A conversation with Juan Carlos Rodr guez reflects the School of Modern Language's distinctive applied language and intercultural studies approach to language learning. Rodr guez is particularly animated about the learning experiences he shared with students this summer while teaching Study Abroad classes in Argentina and Languages for Business and Technology (LBAT) courses in Spain.

Whether experiencing the stadium traditions, the chants, and national passion during a soccer game in Argentina, or exploring the Spanish civil war through cinema, a historical propaganda exhibit, or Picasso's massive painting, Guernica, Rodriguez found his students stimulated to exchange views about war, violence, art, and similarities and distinctions between their own culture and that of the country they were visiting.

"It is interesting, for example, to share with students the idea that we have to think of the history of the Americas in an integral way. Argentineans have some hostility to the United States; we supported a dictatorship and the imposition of damaging economic policies there. How do we build bridges in environments where there could be a claim for the wrong decisions we made in the past? As our students were engaged in these conversations, they became obliged to go back to history and think about it, respond to it. Based on my two study abroad experiences, I consider that our students are becoming creative global citizens with the capacity to go beyond the superficiality of self-compensatory apologies, with the will to create new ways of engaging with different societies in order to assume the challenges of the 21st century."

Originally from Puerto Rico, Rodr guez holds a PhD in literature from Duke University. He has taught Spanish at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras and at Rice University. Rodr guez brings to his teaching of Spanish perspectives from his research on cinema and documentary. In recent work, he has interviewed film directors who have created what Rodr guez calls "urban imaginaries" ""Latin American documentaries, such as Ignacio Ag ero's Aqu se construye, that capture the transformation of urban landscapes, city histories, or the way in which city dwellers imagine their relationships to a city.

In another project, Rodr guez is interviewing documentary filmmakers in Argentina, Chile, and Spain who have worked in post-dictatorship societies and documented the cultural manifestations of such transformations. The interviews will form the basis of a collection that captures elements of socio-political issues, culture, history, memories of cities, urban fear and crime, and environmental issues.