Angela Willis

I am privileged to teach a wide variety of courses in which I share my enthusiasm for the Spanish language alongside Hispanic literatures and cultures.

Spanning the centuries and seas, my research interests are comparative in nature. The majority of my scholarship centers on transatlantic, transtemporal tendencies and intertextualities. In my work, I emphasize literary continuities, the re-writing of early modern Spanish texts, particularly Renaissance novels, in the post-modern era.

I'm especially fascinated by transgressive texts, by the underdogs and rebels of literature, and by the notion of writing as a means of escape and survival. Accordingly, of principle interest to me is how the picaresque novel has been re-imagined in distinct times and places throughout the Spanish-language literary tradition.

I have dedicated the better part of the last decade exploring the concept of "re-writing," most specifically examining the narrative of the late Cuban dissident, Reinaldo Arenas.

One of my main objectives as a professor is to mesh my research with my teaching, to inspire my students through my enthusiasm. I aim to bring the texts off the page, to give them life. Thus, on campus I've organized numerous boisterous reading marathons of Don Quijote de la Mancha as well as dramatic presentations of Golden Age Theatre.

Teaching

LAS 101 Introduction to Latin American Studies
SPA 404 Transatlantic, Trans-temporal Perspectives: Writing and Re-writing the Hispanic Tradition (Seminar)
SPA 355 Literature of Survival: The Picaresque Novel
SPA 322 Don Quijote de la Mancha
SPA 321 Honor, Deceit, and Amorous Pursuits in Spanish Renaissance Theater (Teatro del Siglo de Oro)
SPA 320 A Critical Survey of Medieval and Golden Age Literature
SPA 302 Advanced Grammar
SPA 270 Introduction to Hispanic Literatures and Cultures
SPA 260 Advanced Spanish Conversation and Composition
SPA 102 and 201 Second-Year Intermediate Spanish Courses (Second and Third Semesters)