CV/Contact

view or download my CV via Google Docs here:  CV – Rebecca M Bender, PhD

Rebecca M. Bender, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Spanish
Kansas State University
Department of Modern Languages
107 Eisenhower Hall
Manhattan, KS  66506
rmbender [at] ksu [dot] edu
Kansas State University – faculty page

EDUCATION

Ph.D. Spanish Literature, The Pennsylvania State University

M.A., Spanish Literature, The University of New Mexico

B.A., Spanish
B.S., Secondary Education, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
K-12 Teaching Certification, State of Pennsylvania

PUBLICATIONS:

Manuscripts in preparation:

Pregnant Minds and Literary Bodies: Motherhood and Feminism in Spanish Women’s Literature of the Modernist Era (1900-36)

Peer-reviewed articles:

• 2024 “Introduction: From Scandal to Influencer to Activist: Carmen de Burgos, “Colombine” (1867-1932)”.  Appears in both of the below volumes, pp. vii-xxi. Read about the volumes.
• 2024 Co-editor of the translation, Divorce in Spain, and the new edition, El divorcio en España — (1) Influencers, Activists, and Women’s Rights. A Translation of Divorce in Spain, by Carmen de Burgos Seguí (“Colombine”). Translated by Slava Faybysh. Edited by Rebecca Bender. Modern Language Association, Texts and Translation series. — (2) Influencers, activistas, y los derechos de las mujeres. Una edición de Divorcio en España, de Carmen de Burgos Seguí (“Colombine”). Edited by Slava Faybysh & Rebecca Bender. Modern Language Association, Texts and Translation series.
• 2022  “First-Wave Fantasmas: The (In)visible Presence of Carmen de Burgos and Maruja Mallo in María Sánchez’s Tierra de mujeres (2019)”. Hispanic Studies Review, vol. 6, no. 2.
• 2021  “From Snaps to Maps: Using Literature, Mobile Applications, and Mapping Software to Design and Engaging L2 Curriculum.” Hispania, vol. 104, no. 4.
• 2020  “Snapping the Quijote: Examining L2 Literature, Social Media, and Digital Storytelling through a Cervantine Lens.” Hispania, vol. 103, no. 3 (Sept.). (Abstract and images here)
• 2017   “Fashion, Ekphrasis, and the Avant-Garde Novel: Carmen de Burgos’s La mujer fantástica (1924).” Ciberletras, vol. 39 (Dec.), n.p. http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/ciberletras/v39/bender.htm>
  ***AWARD: Adela Zamudio Essay Prize, 2nd place, Best published essay of 2017, Feministas Unidas, September 2018.
• 2017    “Modernity and Madrid: The Gendered Urban Geography of Carmen de Burgos’s La rampa (1917). In Routledge History Handbook of Gender and the Urban Experience. Ed. Deborah Simonton. Routledge, pp. 130-41.
• 2016    “Theorizing a Hybrid Feminism: Motherhood in Margarita Nelken’s En torno a nosotras (1927).” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, vol. 93, no. 2, pp. 131-48)
• 2016    “The Body of Venus: From Eroticism to Maternality in José Díaz Fernández’s La Venus mecánica (1929). In Modernism and the Avant-garde Body in Spain and Italy. Ed. Nicolás Fernández-Medina and Maria Truglio. Routledge, pp. 210-31.
• 2014    “From New York to Cuba: Distinct Representations of Convergent Ideologies in Federico García Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York and Nicolás Guillén’s Motivos de son.” Latin American Literary Review, vol. 83, no. 1, pp. 7-30.
• 2012    “Maternity Ward Horrors: Urban Motherhood in Carmen de Burgos’s La rampa (1917).” Cincinnati Romance Review, vol. 34, pp. 79-96.
• 2012    “The Failure of Language in Ernesto Sábato’s El túnel.” Romance Notes, vol. 52, no.2, pp. 225-33.
• 2010    “Vislumbres de una filosofía vitalista en La hiperestésica de Ramón Gómez de la Serna.” Boletín RAMÓN, vol. 20, pp. 3-13.

Book Reviews:

• 2022 Mar Soria. Geographies of Urban Female Labor and Nationhood in Spanish Culture, 1880-1975. U Nebraska P, 2020. Feministas Unidas, Inc. FemUn Newsletter, 42.1, Spring, pp. 19-22. <http://feministas-unidas.org/>.
  (illustrated and expanded as blog post: Geographies of Urban Female Labor and Nationhood in Spanish Culture (1880-1975) (review)
• 2019    Anja Louis and Michelle M. Sharp, eds. Multiple Modernities. Carmen de Burgos, Author and Activist. Routledge, 2017. Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Languages. Doi/Citation.
  (illustrated and expanded as blog post: Multiple Modernities: New essays on Carmen de Burgos (review)
• 2018     Silvia Bermúdez and Roberta Johnson, eds. A New History of Iberian Feminisms, Toronto U P, 2018. (published in Feministas Unidas FemUn Newsletter, Fall 2018, vol. 38, no. 2. pp. 15-18:  http://feministas-unidas.org/ ).
  (illustrated and expanded as blog post: A New History of Iberian Feminisms (review)
• 2017    Francisca Vilches-de Frutos, ed. Las Cortes republicanas durante la Guerra Civil. Madrid 1936, Valencia 1937 y Barcelona 1938 by Matilde de la Torre. Madrid: Cátedra de Exilio, 2015. (published in Feministas Unidas’s FemUn Newsletter, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 28-31: http://feministas-unidas.org/ ).
  (illustrated and expanded as blog post: Matilde de la Torre and the Republican Courts in 1930s Spain)

 

TEACHING AND PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS
(see TEACHING page for course details, syllabi, etc.)

Aug. 2021 – present
Associate Professor of Spanish, with tenure
Kansas State University, Department of Modern Languages (Manhattan, KS)

July 2022 – August 2024
Interim Department Head
Kansas State University, Department of Modern Languages (Manhattan, KS)

Aug. 2016 – May 2021
Assistant Professor of Spanish, tenure-track
Kansas State University, Department of Modern Languages (Manhattan, KS)

Aug. 2015 – July 2016
Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish (one-year appointment)
Kansas State University, Department of Modern Languages (Manhattan, KS)

Aug. 2013 – May 2015
Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish (two-year appointment)
Grinnell College, Department of Spanish (Grinnell, Iowa)

May-Aug. 2013
Adjunct Instructor of Spanish (Distance Learning) (summer appointment)
Midland College, Division of Fine Arts and Communication (Midland, Texas)
Created and monitored online Spanish courses with Blackboard (Spanish 1; Spanish 4)
Site created for managing courses: https://sites.google.com/site/drrebeccambender/

Aug. 2009 – May 2013
Graduate Teaching Assistant / Instructor
The Pennsylvania State University, Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese

May-June 2010
Study Abroad Teaching Assistant, Penn State Summer Study Abroad Program
Universidad Iberoamericana, Puebla, Mexico

Aug 2007 – May 2008
Visiting Spanish Instructor (one-year appointment)
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Department of Languages and Cultures

Aug 2005  – May 2007
Graduate Teaching Assistant
University of New Mexico, Department of Spanish & Portuguese

Jan-May 2005
Spanish Teacher – Student Teaching placements
Southern Columbia Area High School & Middle School (PA)

 

PRESENTATIONS (Select)

• 2024   Seminar: Maternidad en crisis: los desafíos de ser o no ser madre en la España contemporánea (Seminario). Co-organized with Dr. Katie Vater and Dr. Antonia Delgado-Poust. VI Jornadas ALCESXXI 2024, Santiago de Compostela. July 15-19.
• 2024 “Nuevos vínculos, antiguas narrativas: La maternidad en el arte y la literatura española entre los 1920s y los 2020s.” Genealogías y fantasmas: presencias y ausencias de lo materno en los productos culturales. Proyecto RITMOS, Ritmos del trabajo femenino en la historia del arte y la cultural visual. Estado español 1936-2022. Congreso Internacional, Las Madres No: Derivas de lo materno en las prácticas artísticas y culturales. Universidad del País Vasco, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Jul. 3-5.
• 2020    “Thinking Outside the Exam: Alternative Assessments Across the L2 Curriculum.” Kansas World Language Association (KSWLA) Virtual Conference. October 24. **Co-Presented with colleagues Dr. Laura Kanost and Dr. Andie Faber.**
• 2020    “Snapping and Mapping: Improving Critical Analysis and Increasing Student Engagement in the L2 Literature Classroom.” Midwest Association for Language Teaching Technology (MWALT) 2020 Conference, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. Feb. 8.
• 2019    “Motherhood and the Urban Economy in Margarita Nelken’s La trampa del arenal (1923)”. Imaginarios económicos en la literatura y el cine de España y Latinoamérica. Sponsored by Lehman College (CUNY). Lehman College, Bronx, NY. April 5-6.
• 2018    “The Don Quixote Seminar: Pedagogy and Pop Culture.” Cervantes Society of America North American Conference. University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. September 27-29.
• 2018    “Early Social Justice Warrior? Carmen de Burgos and Institutional Reform in Early 20^th Century Spain.” Part of the Roundtable Space of Maternity, Motherhood, and Care in the Hispanic World from Past to Present. 49^th Annual NeMLA Convention, Omni William Penn, Pittsburgh, PA, April 12-15.
• 2018    “Carmen de Burgos’s Feminist Art Museum in the Avant-Garde Novel The Fantastic Woman”. The 5^th Annual Gender and Sexuality in Kansas Conference. Wichita State University, Wichita, KS. Mar. 30.
• 2017:   ““La moda, o el arte de la indumentaria”: Fashion and Ekphrasis in Carmen de Burgos’s La mujer fantástica (1925).” Representations of Fashion and Clothing in Hispanic Literatures / Representaciones de la moda y el vestido en las literaturas hispánicas. Sponsored by Lehman College (CUNY) and the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY). Lehman College, Bronx, NY. April 7-8.
• 2015: “Las 13 Rosas: La mitificación de la madre tradicional y apolítica en el cine español contemporáneo.” III Congreso Internacional Historia, Literatura y Arte en el Cine en Español y Portugués. Salamanca, España, June 24-26.
• 2014: “Los avances médico-científicos como artes plásticas posmodernas en La piel que habito (2011).” VII Congreso Internacional de la Asociación Hispánica de Humanidades. El humanismo hispánico en la encrucijada universal de la comunicación: lo impreso, lo visual y lo electrónico. Santiago de Compostela, España, June 26-28.

WEB-BASED WRITING

The Volunteer. www.albavolunteer.org
The Volunteer is the online journal of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, an educational non-profit dedicated to promoting social activism and the defense of human rights. The journal is published four times per year.

• 2015    “Book Review: Personal Histories of Place” Sept. 13.

Nursing Clio. Because the personal is historical. www.nursingclio.org
Nursing Clio is an open access, peer-reviewed, collaborative blog project that ties historical scholarship to present-day issues related to gender and medicine.

• 2014    “Pretty Women Use Birth Control.” Mar. 4.