The Fries Center for Global Studies welcomes Amalie Little ’25 as our new Global Language and Outreach (GLO) Fellow. A recent graduate with interest in how languages connect and divide us, Amalie is excited to be working with our language learning programs and international communities on campus. 

Amalie graduated in the spring with the undergraduate class of 2025, and majored in College of Letters and Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies. She studied the Russian language in her time as an undergrad here, including a semester abroad in Kazakhstan, and wrote a thesis jointly in her major departments. Entitled “У меня и свитер, и пальто – I have a sweater and a coat: Dialogues on Language Learning, Miscommunication, and the Foreign Voice,” her thesis investigated the oddities and nuances of language learning and communicating across a linguistic and cultural divide. Alternating between Russian and English in a series of creative dialogues, alongside more scholarly prose sections, this work is grounded in the foreign language student’s experience in Kazakhstan. Inspired by her time abroad, with studies into the post-colonial language, the project expands outward to not only make specific observations about the post-Soviet space, but also about the role of the foreigner and the dialogue form as a mode for investigation.

Outside the classroom, Amalie competed on the Varsity Swim and Dive Team all four years, co-founded a literary magazine Adlit, was an active member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society, led Wesleyan Democratic Socialists, and played Water Polo. She looks forward to staying connected to the campus community in her new role. 

Her developing academic interest into languages as linguistic, cultural, and political phenomena is a welcome asset into our center. As the GLO fellow, she will help coordinate events and programs to promote language learning on campus and beyond. Be sure to wave if you see her in Fisk!