My research focuses on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish literature. In Women of the Prologue: Imitation, Myth, and Magic in Don Quixote I (Bucknell UP, 2002), I explore the significance of the women of the prologue in Don Quixote I and Cervantes's impact on the pressing question of literary continuation and cultural authority in Golden Age Spain.

I have also published a critical edition of Quevedo's La vida del buscón (European Masterpieces, 2007) and have written on mythological female figures in the comedia, the role of the wife and mother in sixteenth-century advice manuals, and food representation in Golden Age texts.

My current project, Feeding Between the Lines: Discourses of Food in Early Modern Spain, explores the representations of food consumption and etiquette in the literature of early modern Spain and examines how food informs and intersects with social constructs of identity.

Curriculum Vitae

Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, 1989-94. Dissertation: "Women of the Prologue: Writing the Female in Don Quijote I" Director: Frederick A. de Armas.
M.A., New York University in Madrid, 1987-88. Thesis: "Alfonso el Sabio y la creación de la literatura castellana" Director: Francisco Bustos.
B.A., University of Virginia, 1981-85. Attended University of Madrid via Marquette University, 1983-84.

Employment

Professor, Illinois Wesleyan University, Golden Age and Medieval literature and culture, all levels of Spanish language courses, various across-the-curriculum courses.
Assistant Professor, 1994-2000; Associate Professor, 2000-05.
Director, Illinois Wesleyan's Barcelona Program, spring 2012.
Inaugural Director, Illinois Wesleyan's Madrid Program, spring, 2005.
Inaugural Director, Illinois Wesleyan's London Program, fall, 2000.
Instructor, basic and advanced Spanish language courses, Intensive Spanish Language Summer program, Penn State, 1989-94.

Books

El buscón, critical edition. Cervantes& Co Spanish Classics. Newark, DE: European Masterpieces, 2007.

Women of the Prologue: Imitation, Myth, and Magic in Don Quijote I. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2002.

Review: Cervantes XXII.2 (Fall 2002): 201-05.

Other recent publications

“Transformation and Transgression at the Banquet Scene in La Celestina.” Objects of Culture in Imperial Spain. Ed. Frederick de Armas and Mary Barnard. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Forthcoming.

“Contributions of Medieval Food Manuals to Spain’s Culinary Heritage,” Monographic Issue of Cincinnati Romance Review, “Writing About Food: Culinary Literature in the Hispanic World.” Forthcoming.

“Moscatel morisco: The Role of Wine in the Formation of Morisco Identity,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. Forthcoming.  

“Early Modern Spanish Cookbooks: The Curious Case of Diego Granado.” Food and Language. Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2009. Ed. Richard Hosking. Totnes, England: Prospect Books, 2010. 237-46.

“Ensaladas calientes y carnero verde: imágenes de la vianda en la poesía satírico-burlesca de Francisco de Quevedo,” La Perinola 13 (2009): 313-26.

“Maritornes: algo más que la prostituta de la venta,” Actas de El Quijote en clave de Mujer/es, Valdepeñas, Spain, 2005. Ed. Fanny Rubio. Toledo: Empresa Pública Don Quijote de la Mancha, 2007. 205-13.

“Critiquing the Elite in the Barataria and “Ricote” Food Episodes in Don Quijote II” Hispanófila (2006): 59-75.
 
“Spanish Culinary History in Cervantes’ ‘Bodas de Camacho,” Revista canadiense de estudios hispánicos 29.2 (Winter  2005): 347-61.

“Authorizing the Wife/Mother in Sixteenth-century Advice Manuals,” Women in the Discourse of Early Modern Spain. Ed. Joan Cammarata. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003. 19-34.  

"Blood Mother/Milk Mother: Breastfeeding, the Family, and the State in Antonio de Guevara's Relox de Príncipes (Dial of Princes)," Hispanic Review 69.2 (Spring 2001): 153-74.