Andrea C.Valente brings an interdisciplinary academic background to her present PhD studies in the Department of Humanities at York University. Her previous research and teaching experience had focused on the field of teaching English and Literature in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She had an active participation in local conferences, and in 2000, she got an opportunity to present a paper as part of her dissertation on the social function of reading within a family context at the Internationale Gesellschaft für Empirische Literaturwissenschaft (IGEL) held at the University of Toronto. After that, she continuously participated in delivering papers at major conferences on language, literature and sociolinguistics. Currently, her academic interest falls within the field of cultural studies, media, globalization, ethnicity and multiculturalism.  She is also attracted by the contributions of Walter Benjamin to the studies of film. For her Major Research Paper, Andrea aims at studying the presence of ethnic film festivals in urban spaces, with particular attention to the Toronto Jewish Film Festival and its role to the community and the Canadian society. As she intends to proceed towards the PhD. level, she plans to expand her research on Jewish Film Festival to the European context, more specifically to Germany where there has been a recent cultural revival of Jewish music (Klezmer), literature and films among non-Jews. Therefore, she plans to draw an ethnographic comparative study on Jewish film festivals that take place in Berlin and Toronto since these two cosmopolitan centres experience multiculturalism and diversity in their own way.

E-mail: valent10@yorku.ca