Category Archives: Literature

Geographies of Urban Female Labor and Nationhood in Spanish Culture (1880-1975) (review)

Posted on November 14, 2022 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

It’s been a LONG time since I wrote a new post, as the past three years have been unpredictable and anxiety-ridden, to put it mildly! I was able to take students to Spain again this summer (2022) which was so … Continue reading →

Posted in Feminism, History, Literature, Spain | Tagged 1920s, 1930s, 19th century, 20th century, angel del hogar, books, domesticity, gender, literature, madrid, seccion femenina, Spain, spanish literature, urban studies, women, women's history | Leave a comment

Cartographic Narratives: Using Data and Mapping Principles to Teach L2 Literature

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

One of my main goals in teaching second-language (L2) Spanish Literature courses is to develop non-traditional tasks that demonstrate the value of reading for the development of the target language. Students often perceive literature classes as boring, difficult, or irrelevant – and who can blame them? Literature pedagogy, in either the L1 or the L2 leaves much to be desired… if it exists at all. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Literature, Modernity, Pedagogy, Spain | Tagged Carmen de Burgos, L2 Literature Pedagogy, La rampa, La Venus mecanica, madrid, maps, spanish literature, urban studies | 2 Comments

New Books, Creative Maps, and Literary Art for 2021… plus my optimistic(!) 2020 re-cap

Posted on January 2, 2021 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

In 2020 I had the lofty goal of posting something new to the blog each month — and while I started out strong in January and February… for obvious global-pandemic-related reasons that pattern did not hold up! I managed 5 … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Feminism, Language, Literature, Pedagogy, Spain | Tagged art, Carmen de Burgos, Don Quijote de la Mancha, Don Quixote, L2 Literature Pedagogy, maps, Maria Sanchez, pedagogy, Quijote, rural, snapchat | Leave a comment

Don Quijote, the Graphic Novel, and Snapchat: Alternative Assessments in the L2 Literature Classroom

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

For this post, I’m sharing details of my most recent article, “Snapping the Quijote: Examining L2 Literature, Social Media, and Digital Storytelling through a Cervantine Lens”, which was published in September 2020 in Hispania (vol. 103, no. 2, pp. 323-39). … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Pedagogy, Spain | Tagged Cervantes, comics, Don Quijote de la Mancha, Don Quixote, graphic novel, L2 Literature Pedagogy, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, narratology, pop culture, snapchat, social media, teaching, teaching spanish, technology | 5 Comments

Mapping Madrid through Art, Literature, and Creative Cartography

Posted on September 11, 2020 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

Since this fall semester is clearly “unprecedented”, unpredictable, and a whole host of adjectives that are pretty much ALL stress-inducing, I am taking the opportunity to experiment in my senior-seminar on 20th-century Spain. Last fall I taught a similar course … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Literature, Pedagogy, Spain, Spanish Civil War | Tagged guernica, L2 Literature Pedagogy, madrid, maps, museo reina sofia, Pablo Picasso, pedagogy, poetry, spanish civil war, teaching | 3 Comments

Farming, Gardening, and Female Labor: Carmen de Burgos’ “La mujer agricultora” (1903)

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

Now that the crazy and unpredictable Spring 2020 Covid19-semester is finally over, and since I’ll now be spending my entire summer in Kansas rather than in Spain and Mexico, I am working to shift my focus back to writing and … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, First-wave spanish feminism, History, Literature, Spain, Women | Tagged agriculture, Carmen de Burgos, city, country, femininity, gardens, Joaquin Sorolla, maruja mallo, museo sorolla, rural, science, spanish literature, technology | 2 Comments

Spanish Women’s Literature and Feminism for the L2 classroom: Tsunami, Miradas feministas (2019)

Posted on February 27, 2020 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

Since I last wrote about my favorite book from 2019, I thought it made sense to move on to one of my other top reads, which was another one of the MANY books I carried home after spending most of … Continue reading →

Posted in Feminism, Literature, Pedagogy, Spain, Women | Tagged autobiography, books, catholicism, femininity, Feminism, L2 Literature Pedagogy, Laura Freixas, literature, Maria Sanchez, Marta Sanz, motherhood, Nuria Barrios, pedagogy, religion, rural, Sara Mesa, Spain, spanish literature, teaching | 4 Comments

Tierra de mujeres (Land of Women) and the Myth of an “Empty Spain”

Posted on January 17, 2020 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

Somehow I only managed to write 4 blog posts in 2019; and with all the “end-of-the-year” reflections and round-ups going around, I started to feel like I hadn’t really accomplished much. But when I sat down to think about Jan-Dec … Continue reading →

Posted in Feminism, Literature, Spain, Women | Tagged book review, books, city, culture, environment, Feminism, Maria Sanchez, pueblo, rural, spanish literature, study abroad | 6 Comments

1900s Madrid, in Narrative and a High-Resolution Map

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

This fall semester I’m teaching three literature classes at K-State, one of which is a seminar I based on a few of my past and current research projects related to early 20th-century Spanish literature. The texts are attentive to the … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Literature, Modernity, Spain | Tagged 1920s, books, Carmen de Burgos, digital humanities, La rampa, madrid, maps, modernity, novel, spanish literature | 2 Comments

A Century of Gastronomic Maps: From Ramón to Barcelona’s Feria to Iberica

Posted on March 19, 2019 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

As I’ve mentioned several times before, I’m very much a map nerd — I LOVE reading maps, finding creative interpretations of cities and spaces to display in my office (like my literary map of Madrid and my caricatured map of … Continue reading →