Mapping Archipelagic Hispanic Cultures and Literatures.

Fall 2018-Spring 2019

From an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective that overlaps Island, Postcolonial, Hispanic and Archipelagic Studies, this course aims to understand the complex role of islands and archipelagos in colonial and neo-colonial Hispanic contexts, while decontinentalizing Hispanic culture production and going beyond the boundaries of traditional area studies. Through a close reading of historic and modern literary and critical texts, contemporary art interventions, maps, photography and films, this course will examine the impact of colonialism in three different Atlantic archipelagos and former colonies of Spain: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic; the African Islands of Equatorial Guinea, and the Canary Islands. We will analyze topics such as displacement in its different forms—exile, migration, travel, tourism—transoceanic insular imaginaries, and concepts such as slow violence, smallness, archipelagic thinking isolation and islandeness.

Afro-Hispanic and Transatlantic (Pen)Insular Literature*.

Fall 2018- Spring 2019

Through the study of a wide range of literary texts and cultural materials such as poems, films, journals, travelogues and the press, this course will help us understand the complex configuration of 20th and 21th century Transatlantic Spanish Peninsular and Insular Literature, and Hispano-African Equatoguinean Literature in Spanish. With an Atlantic and postcolonial approach, against a continental viewpoint, course materials are questioned from a wider geopolitical framework that includes Latin America, Africa and Europe. Among the issues that will be discussed are colonial power, Spanish-African imaginaries in Ceuta, Melilla and Morocco, definitions of Spanish national and peripheral identities, and Orientalism/Occidentalism.

*I first proposed the concept (Pen)Insular Studies in my dissertation at Harvard University, Insular Syntax: Archipelagic Thinking and Relational Literature (2020), as a new and more inclusive term that incorporates and visibilize the traditionally neglected archipelagic spaces of Spain within the field of Spanish literary and cultural studies.

Introduction to Latinx Community and Literature in the U.S.

Fall 2018-Spring 2019 

A course on border culture, “Moving Beyond Borders” examines the Latino/a/x experience in the United States through a variety of cultural materials such as literary works (novels, essays, poems, blogs); artistic interventions (installations, paint, performance); music, film, photography and popular iconography. This course seeks to understand the process of Latin American and Caribbean immigration to the United States, and the complex experiences of being Latino/a in this country. We will pay close attention to key theoretical concepts such as Spanglish, code-switching, borders and fluid identities, triple-consciousness, and Latinx imaginary. The course will provide students with the necessary tools and reading strategies to analyze the historical development, problematics and current situation of this multi-layered community, reading Chicano, Boricua, Tex-Mex, Afro-Latinx, Cuban and Dominican-American authors, in Spanish, English and Spanglish.  

• Spanish and the Community. An advanced language course that examines the richness and complexity of the Latino experience in the US while promoting community engagement as a vehicle for greater linguistic fluency and cultural understanding. Class work focuses on expanding students' oral and written proficiency in Spanish through discussing and analyzing readings, arts, and films by and about Latinos in the US. The course required four hours a week of engaged scholarship with local organizations as part of their language learning experience. Through classroom discussions, travels through the Boston area, meaningful interactions, and conversations in Spanish with members of the Latino community, students explored powerful concepts like “the borderlands” as related to global migration, changes in local demography, and in-between identities. (Spring 2017-Spring 2018).

• Creative Writing and Performance.  An advanced course designed to reinforce Spanish through oral and written practice. Close reading of texts in literary and non-literary genres will help students refine personal style. The performance of short excerpts of plays, combined with advanced work on oral expression and phonetics, will help students increase their fluency and ease of expression. (Spring and Fall 2014).

• Spanish Ab. A four-day-a- week course for students with basic knowledge of Spanish. Conducted mostly in Spanish, the course emphasizes the three modes of communication (interpersonal, presentational and interpretative) with focus on reading and writing. (Spring 2013).       

•  Spanish Aa. An intensive four-day-a week course for students with little or no previous knowledge of Spanish. With an emphasis in oral development, this course provides the linguistic, communicative and cultural foundations to engage in basic daily life interactions in Spanish. The content is focused on some of the main countries of the Spanish speaking world, including México, El Salvador, Perú, Honduras, Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the United States. (Fall 2012-Spring 2013).           

• 2016 Certificate of Excellence and Distinction in Teaching. Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard U.

• 2015 ABLConnect Teaching Innovator Prize, “From Text to Hypertext.”  Prize to faculty members and graduate student instructors whose teaching demonstrates a conscious effort to reach solid academic goals while challenging and engaging students in thoughtful, creative, or interesting ways. More info  here.  

• 2014 Certificate of Excellence and Distinction in Teaching. Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard U.

• 2021 Digital Teaching Methods Seminar. Harvard University Digital Scholarship (DSSG).

• 2019 Language Teaching Fair at Duke University. Department of Romance Studies. 

• 2018 Winter Teaching Week: Designing a Syllabus.  Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University.

• 2018 Unabridged: A Masterclass in Library Research. Services for Academic Programs. One-week intensive master class on research strategies, organization, and publishing.

• 2013 Bok Center Teaching Certificate Program. Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard. Year-round teaching and pedagogical seminars, training on classroom communication skills, course and assignment design, public speaking, development of teaching CV.  

• 2012-2015 Annual Conference on Task Based-Communicative Language Teaching Strategies. Department of Romance Languages, Harvard University.