarism. Responsible AI utilization is becoming increasingly vital in various job markets, and integrating such skills into curricula from STEM to Humanities is crucial for our students’ future career success. Este estudio presenta una exploración de la aplicación del chatbot de inteligencia artificial ChatGPT 3.5 en el contexto de dos cursos panorámicos de literatura hispana en la Universidad de Delaware durante el semestre de primavera de 2023. La introducción de ChatGPT en estos entornos de aprendizaje tenía como objetivo abordar dos desafíos clave en la enseñanza de la literatura española y latinoamericana: la caída de las tasas de inscripción y el aumento de los casos de plagio. El papel de ChatGPT fue doble: sirvió como componente de las discusiones en clase y como recurso para los trabajos finales. Un total de veintiún estudiantes participaron en una encuesta posterior diseñada para medir sus percepciones de ChatGPT como una herramienta de aprendizaje innovadora. El resultado reveló reacciones mixtas, pero prometedoras, ante el uso de la tecnología de IA en clases de literatura. Los datos sugieren que la incorporación de herramientas de vanguardia como ChatGPT en los cursos de literatura tiene el potencial de cautivar a un grupo diverso de estudiantes y aumentar potencialmente la inscripción. Además, los datos recopilados, junto con el análisis de los trabajos finales por parte de la profesora, indican que ChatGPT puede ser eficaz para controlar el plagio. El uso responsable de la IA se está volviendo cada vez más vital en varios mercados laborales y la integración de estas habilidades en los planes de estudio, desde STEM hasta Humanidades, es crucial para el futuro éxito profesional de nuestros estudiantes.Item Enhancing Hispanic Literature Courses with Large Language Models: The Power of AI Tools(Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies, 2024-06-29) McInnis Dominguez, MeghanMy current practice of incorporating AI tools into literature classes within the Latin American Studies branch provides versatile opportunities to develop engaging and meaningful exercises that inspire greater depth of creativity and critical thinking. AI tools allow students to take an active role in their learning and broaden their understanding of various literary traditions. Mi práctica actual de incorporar herramientas de IA en las clases de literatura dentro de la rama de Estudios Latinoamericanos brinda oportunidades versátiles para elaborar ejercicios atractivos y significativos que inspiran mayor profundidad en creatividad y pensamiento crítico. Las herramientas de IA permiten a los estudiantes asumir un papel activo en su aprendizaje y ampliar su comprensión de las diversas tradiciones literarias.Item Contemporary Values Encounter Classic Illustrations in Rebecca Solnit’s Cinderella Liberator (2019)(Forum for Modern Language Studies, 2023-01-09) Oancea, AnaRebecca Solnit’s retelling of ‘Cinderella’ in Cinderella Liberator (2019) transforms the fairy tale by infusing a slew of modern ideas into its ‘once upon a time’. Cinderella becomes an independent, active, empowered heroine not only freed from servitude, but able to liberate others in her community from oppression. While the rewriting targets the morals and values of traditional ‘Cinderella’ texts, it is anchored in a specific version of the tale. Cinderella Liberator reuses illustrations Arthur Rackham produced for a 1919 Cinderella gift book by C. S. Evans. This article analyses the interplay of text and image in Cinderella Liberator to establish how the particularities of the Evans/Rackham version inflect the adaptation’s wider discourse on the Cinderella narrative. It focuses on images correlated with the fairy tale’s reassessment of the value and significance of work, the separation of social classes and of external appearance as an indication of moral values.Item L2 processing of filled gaps: Non-native brain activity not modulated by proficiency and working memory(Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 2022-03-02) Dong, Zhiyin Renee; Han, Chao; Hestvik, Arild; Hermon, GabriellaThis paper investigates how late L2 learners resolve filler-gap dependencies (FGD) in real-time and how proficiency and working memory (WM) modulate their brain responses in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment. A group of intermediate to highly proficient Mandarin Chinese learners of English listened to sentences such as “The zebra that the hippo kissed *the camel on the nose ran far away,” in which the extra noun phrase “the camel” created a ‘filled-gap’ effect. The results show that although L2 behavioral responses are comparable to native speakers and are positively correlated with proficiency and WM span, the brain responses to the filled gap are qualitatively different. Importantly, L2 processing patterns did not become more nativelike with higher proficiency levels or greater WM capacity. Specifically, while the native speakers exhibited a P600 typically observed for syntactic violations and repair, the L2 group produced a prefrontal-central positivity. Similar ERPs have previously been reported to reflect domain-general attentional and non-structural-based processes, suggesting that the L2 group has a reduced sensitivity to structural requirements for gap positing in the online resolution of FGDs. Our findings are discussed in light of various proposals accounting for L1-L2 processing differences, including the Shallow Structure Hypothesis.Item ‘Fake News’ in Seventeenth-Century France: The Case of Le Mercure galant(Past & Present, 2022-10-31) Steinberger, DeborahLe Mercure galant, one of France’s first newspapers, is notable for its diverse content: politics and foreign affairs, court news, science and medicine, the arts and literature. Directed by Jean Donneau de Visé from its inception in 1672 until his death in 1710, this influential and innovative monthly publication circulated throughout France and beyond its borders. The Mercure’s tendency to blur the lines between truth and fiction, between history and propaganda, and between information and entertainment, makes it an instructive case study in early modern ‘fake news’. Donneau de Visé, a self-styled royal historiographer and the beneficiary of a generous royal pension, dedicated his periodical to the Dauphin and published abundant praise of Louis XIV. The Mercure’s news reporting included distortions and propaganda intended to bolster and further entrench the king’s foreign and domestic policies. The Mercure’s nouvelles, short stories presented as true recent events, constituted another type of ‘fake news’, one that often had a different effect, inviting the re-examination of social norms. The nouvelles appealed to the Mercure’s sizeable community of women readers by accentuating female agency and providing a vehicle for the exploration of scenarios of female empowerment.Item The Mom Thriller: Motherhood on the Edge(The Journal of Popular Culture, 2022-08-18) Schmidt-Cruz, Cynthia“A New Crop of Mom Thrillers Taps Into Our Worst Fears” proclaims an essay by Jen Gann published in February 2018. While trolling for information about crime fiction from the mother’s perspective, Gann’s captivating essay about motherhood-themed thrillers sent this researcher on a quest for more examples of this seemingly new subgenre. The sleuthing paid off, yielding a rich and varied trove of “mom thrillers,” most published in recent years. Despite the growing popularity of the genre, a search for a definition or critical discussion of the “mom thriller” came up empty. In the hopes of beginning to fill this gap in scholarship, this article examines the image of contemporary motherhood projected by this intriguing subgenre, considering how it employs and disrupts generic conventions to deliver its message.Item Sharon T. Strocchia, Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy (I Tatti Studies in Renaissance History)(Social History of Medicine, 2021-09-06) Ray, Meredith K.Sharon Strocchia’s illuminating study of female health practitioners promises an ‘integrative, gendered approach’ to healthcare practices in early modern Italy. Though Strocchia’s goal is to study women and healthcare ‘through the prism of class,’ she ends up doing so much more than this, taking us into the gendered and (from the perspective of the history of medicine) understudied spaces of court, convent, and hospital, revealing the myriad ways in which women healers operated within the broader medical economy. Women’s engagement with medical knowledge—from herbals and books of secrets to laboratory experiments and apothecary activities—has been the subject of increasing attention by scholars over the past years. Strocchia’s book builds on such studies to delve further into medical praxis and the production of knowledge by female care providers in sixteenth-century Italy, a period marked by both cultural richness and the ‘social unraveling’ caused by war and disease.