Faculty Profiles

Dr. Gates’ research explores mid-20th century Latin American literature and film, especially related to post-revolutionary Mexico. Her research interests include cultural studies, ecocriticism, psychoanalysis, feminism and gender studies.

While in college, Dr. Gates studied abroad for a semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina, an experience that dramatically altered her worldview and inspired her to study Latin America in graduate school. She has also spent a year as a missionary teaching first grade in rural Honduras.

Her hope for her 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 Latinx communities that form an important part of our country. In her free time, she enjoys drinking coffee, reading 19th-century British literature, and spending time with her husband and three children.

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

“Decolonizing the Church in Juan Rulfo’s ‘Talpa’ (1948).” Latin American Studies Assocation (LASA) Congress: Polarización socioambiental y rivalidad entre grandes potencias, 7 May 2022, online.

“Nature-endorsing Discourse in Elena Poniatowska’s Hasta no verte Jesús mío.”  Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Conference, May 2021, online.

 “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 335 Latin American Civilization and Culture
• SPAN 337 Survey of Spanish American Literature
• SPAN 493 Surrealism in Spain and Beyond
• SPAN 493 Mexican Literature
• SPAN 493 Golden Age of Mexican Cinema

Gates, Stephanie R. "La tierra es nuestra: revisiones nerudianas a Whitman en “Que despierte el Leñador” del Canto general (1950)." Romance Notes, vol. 59 no. 3, 2019, p. 447-458.

Gates, Stephanie. “Danza and the Signifying Process in Rosario Ferré’s Maldito amor.” Latin American Literary Review, 46 (92), 2019

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