Faculty Profiles

My research explores 20th century Latin American film and literature. I am interested in the way power is presented and questioned in literature and especially in how subaltern groups search for a voice and agency amidst hegemonic suppression. While in college, I studied abroad for a semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina, an experience that dramatically altered my cultural understanding of myself and others and made me fall in love with Latin American cultures. Before attending graduate school, I spent a year teaching first grade at a rural Christian school in central Honduras.

My hope for my students is that through literature, film, and first-hand experience, they would make sincere connections with the Spanish and Latin American communities abroad and with the Latina/o communities that form an important part of our country. In my free time, I enjoy drinking coffee, jogging, reading 19th-century  literature, and spending time with my husband and two sons.

University of Virginia
Ph. D., Spanish, 2017

University of Florida
M. A., Spanish, 2011

Hope College
B. A., Spanish and Psychology, 2007

• Mexican Literature
• 20th Century Latin American Literature
• 20th Century Peninsular Literature
• Mexican Film

• Modern Language Association
• Latin American Studies Association
• American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

 “Danza and the Signifying Process in Rosario Ferré’s Maldito amor (1986)” Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Conference, May 2019, Boston, MA

La tierra es nuestra: revisiones nerudianas a Whitman en ‘Que despierte el leñador’ del Canto General (1950) 28th Annual ALDEEU (Asociación de Profesionales Hispanos en Estados Unidos) Conference, Charlottesville, VA, June 2018

Emilio Fernández and Juan Rulfo: Two Mexican Responses to the Authoritarianism of the PRI
Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Conference, Barcelona, Spain, May 2018

The Subversion of Nature in Mexico City: Buñuel's Los olvidados
Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Hartford, CT, March 2016

Una identidad indefinible: La representación de Malintzín Tenépal en el Lienzo de Tlaxcala
University of Virginia Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference, Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, Charlottesville, VA, 2012

 

• SPAN 103 Accelerated Elementary Spanish
• SPAN 201 Intermediate Spanish
• SPAN 332 Advanced Grammar and Composition
• SPAN 493 Golden Age of Mexican Cinema

Gates, Stephanie R. "El huésped que me estorba: Conflicting Perceptions of Motherhood In Rosario Castellanos's Oficio de tinieblas." Hispanófila, no. 183, 2018, pp. 285 - 300