Third Annual Spanish MA Conference Connects Students Across the World

On Saturday, February 7, 2026, Spanish MA students welcomed attendees to their third annual graduate conference. The conference, Arconexiones, was held online in order to facilitate maximum attendance and access. ISU's Spanish MA students live all over the country, and yet they work collaboratively over the course of many months to plan and hold this event that has become a tradition in the program. This year, the conference was pleased to include presentations from not only students in the Spanish MA program itself, but also from alumni, students in other departments at ISU, and graduate students and professionals from other universities across the country and world. Some presenters attended from Mexico, Spain, and a group of students from Ecuador shared their research on Ecuadorian literature, cultural production and pedagogy.

This year's conference was organized around the theme of "Tejiendo resiliencia. Literatura y cultura en tiempos de crisis" or, "Weaving resilience. Literature and culture in times of crisis."

Presenters creatively addressed this prompt, speaking on topics as varied as the anthropocene and ecological crisis, feminist voices of resistance in poetry, the power of memory to recover agency and reevaluate the present, and the importance of addressing the unique challenges facing heritage speakers in the language classroom.

Spanish MA program Director, Dr. Marin Laufenberg noted of the conference theme, "El comité que eligió el tema de este año quería hacer hincapié en "tejer" como verbo ya que es un acto, un hacer, un performance a veces-pero también subraya la creación humana, las artes manuales, y, sobre todo-resalta la capacidad humana de crear puentes y lazos entre nosotros." (The committee that chose this year's theme wanted to emphasize "weaving" as a verb, since it is an action, a doing, a performance at times-but it also underscores human creation, manual arts, and, above all, highlights the human capacity to build bridges and connections between us.)

Conference attendees enjoyed two keynote talks bookending the day's events. First, Dr. Heidi Backed, professor of Spanish at Missouri State University discussed her work on Spanish Gothic fiction as a conduit to revealing the persistence of fascism's influence in Spain. Touching on literary examples of ghosts, hauntings, silences, isolation, and connecting these to real life mass graves, and rural depopulation, Dr. Backes painted a lucid picture of the importance of this rhetoric in contemporary Spain, always tied closely to the Francoist recent past. Dr. Backes reminds us,"The Gothic, with its focus on repression and the unspeakable is inherently intertwined with concepts of trauma and memory."

Later in the day, Dr. Jason A. Kemp, assessment researcher for University of Wisconsin-Madison's WIDA consortium talked about what care means in the language classroom, especially regarding how instructors can understand the importance of caring when it comes to heritage speakers and Latinx students. Dr. Kemp observed about "resilience" that it is both a quality needed to undergo times of struggle and crisis as well as a tool with which we emerge after such chaotic times. He continued reflecting, "Fighting for change is worth our time. Putting in the effort for change, [especially thinking of] language education and education for marginalized students, is always worth the fight," encouraging the current and future educators in attendance to consider how they could bring care into their classrooms, empowering students and promoting confidence. The keynote messages were timely and led to productive conversations throughout the day, framing the conference perfectly.

Arconexiones was supported in part by IATLC (Idaho Association of Teachers of Languages and Cultures) in 2026 and former association president, Omar Ponce, joined the conference at midday to talk about the initiatives IATLC undertakes in Idaho and beyond to support language educators and language education.

Over 60 people registered for the annual conference this year, with more than 30 people attending each keynote talk. The conference has grown and is pleased to be a platform for important conversations and research related to Hispanic and Latinx culture and literature for ISU students, faculty, and staff, as well as colleagues around the country and world.

Visit the conference website for more information.