Spanish students video chat with Basque scholar

Students investigated a different perspective on what makes the world spin in Spanish Composition (FLS 303).
On April 28 classes participated in a videoconference with Basque-language author
Kirmen Uribe, to learn more about his book and the process behind it.
After reading Uribe’s novel “Lo que mueve el mundo” (“What Makes the World Go Around”) in class, Spanish Professor Iñaki Gonzalo set up a videoconference for both of his Spanish composition classes to ask Uribe questions about the novel.
The videoconference was conducted in Spanish, and each student had an opportunity to speak to Uribe.
“I thought it was really effective that we each had our own question to talk about,” said Sara White, a sophomore elementary education major. “Overall, I think it went really well.”
Some questions involved discussions about the hardest part of writing the novel, how Uribe wrote the love letters between Robert (the main character) and Vic (Robert’s wife) and Uribe’s opinion about what moves the world.
Professor Gonzalo is no stranger to Uribe’s work. He studied Uribe’s poetry first, both for a research paper of his own and for his Contemporary Spanish Culture class.
“I decided to choose this novel because [the] writer’s style is quite clean in terms of vocabulary as well as phrasing,” Gonzalo said. “Considering that Spanish accepts a syntax much more complex than English—in general terms—with longer sentences, Uribe’s prose instead looks to be concise.”
This clean and concise prose allowed students to focus on the story’s themes of friendship, love and war.
“Lo que mueve el mundo” is a true story based on Robert Mussche, a soldier who fought and died in World War II. The novel describes Mussche’s life before and during the war, including the infant daughter he left behind.
Gonzalo said he was appreciative of the opportunity and the exposure it gave students to important issues.
“If anything, my students have taken a better appreciation of the life most of us have in countries with civil rights and liberties respected and defended,” Gonzalo said.