Hi there!

I am so excited to be your neighbor at KCECH!  I live in KC 320 and 424 (two doors but same apartment) with my husband Óscar, who is also a College House Faculty Fellow, and with our cat Popota.  

A bit more about me: I am originally from Estepona, a town in Southern Spain (in the region of Andalusia, between Málaga and Cádiz). It is on the Mediterranean seaside, very close to the Strait of Gibraltar –we can actually see the coast of Northern Africa from our shore!  My homeplace has historically been a crossroads of civilizations, and as such diversity is deeply engrained my background.

I got my BA on Art History and Aesthetics from the University of Seville, and my PhD in Spanish Literature from Stony Brook University (New York) with a dissertation on Rosa Chacel and other Spanish women authors from the historical Avant-Garde.  I began teaching at UPenn’s Department of Spanish & Portuguese in 2007, while I was still a graduate ABD student; I loved it so much that, after graduation, I decided to stay.

My fields of specialization and of interest are contemporary Spanish women’s narrative, feminist theory and gender studies, intellectual and political history, art and cinema, and cultural studies (with an emphasis on Iberian ethnicities and national-regional identities).  My undergraduate literary seminars cover a variety of topics on Peninsular literature, including women’s novels and short stories, Modernism and Decadentism aesthetics, representations of the Spanish Civil War, and fictions of racial/religious alterity in Iberian cultures.  On some of these topics, I have also directed undergraduate honors theses.

I have also taught Hispanic cultural history, Spanish language courses at all levels, and even basic medical Spanish at the Perelman School of Medicine.  I am currently the coordinator of Intermediate Spanish I (SPAN 0300).  Additionally, I teach in the Penn in Madrid summer broad program, and I collaborate with the Lauder Institute (the graduate version of the Huntsman program!), having lead graduate immersion trips to Cuba and Colombia and participating regularly in MA/MBA graduation committees.

I love all forms of art, especially cinema; chatting with friends over plant-based cuisine; traveling, exploring cities and parks, and taking photographs; listening to music and dancing (except I’m terrible at it!); and reading (though ironically, I have little time to immerse in books).

I’m looking forward to knowing you. I love being a part of this community, and I hope you will feel the same way!