Anel Brandl (Ph.D., Florida State University) is a teaching professor of Spanish and linguistics and the assistant director of the Spanish basic language program. Her work centers on Spanish bilingualism, with a focus on language maintenance through instruction, as well as language acquisition and processing in Spanish L2 and bilingual speakers. She developed FSU’s Spanish Heritage Program and designed new courses for bilingual learners, including Spanish for Specific Purposes.
Professor Enrique Álvarez is an associate professor of Spanish. He received his Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a specialist in 20th century Spanish poetry. His new line of research explores the relationship between emotion and masculinity in 20th century Spanish culture.
Spanish peninsular literary and cultural studies
Gay and lesbian studies and critical theory
Transatlantic Hispanic cultures
Critical Theory (FOW 5025)
Courtesy associate professor of English
Lisa Ryoko Wakamiya (Ph.D., Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of California, Los Angeles) is an associate professor of Slavic in the department and a courtesy associate professor of English. She is the coordinator and graduate adviser for the Slavic Program.
Hellenic Research Fellow, Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection, California State University, Sacramento, Summer 2025
Ukrainian Studies Fund Research Fellow, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, Fall 2018
Robert Romanchuk (Ph.D., Slavic languages and literatures, University of California, Los Angeles) is the Pribic Family Associate Professor of Slavic in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. His fields are philology, oral tradition, psychoanalysis, and philosophy.
Junko Brudenell has been teaching Japanese language courses at Florida State University since 2012, ranging from basic to advanced levels, and she currently serves as the supervisor of Japanese teaching assistants.
Second language acquisition
Teaching Japanese as a foreign language
Business Japanese I
Advanced Japanese B
Advanced Japanese C
Japanese Conversation
Elementary Japanese I
Elementary Japanese II
Writing and Reading Japanese
Irene Zanini-Cordi (Laurea in Lingue e Letterature Moderne, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia; Ph.D. in Italian Studies, UC Berkeley) specializes in Renaissance, 18th and 19th-century, and contemporary Italian literature with emphasis on critical theory and women’s writing.
Silvia Valisa is an associate professor of Italian studies. She holds a laurea in lettere moderne from the Università di Pavia, Italy, a D.E.A in French literature from the Sorbonne Nouvelle, France, and a Ph.D. in Italian studies from the University of California, Berkeley (2007). She was a post-doctoral scholar at Brown University, RI (Cogut Center for the Humanities, 2009) and has held a research fellowship from the Newberry Library, Chicago (2017). In 2019-2020 she was part of the inaugural class of faculty fellows of FSU’s Demos Institute for Humanities Data at FSU.
Katy Prantil is an instructor of Italian and the director of the Italian Basic Language Program. She holds a Ph.D. in Italian (Romance linguistics and philology) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (2017). She specializes in historical Italo-Romance linguistics and dialectology.
Italo-Romance morphosyntax
Socio-historical aspects of language change
Historical phonology in Romance varieties
Second language pedagogy
Italian Reading and Conversation (ITA 2220)
Mark Pietralunga (B.A. in English, UCLA; M.A. and Ph.D. in Italian, UC Berkeley) specializes in 20th century Italian literature and culture, with a particular focus on post-war novel and translation. His research interests include Italian American studies. He served as chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics from 1993 to 2003 and 2013 to 2019. He has served as resident associate director and as summer director of Florida State University's study abroad program in Florence, Italy, as well as coordinator of the Italian Studies Program.
