Assistant Professor of Spanish at The University of Louisiana at Monroe
About
I was born in Spain and completed PhD at Stony Brook University. Currently I am assistant professor of Spanish at The University of Louisiana at Monroe. I have had the opportunity to teach, mentor, engage and help students with a wide range of backgrounds including non-traditional students and heritage students. I was recognized for my work with students with disabilities (2019) and with the PhD Works Professional Development Award for Inclusion and Equity (2019). My student-centered approach was recognized by my department at SBU with the Teresa Schueren Award (2015, 2017) for excellence in tutoring and advising to undergraduate students and the Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching (2018). I have also been fortunate to receive several recognitions and fellowships such as the Antonio Cao Award, a NeMLA Summer Fellowship, a Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the Humanities (Austin), or the John H. Daniels Fellowship (Middleburg).
Current Work:
I am currently preparing a book to examine displacement as an essential thematic and structural component of different genres in Early Modern Spanish literature. As the legislation demonstrates, in Spain's 16th and 17th centuries, the traveler became a menace to institutional and social stability. For example, I argue that the picaresque novel works as a mechanism of control, transforming the menacing subject into a laughable and miserable one. By studying travel as a literary motif, I can better understand the impact and role of language on defining the experiences, communities, or individuals that a traveler encounters. It is one of my book's contentions that ingrained within the veneer of humorous self-criticism and ironical self-representation, it is possible to trace the foundations of discourses of human hierarchy which have been used to justify traditional policies of colonization, nationalism, oppression, differentiation, and segregation.
Research Area Keyword(s):
Early modern Spanish; Picarersque; travel; Cervantes; space
