About
My work takes as its primary focus writings that span the late-nineteenth to twentieth-centuries in Spain and engage with sociocultural representations of femininity and the links between modernity and gender. I also examine censorship practices in dictatorial Spain as well as literary and cultural products that decenter Eurocentrism, in particular, social constructs, identity markers, and political conventions during and beyond the transition to modernity.
I have authored of Negotiating Discursive Spaces: Censorship and Women’s Novels in Spain (1950s – 1960s) (forthcoming) and The Novels of Carmen Conde: Toward an Expression of Feminine Subjectivity (2012) as well as coeditor of Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Nation in Fin-de-Siècle Spanish Literature and Culture (2016). My essays have appeared in 14 edited collections, and my journal articles have appeared in Aula Lírica, Hispania, Hispanófila, Letras Femeninas, Narraplus, Romance Notes, among others. In 2022, I was the recipient of a Florida Humanities: Greater Good in Academia Grant. In 2019, I participated in a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute.
Further, I am active in academic leadership and governance, including with UCF where I am the Spanish Master’s Program Director (2014-present) and was recently the Coordinator of the Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies Program. I am a member of Delegate Assembly (Language Programs) of the Modern Language Association (MLA) where I was a former representative of the South Region. I am the current 1st Vice President of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, previously serving as member or chair of the Budget Committee, Nominating Committee, Program Committee, and Harper Fund Award Committee. I served as the Secretary/Treasurer of both the Asociación Internacional de Galdosistas and the Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies. My roles also include my work with The College Board/ETS on the Spanish Literature and Culture AP Exam, both on the leadership team during the exam’s scoring and as former co-chair of the exam’s Development Committee. Education
Ph.D., Spanish, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. Dissertation: “Power, Truth, and Knowledge in Modern Hispanic Narrative: Manuel Zeno Gandía‚ Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and Benito Pérez Galdós”
M.S., Spanish, Georgetown University, Washington, DC. Thesis: “El naturalismo en La barraca y La charca”
B.A., Spanish, St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, NY. Publications
Books: Monographs and Co-Edited Volume
Negotiating Discursive Spaces: Censorship and Women’s Novels in Spain (1950s – 1960s). Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, in press.
Smith, Jennifer and Lisa Nalbone, Ed. and Intro. Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Nation in Fin-de-Siècle Spanish Literature and Culture. Routledge, 2016.
The Novels of Carmen Conde: Toward an Expression of Feminine Subjectivity. Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2012.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters
“Sounding Post-Memory Silence in Soledad Puértolas’s Música de ópera,” (Post)Memories in the feminine: Voices and Experiences in the Grammar of the World. Ex Aequo. Eds. Sheila Khan, Susana Pimenta, and Sandra Sousa. 47 (2023): pp. 51-64
“‘Desandar los viejos senderos retorcidos y construir algunos otros caminos necesarios’: La metaficción en Hueso duro de roer de Enrique Jaramillo Levi.” Contar desde la tangente: Luz y sombra en la obra literaria de Enrique Jaramillo Levi, edited by Fredy Villarreal Vergara, Editorial Tecnológica, Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá, 2022, pp. 21-33.
“Colonial Imperatives: Articulating a Discourse of Education in Evita’s Cuando los combes luchaban (1953) and Dadié’s Climbié (1956).” The Africas in the World and the World in the Africas: African Literatures and Comparativism, edited by Nazir Can and Sandra Sousa, Quod Manet, pp. 155-78.
“Decentering the Narrative: Teaching the Life and Selecting Writing of José Martí.” Boletin Martiano, vol. 1, no. 2, 2021, pp. 28-33.
“Consideraciones sobre la traducción al inglés del cuento inédito ‘Rompecabezas’ de Benito Pérez Galdós.” Tibón, vol. 2, 2020, pp. 199-204.
“La mirada masculina en Tristana.” La hora de Galdós, edited by Yolanda Arencibia and Rosa María Quintana. Cabildo de Gran Canaria, 2019, pp. 193-200.
“La construcción de la memoria en ‘A la hora que cierran los bares’ de Soledad Puértolas.” Narraplus, vol. 1, 2018, pp. 119-32.
“Spaces of Enclosure in Liberata Masoliver’s Barcelona en llamas.” Spanish Women Writers and Spain’s Civil War, edited by Roberta Johnson and Maryellen Bieder, Routledge, 2017, pp. 52-63.
“The Legal, Medical, and Social Contexts of the ‘Angel in the House.’” Teaching the Works of Emilia Pardo Bazán, edited by Margot Versteeg and Susan Walter, Modern Language Association, 2017, pp. 49-57.
“Censorship: Blasco Ibáñez and the Trajectory of His Narrative Production 1939-1978).” Journal of Blasco Ibáñez Studies, vol. 4, 2016/2017, pp. 97-112.
“Moving through Time and Space in Mercedes Rubio’s Las siete muchachas del Liceo (1957) via Wagner’s Parsifal in Barcelona, Spain (1914).” Studies in Medievalism, vol. XXV, 2016, pp. 37-44.
“La metaficción en los cuentos del escritor panameño Enrique Jaramillo Levi.” Maga (Panama), vol. 77, 2015, pp. 24-28.
“La política y la (de)construcción de valores en El caballero encantado.” Galdós. Los fundamentos de una época, edited by Yolanda Arencibia and Rosa María Quintana. Cabildo de Gran Canaria, 2014, pp. 309-14.
“Conjuros, seducción y tribulaciones en La última fada de Pardo Bazán.” De Britania a Britonia: La leyenda artúrica en tierras de Iberia: cultura, literatura y traducción. Cuaderno de Bretoña, edited by Juan Miguel Zarandona, Peter Lang International, 2014, pp. 282-93.
“Border Crossings and Journeys of Discovery: Carmen Conde’s Las oscuras raíces and Solamente un viaje.” South Atlantic Review, vol. 78, 2013, pp. 59-74.
“La naturaleza y el imaginario nicaragüense: Una lectura ecocéntrica de Jaguar puro inmarchito de Carmen Conde.” Aula lírica, vol. 5, 2013, pp. 47-60.
“Rewriting Genre and Gender in Tremendismo: Temporal, Spatial, and Auditory Signs in Carmen Conde’s Mientras los hombres mueren.” Letras Femeninas, vol. 38, no. 2, 2012, pp. 97-109.
“La visión ginocéntrica en Mientras los hombres mueren de Carmen Conde.” Hispania, vol. 94, no. 2, 2011, pp. 229-39.
“Las confesiones y los espacios de deseo en La incógnita y Realidad.” Galdós y la gran novela del XIX, edited by Yolanda Arencibia and Rosa María Quintana, Cabildo de Gran Canaria, 2011, pp. 410-18.
“La dialéctica del tradicionalismo y de la modernidad mediante el traslado geográfico en Sin rumbo de Eugenio Cambaceres.” Crítica Hispánica, vol. 33, no.1-2, 2011, pp. 65-77.
“Entrevista con Ricardo Viñalet.” Pegaso, vol. 4, 2010, pp. 79-86.
“Colonized and Colonizer Disjunction: Power and Truth in Zeno Gandía’s La charca.” Hispanófila, vol. 159, 2010, pp. 23-37.
“The Poetics of War in Carmen Conde’s Mientras los hombres mueren.” Romance Notes, vol. 49, no. 3, 2009, pp. 277-85.
“El vértice de la modernidad en La Quimera y Dulce dueño de Emilia Pardo Bazán.” La literatura de Emilia Pardo Bazán, edited by José Manuel González Herrán, Cristina Patiño Eirín and Ermitas Penas Varela, Fundación Caixa Galicia y Casa-Museo Emilia Pardo Bazán, 2009, pp. 483-91.
“El derrumbe sistemático de la relación colonia/colonizado: La muñeca de Carmela Eulate Sanjurjo.” Baquiana, vol. 9, 2007-2008, pp. 144-49.
“On Being a Writer: The Fictional Self in Enrique Jaramillo Levi’s Caracol y otros cuentos.” Encuentro con la literatura panameña, edited by Humberto López Cruz, Universal Books (Panama), 2003, pp. 109-29.
“Lola Rodríguez de Tió and Luis Lloréns Torres: Literary Precursors of Puerto Rican Political Ideology.” SECOLAS Annals, vol. 32, 2000, pp. 125-31.
“Collectivity vs. Individuality: Duplicity in Plantation Society in La charca by Manuel Zeno Gandía.” South Eastern Latin Americanist, vol. 41, no. 1/2, 1997, pp. 38-45.
Peer Reviewed Translations
“Braintwister.” ‘Rompecabezas’ con dibujuos por Benito Pérez Galdós. By Benito Pérez Galdós, edited by Yolanda Arencibia, Gobierno de Canarias y La Universidad Las Palmas, 2020, pp. 21-28.
Introduction to and Translation of “Rompecabezas.” By Benito Pérez Galdós. Tibón, vol. 2, 2020, pp. 199-204.
Translation of “Explaining Nineteenth-Century Spanish Literature: The Evaluation of Pardo Bazán’s Literature Lessons.” By Íñigo Sánchez-Llama. Teaching the Works of Emilia Pardo Bazán, edited by Margot Versteeg and Susan Walter, Modern Language Association, 2017, pp. 122-27.
Translation of The Last Fairy from the Original Spanish: Emilia Pardo Bazán’s La última fada. De Britania a Britonia: La leyenda artúrica en tierras de Iberia: cultura, literatura y traducción. Cuaderno de Bretoña, edited by Juan Miguel Zarandona, Peter Lang International, 2014, pp. 297-334. Upcoming Talks and Conferences
Systems of Monstrous Beings in Emilia Pardo Bazán’s La última fada, IV Simposio Norteamericano de Estudios Galegos, October 2023.
Postcolonial Otherness and Angst in Liberata Masoliver’s Efún (1955), South Atlantic Modern Language Association Annual Convention, November 2023.
From Social to Personal: Sentimental Response in La de Bringas, Modern Language Association Annual Convention, January 2024. Memberships
Modern Language Association
American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
Asociación Internacional de Galdosistas
South Atlantic Modern Language Association
Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina Hispánica
Cultura, Literatura y Traducción Iber-Artúrica (
CLYTIAR): Proyecto de Investigación
