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Managing Editor's Message

2024; American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese; Volume: 107; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/hpn.2024.a921455

2153-6414

Biomedical Text Mining and Ontologies

Managing Editor's Message Conxita Domènech The March issue is always special because we recognize several individuals who participate in making the publication of Hispania a success. Behind each essay and book review are scholars and teachers who have evaluated and revised all the documents we have received. From the first version that the author uploads to ScholarOne to the version that we publish, the essays and the book reviews undergo extensive review and various modifications. The process begins with a first look at the document to make sure it meets the basic requirements. If all required pieces are accounted for, Editor Benjamin Fraser contacts the reviewers who will evaluate the manuscript—usually three, and sometimes more. There are articles that do not pass the first evaluation; and there are few accepted without changes. Most articles require revision. Upon completion of the initial reviews, the work of the reviewers is far from over; they revisit the revised manuscripts to determine whether the polished essay should or should not be published. On the previous pages, you will find a list of last year's reviewers. We extend a heartfelt thank you to the reviewers for the selfless help. You have made possible our mission to identify and publish academic scholarship of the highest quality. Once an article is accepted, my work and that of Assistant Managing Editor Haley Osborn begins. The process is complex, but we have wonderful assistants who help in formatting and copyediting essays and book reviews. You can also see the names of these assistants on the previous pages. Many thanks are in order for them, as well as for our typesetter, Cheryl Mullings, and A. Maria Kummerfeldt from Johns Hopkins University Press, who convert the documents into a new issue after copyediting is complete. Not to be forgotten in this extension of sincere gratitude are our Book/Media Review Editor, Domnita Dumitrescu, and our Associate Editors, Silvia Rodriguez Sabater and Laura Shepin, for their impeccable work with book reviews and short-form articles, respectively. All of us are dedicated to bringing our readers articles and book reviews of excellent quality. I hope you enjoy the current issue of Hispania, 107.1. The first quarterly installment of Hispania's 107th volume contains three interviews, two short-form articles, six research articles, and twenty-two book reviews. The first two interviews are with Galician authors: Nacho Carretero, who wrote the book Fariña, and Yolanda Castaño, an internationally translated poet who traces the difficult intersections between identity, gender, language, and cultural context in her poetry. The last interview is with Maite Mutuberria, author of the graphic narrative entitled Enorme suciedad. Meanwhile, Alyssia Miller, Diana Galarreta-Aima, and Andrea Nate discuss assessment challenges in teaching Medical Spanish in the first short-form article and offers tips for instructors of these courses. In the second short-form article, Joseph R. Weyers describes the postcards approach that guides his courses on Mexican culture, offering additional considerations on integrating postcards into classroom activities. The research articles in this issue are diverse and cover topics related to teaching, linguistics, and literature. Carrie Bonilla details the challenges and best practices of evaluating second language learners for placement into postsecondary Spanish language courses. Jean Costa-Silva's article also centers on languages, but this time Portuguese is the focus. He investigates efforts towards promoting decolonized teaching in instructional materials adopted in Portuguese. Meanwhile, Nofiya Denbaum-Restrepo and Falcon Restrepo-Ramos take on a sociolinguistic [End Page 1] examination of the dual usted in Medellín, Colombia. In close dialogue with Causas da decadência dos povos peninsulares by Antero de Quental and A ética protestante e o espírito do capitalismo by Max Weber, our next author, Carlos Nogueira, explains how José Saramago structured Que farei com este livro? in a non-mechanistic historical materialist vision that combines with personal idealism. In "The Garden State: Conceptualizing Nineteenth-century Latin American Environmental Discourse on Nature/Nation's Transformation," Niall Peach contends that in the transition period from colony to republic, cultural, political, and scientific discourse used the image and language of the garden to reestablish claims over territory by shifting from the Edenic to...