About

I’m often asked:

“What exactly does a Spanish (literature) professor research*?”
*insert (not so) subtle sarcasm or incredulity here*

I created this blog to provide insight into my own research and teaching projects for a broad audience – including but not limited to my students, friends, family, and colleagues in other disciplines. I do not write in great detail or in a typical “academic” manner about my research. Instead, I aim to make my projects’ most pertinent themes and topics engaging and accessible to a wide range of readers. For example, over the past few years (since 2019) I’ve shared some of the newest Spanish publications (novels, essays) that have impacted my thinking on 20th- and 21st-century Spanish feminism and its place in my courses for students who are (predominantly) second-language (L2) Spanish learners:

• Farming, Gardening, and Female Labor: Carmen de Burgos’ “La mujer agricultora” (1903) (2020)
• Spanish Women’s Literature and Feminism for the L2 classroom: Tsunami, Miradas feministas (2019) (2020)
• Tierra de mujeres (Land of Women) and the Myth of an “Empty Spain” (2020)
• New Books, Creative Maps, and Literary Art for 2021; plus a 2020 re-cap (2021)

I’ve also written “blog-style” versions of my academic book reviews and articles:

• ARTICLE: Don Quijote, the Graphic Novel, and Snapchat: Alternative Assessments in the L2 Literature Classroom (2020)
• REVIEW: The Body, Blood, and Soul of Spanish Modernity: review of Life Embodied (2019)
• REVIEW: A New History of Iberian Feminisms (2018)
• REVIEW: Multiple Modernities: New essays on Carmen de Burgos (review) (2018)
• ARTICLE: Fashion and the Fine Arts in Carmen de Burgos’ Avant-garde Novel, La mujer fantástica
• REVIEW: Matilde de la Torre and the Republican Courts in 1930s Spain (review) (2017)

I use the informality of blogging to re-visit and further explore my love for art and its connection to my research — especially surrealism and Salvador Dali, two topics that first sparked my interest in Spanish cultural history about 20 years ago (!), but that I had set aside while working on what became my main areas of research: cultural representations of motherhood and feminism in early 20th-century Spanish literature. In the summer of 2020, I taught an online, intensive Transatlantic Art course for the MA Program at the University of Southern Oregon’s Summer Language Institute for Spanish Teachers… and I have adapted that course to the MA Spanish program here at K-State, so I will likely continue to post art-teaching-related content!

Cadaqués, Spain (May 2004)

Currently, I am an Associate Professor of Spanish and the Interim Department Head (year 2) at Kansas State University, in the “Little Apple,” Manhattan, Kansas. I earned tenure in May 2021. Since 2015 I have taught intermediate and advanced Spanish conversation and grammar courses, as well as Peninsular and Latin American literature courses, including our Don Quijote seminar, Spanish Civilization and Culture, Gender & the City in 20th-century Spain, Literary Portraiture & Modern Spain, and Mapping Madrid in the Silver Age. I have taught 3 versions of our graduate seminar on AP Spanish literature, each with different focuses: Spanish American texts, Transatlantic themes, and Peninsular texts. The course’s goal is to prepare graduate students — and advanced Spanish-Education majors — to be successful (AP) Spanish literature and culture teachers. Previously, I spent two years as a Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP) of Spanish at Grinnell College, where I taught Spanish language courses and designed a transatlantic seminar, Refashioning the Self: Hispanic Women’s Literature in the 20th Century. You can see my syllabi, as well as posts about readings, lessons, and student work from this women’s literature seminar on my Teaching page.

Oaxaca, Mexico – From a 6-week summer study abroad program with Penn State University (2010)

I encourage all my students to study abroad, even if they are not language majors, as I believe spending time outside one’s own country, culture, and comfort zone offers enormous opportunities for learning and personal growth. As an undergraduate, a graduate student assistant, and now a Professor, I have studied and/or lived in Madrid and Pamplona, Spain; Adjuntas, Puerto Rico; Copán Ruinas, Honduras; Puebla, Mexico; and Atenas, Costa Rica. In January 2018 I took Kansas State Students to Costa Rica for a 2-week service-learning experience.

With K-State Students in Costa Rica (Irazu Volcano), January 2018.

My newest project, and an accomplishment of which I’m quite proud, has been the creation of an annual 5-week summer program in Spain that I designed for Kansas State students: “Spain Today: Madrid, Pamplona, and Barcelona”. This program will offer K-State students the opportunity to take advanced courses in Spain — including a senior seminar with a research component — over the summer, which is helpful for double-majors or dual-degree students who may initially think they cannot study abroad or finish advanced Spanish classes and still graduate on time. In its first year (2019), 10 students participated; Covid put it on hold in both 2020 and 2021; and in 2022 I took 13 students; in 2023, 8 students, including 2 MA students for the first year the program was open for graduate credit. You can see some of the early research projects completed by my students enrolled in the advanced course on the K-State Spanish blog: Spanish Majors & Minors Present Research from the Summer in Spain Program (Nov. 2019)

With K-State students in Pamplona (June, 2019)

Overall, I have enjoyed, an continue to enjoy, this always-evolving digital project — especially in terms of the connections I’ve made, the feedback I’ve received, and the new projects it has inspired. I try to post something new about once per month.

The Alhambra’s Patio de los leones – Granada, Spain (July 2015)

DISCLAIMER – Since I write so many posts linking to books or media that can easily be purchased on Amazon, I chose to become a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites like mine to earn small advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

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