Our program relies on a dedicated group of collaborating academic instructors–in Basque “irakasleak”–to provide our program with diversity and depth.
BASQUE STUDIES DIRECTORS:
David Lachiondo, Ph.D.
Director of Basque Studies Center & Lecturer in History
208-447-8975
email: davidlachiondo@boisestate.eduEducation:
B.A. St. Mary’s College, California
M.A. Idaho State University
PhD. University of IdahoDave Lachiondo, a Boise Basque native, has had a long career as an educator in both public and parochial schools. He has served as a teacher, coach, guidance counselor, principal and central office administrator in both the Boise Public Schools and at Bishop Kelly High School in Boise, Idaho. After retiring in 2010, he assumed the position of Director of Basque Studies.
In addition to administrative work for the Basque Studies Center, he teaches regular courses in our program including Basque History: Pre-History to 1700, Modern Basque History, and The Spanish Civil War. He has also offered workshops including Basque Sporting Life.
John Bieter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History & Assistant Director Basque Studies Center
208-426-5332
email: johnbieter@boisestate.edu
Education:
B.A. University of St. Thomas
M.A. Boise State University
Ph. D. Boston CollegeJohn Bieter, a Boise Basque native, serves as the assistant director of the Basque Studies Center. He was instrumental in the founding of our current program, spear-heading grant-writing efforts, helping to coordinate personnel, etc. His full-time duties in the history department at Boise State University keep John focused on teacher preparation courses; his research and teaching interests are on Immigration and Ethnicity, the American West, and American Catholicism. He is the author with his brother Mark of the book An Enduring Legacy: A History of the Basques in Idaho.
John has offered regular courses in the program, in addition to several workshops including Introduction to Basque Culture and Basque Arborglyphs which takes students into Idaho’s back-country to see the Basque tree carvings first-hand.
Nere Lete, M.F.A.
Assistant Professor of Basque & Director of Basque Studies Minor
email: nlete@boisestate.eduEducation:
M.F.A University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. 1994
B.A University of Deusto, Donostia. Basque Country. 1986Nere Lete, a native of the Basque Country, attended Basque schools during Franco’s dictatorship in Spain. Nere received her first Basque language teaching certificate from Euskaltzaindia when she was 15. She is now assistant professor of Basque at Boise State University, in the department of World Languages. She also serves as the director of the Basque Studies Minor as well as coordinator of these weekend workshops. She remains engaged with the local Basque community at the Basque Museum and Cultural Center of Boise, and with the Boiseko Ikastola, the first Basque language preschool in the United States which she helped to create.
Nere teaches regular course offerings of the Basque language, in addition to courses and workshops that feature Basque culture, literature, art history, and cinema in Spanish and English.
BASQUE STUDIES ADJUNCT FACULTY:
The Boise State University Basque Studies Minor is very fortunate to welcome to campus expert faculty on Basque Studies topics who teach weekend workshops.
Izaskun Kortazar, M.A.
Education:
M.A. in Spanish Literature from Washington State University 2006
B.A. in English Language Teaching Certificate from the University of the Basque Country 2003
B.A. in Basque Language and Literature from the University of the Basque Country 2000Izaskun Kortazar Errekatxo is a native of the Basque Country who learned Basque at the age of 13 and went on to complete certification of EGA for Basque proficienty. She has taught Basque language at various levels, including a stint in 2003 at the Boiseko Ikastola. She is currently teaching Spanish at Boise State University, where she also teaches Basque Study Group and Basque Conversation. She is currently teaching Basque to adults at the Basque Museum and Cultural Center in Boise.
She has offered various workshops including Basque Mythology and Introduction to Basque Culture.
John M. Ysursa, Ph.D.
Education:
Ph. D. University of California, Riverside
M.A. University of California, Riverside
B.A. Boise State University
John Ysursa graduated from Boise State University with a degree in History. He then continued with graduate studies and completed his Masters and PhD at University of California, Riverside. He teaches history at San Diego State University.
His workshops have included Introduction to Basque Culture, Becoming American: The Basque Experience based on Robert Laxalt’s book Sweet Promised Land, A Basque History of the World based on Mark Kurlansky’s book of the same title, Annual Rituals that Define Basques, and Basque and European Integration. John is also working with our Basque Studies program at Boise State in the capacity of managing editor of the new Basque Studies journal, and as our program’s webmaster.
Lisa Corcostegui, Ph.D.
Education:
Ph.D., Basque Studies (Anthropology) – University of Nevada, Reno
M.A., Foreign Language and Literature (Spanish) – University of Nevada, Reno
B.A., Foreign Language and Literature (Spanish) Minor: Basque Studies – University of Nevada, RenoLisa Corcostegui has combined her love of Basque culture with a pursuit of higher education to enrich the Basque-American community. She has served in various capacities, including working at the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno and now currently as the webmaster for the North American Basque Organziations.
She has taught various workshops over the years including the History and Aesthetics of Basque Dance Dance as an Ethnic Marker Symbol, Metaphor in Dance, Diasporic Ethnic Identity Alterity and Identity, Old World Basque Culture Ancestry, Genealogy and Heraldry, Basque Music Appreciation, and Gender in Basque Culture .
Maite Núñez-Betelu, Ph.D.
Education:
Ph.D. Romance Languages, University of Missouri-Columbia
M.A. Comparative Literature, West Virginia University
B.A. University of the Basque Country, SpainMaite has worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis since August 2002. Prior to that she was a Visiting Assistant Professor and a graduate student at the University of Missouri-Columbia from 1995-2001 and as a teachning assistant in 1999. From 1993 through 1995 she was a graduate assistant at West Virginia University.
Xabier Irujo, Ph.D.
Education:
Master Degree: Linguistics
Master Degree: History
Master Degree: Philosophy
Ph.D.: State University of NavarreXabier Irujo Ametzaga Ph.D., was born in exile in Caracas, Venezuela, and educated in the Basque Country. As a current member of the faculty at the the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, his research focuses on the contemporary Basque Politics.
He has taught several workshops for us Basque Government-in-Exile (1937-1975), Basque Politics Today, Genocide Studies: the Basque case, and Cooperativism: the Basque case.
Jill Aldape
Education:
BA: University of Idaho
Fulbright Scholar
Jill Aldape remains an active member of the Boise Basque community, for many years with the Oinkari Basque Dancers, a teacher of Euskara, and now as a Basque lead singer in the music group Amuma Says No. Jill works at Saint Alponsus as Director of Events & Development within the Foundation.
She has taught several sections of Spanish as an adjunct instructor for the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures, and workshops in our program including Introduction to Basque Culture and Basque Dance.
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Sandra Ott, Ph.D.
Education:
Ph.D., Social Anthropology, University of Oxford.
Sandra Ott remains engaged with Basque Studies since one of her earliest research interests took her to the mountains of Zuberoa to examine the life of locals, that later became the basis for her book Circle of Mountains. She has continued research and publishing since then, and now is part of the faculty at the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.
She has taught workshops in our program on a regular basis.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________Joseba Zulaika, Ph.D.
Education:
Ph.D., Anthropology, Princeton University.
Joseba Zulaika is a native of the Basque Country, and now a member of the faculty of the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno he continues to teach, research and publish. His early work included the analysis of ETA members in the book Basque Violence: Metaphor and Sacrament, and now some of his current research explores the ongoing transformative impact of the Bilbao Guggenheim Museoa.
He was our Program’s keynote speaker during the Jaialdi conference of 2005, and has taught workshops for us as well.
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Jacob Singer, M.F.A.
Education:
M.F.A. University of San Francisco, 2008
B.A. University of Connecticut, 2004Jacob Singer teaches composition and literature at Elmhurst College. Coming with a creative writing background, he is interested in the development of Basque fiction over the past thirty years, emphasizing craft-oriented analysis, narrative design, and stylistics. Also, he is currently learning Basque in the Euskara Munduan program.
His workshop for us is Basque Stories: Fact or Fiction.
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Seth Murray, Ph.D.
Education:
Ph.D, Anthropology (2008) – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
M.A., Basque Studies (2004) – Université de Bordeaux III, France
M.A., Archaeology (1999) – State University of New York at Buffalo
B.A, Anthropology & French (1996) – Baylor UniversitySeth Murray, a native of central France, discovered the northern Basque Country during a vacation with friends in Hendaye. Since 1999, he has maintained an active ethnographic research project in the Basque region of southwestern France and northern Spain, examining social and environmental factors associated with changes in agriculture, particularly as they relate to European Union policies. He worked as a Visiting Researcher at the Center for the Study of Basque Literature and Language (IKER), the only unit of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) located in the northern Basque region.
His workshop for us was Basque Agriculture and Environment.
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