Student Blogs

Hey all! My name is Chiara and I am a second-year student at UBC’s faculty of Arts, majoring in psychology and hoping to minor in creative writing. I will admit, I did take this course mainly to make up my literature requirement [inserts sheepish emoji here], however I’ve always loved reading and writing as well […] read full post >>

I’m Nandita, and I’m a third year Philosophy major who has accidentally finished her major and is now exclusively taking electives until graduation. I think I saw this course in an email sent out by UBC suggesting courses and RMST 202 caught my attention. I don’t know anything about Romance studies, which prompted me to […] read full post >>

Hi! My name is Michael and I am a second-year geography student. I am relatively interested in romance studies and am looking forward to taking this course. To me, the subject is complex and multifaceted. Generally, it can be defined as a discipline that studies romance languages and anything associated with them. However, the definition […] read full post >>

What is someone who would go as far as to say he despises reading doing in a course completely suffocated by infinite texts, novels, novellas, and more. I don’t really know…but I do enjoy learning about things that are not often spoken of in everyday conversation, so maybe that’s what’s keeping me here (for now). […] read full post >>

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Hi everyone! My name is Anna and I am a second-year student hoping to major in Sociology and minor in French. I grew up in Ottawa and went to high school in England and my family now live in Denmark, where I just returned from after spending Christmas at home. I never really enjoyed studying […] read full post >>

Hi everyone! My name is Tamara Vukota and I am in my second year here at UBC. I am the Arts faculty as a Psychology major and am still figuring out what I’d like to minor in. I grew up and have lived in Downtown Vancouver my entire life. I love the city life and […] read full post >>

Hello!! My name is Anna Vukota and I’m a second year student majoring in Linguistics and minoring in Spanish. I love listening to music, languages, and reading. Although I’m taking this course as a requirement, I’ve taken a few Spanish literature courses at UBC and wanted to expand on that through the romance world. Through … Continue reading "Week 1 Introduction" read full post >>

Hello everyone! My name is Arielle and I am a second-year student, majoring in psychology and either minoring in sociology or anthropology. I am from Vancouver, BC and I love Vancouver but I really miss traveling, especially to tropical places. Honestly, I took this course to fulfill the literature requirement but I chose this one …

Continue reading "RMST 202 INTRODUCTION"

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  Hi everyone! My name is Mackenzie Dewar-Pratt. I’m in my second year at UBC and intend to major in Political Science and minor in Law and Society. I primarily grew up in Vancouver but also lived in Dubai for a couple years. During my time in Dubai, I thankfully had a lot of opportunity […] read full post >>

A Quick Introduction About Me: Hi everyone, my name is Tiffany and I am a first-year Arts student planning on majoring in Psychology and minoring in Commerce. I am looking forward to the books I will be reading this term for this course, as they all seem extremely intriguing, which is the main reason why […] read full post >>

 Hi, I’m Alyssa Almerling. I am a second-year student majoring in Sociology and minoring in Family Studies. I grew up just outside of UBC and was raised in North Vancouver. I am thrilled to be back on campus and in my childhood neighbourhood again! I have always loved reading different types of literature, and I want to be exposed to many forms of writing style. I hope that with this blog, I can share with you my thoughts and questions about the romance world and language and open your eyes to the modern and post-modern world!

The format of this class has inspired me to read as many books as I can. My goal is to make connections throughout the term and find overarching themes and styles from different texts. The Romance Study world is deceiving because it isn't about romance or all the lovey-dovey things that we associate with the word romance. The romance world does not belong to anyone, which I find super fascinating. Anyone can immerse themselves in this literature, and it focuses more on the aspect of romance languages like French and Latin. I am super excited about this course, and I hope that my thoughts and questions can spark a love for literature in you that I have inside me.

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 Hi, I’m Alyssa Almerling. I am a second-year student majoring in Sociology and minoring in Family Studies. I grew up just outside of UBC and was raised in North Vancouver. I am thrilled to be back on campus and in my childhood neighbourhood again! I have always loved reading different types of literature, and I want to be exposed to many forms of writing style. I hope that with this blog, I can share with you my thoughts and questions about the romance world and language and open your eyes to the modern and post-modern world!

The format of this class has inspired me to read as many books as I can. My goal is to make connections throughout the term and find overarching themes and styles from different texts. The Romance Study world is deceiving because it isn't about romance or all the lovey-dovey things that we associate with the word romance. The romance world does not belong to anyone, which I find super fascinating. Anyone can immerse themselves in this literature, and it focuses more on the aspect of romance languages like French and Latin. I am super excited about this course, and I hope that my thoughts and questions can spark a love for literature in you that I have inside me.

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 Hi!

    I'm Dee, I'm a first year student and right now am hoping to major in linguistics but honestly, me dropping out or switching programs to focus on my art is still not out of the question. Truthfully, literature isn't usually my thing, but as I have to fufill my requirement I decided to take this course as opposed to one solely based around English literature. I have been learning Spanish for years (and ironically am taking Latin this term) so taking another course not centered around English seemed fitting. Of course, the class is going to be reading in English and I am really curious about the differences between the translated and original versions of books we are reading. I think that when you translate a text you usually lose something. To me, it feels a little odd to try to make a decision on whether these texts possibly contain similarities because of their linguistic heritage when we are unable to read them in their original languages to begin with. From a stance purely about the texts themselves and the stories they tell, are we not risking losing meaning through translation? At the same time, as the lecture says, it makes sense to not study this topic in a romance language. English, is a mess of a language in many ways but by being this mess it becomes a perfect candidate to further the goal of romance studies. 

    I am also just excited to be reading some interesting books. I looked up literally every book on the list and I am looking forward to seeing what they have in store. I don't have a particular theme or anything I am intrigued about, I am really just curious about the writing in general. As an artist I feel like books, in a way, are often works of art themselves and I am curious how my own art may be affected as I reflect on the readings. I don't really know what to think of the topic of romance studies as a whole yet, it is quite a lot to take in, but I expect that I am going to enjoy the class and the discussions we will have. 

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