Heather Moon

Professor Heather Moon's Spanish classes are all globally focused, allowing students to gain knowledge of the Spanish language and culture through art, history and architecture. Her classes range from intermediate to advance levels and focus on topics like contemporary female filmmakers, Spanish and Latin America literature and Spanish culture and art. Moon aims to incorporate technology in each of her classes to improve communication and collaboration. Students in her classes create blogs that are updated frequently and play Kahoot to learn vocabulary. Her research focuses on the classes she teaches, like art, literature, history, architecture, and politics.
Professor Moon is creating a history and culture of Cuba course which will look at the various cultural influences on the island. The course will begin with Spanish colonialism, US influence, Soviet influence, as well as African influences to examine how the cultures combine to create Cuban culture in today's society. The design of the course has a 10 day trip to Havana, Cuba over spring break. The second half of the course will be ethnography focused to analyze the class's in-country observations and understand how it relates to the history. They are hoping to run the course in Spring 2019.
Why is Global Studies important?
"Why isn't it important? It's important because we're all humans living in different parts of the world but we have a shared humanity. We forget about our shared humanity. When we study other cultures through language or other Global Studies courses, we travel or we live abroad, we get to understand better the shared humanity. There will be fewer conflicts in the world, better communication and understanding."
As Coordinator of the Spanish Program, Professor Moon has traveled to various countries on site visits to explore study abroad programs or faculty led abroad programs (including Spain, Chile, Argentina and Cuba). During Fall 2016, Moon traveled to Valparaiso, Chile and met with International Business students who were living there. |
Title
Lecturer in Spanish Coordinator of the Spanish Program Office Suite J |
Courses
Intermediate Spanish, Reading and Writing, Conversation and Compisition, Contemporary Women Filmmakers and Writers Spanish Speaking Cultures |
Research Area
Pedagogy, Classroom Technology Latin American Culture and Politics Languages England and Spanish |
Professor Moon's advice:"The number of people who have said to me that they wish they continued their language courses or never thought they would need a language. You don't need to know what you're going to use it for to study a language. Life will present itself with those opportunities to speak it if you have it. And students should study abroad. You need to study abroad to learn a language. You need to be in the culture to be a proficient speaker."
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Contact: |
If you have any questions about Global Studies or Professor Moon's research, feel free to contact her through email or attend office hours.
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