Dr. Luisa-Elena Delgado

SIP; Affiliated Faculty of Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Associate Professor of LAS Global Studies
Associate Professor of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese

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Contact Information

  • Address: 4080 FLB - 707 S Mathews (Urbana)
    Il 61801
  • Telephone: (217) 333-3390
  • Email:

Biography

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, of Spanish immigrants. Raised in Spain since I was six.

My family comes from all areas of Spain (Canary Islands, Madrid, Catalonia) and   Latin America (Venezuela, Argentina and Colombia). While we lived mostly in Madrid, we moved around quite a lot, to places as different as Zaragoza (for a year) and Morocco (for a couple of months).

I got my Licenciatura from the Complutense University in Madrid and my Ph.d from the University of California (Santa Barbara).

I have lived in the US now longer than anywhere else, and I do consider this country part of who I am and who I have become.

After all is said and done, and as the poet Mario Benedetti stated, my only notion of motherland might be an occasional urgency to be able to say "us" ("esta urgencia de decir nosotros").

 

Specializations / Research Interest(s)

Modern and Contemporary Spanish Studies; culture, ideology, aesthetics; cultural construction of identities; normative citizenship; cultural and literary theory,

Research Description

  • The focus of my current research and teaching is the cultural construction of national identities and Spanish citizenship, the different manifestations of cultural identity and the challenges and opportunities that multi-lingual, multi-ethnic nations and nation-states face. 

    I am finishing a book entitled "Una cierta idea de España: fantasias de normalidad e imaginario cultural (1990-2010)", and I am also working on a project on a cultural history of Spanish literature, co-authored with Jo Labanyi.

Education

  • Ph.D University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Complutense U, Madrid, Licenciatura

Distinctions / Awards

  • 2009-2010. Humanities Council Teaching Excellence Award. (University of Illinois).
  • 2010-11 Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory Nicholson Fellow.
  • Honorable Mention, Best Research in the Humanities, Illinois Program for Research In the Humanities (for "The Sound and the Red Fury")

Grants

  • 2009 Centre for Scientific Research (CSIC- Spain).
  • 2009 Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation
  • 2007. Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spanish Ministry of Culture and North American Universities

Courses

  • Intro to Cultural Analysis (Sp 254)

Publications

Books

  • La imagen elusiva: lenguaje y representación en la narrativa de Galdós.[The Elusive Image: Language and Representation in the Narrative of B.P. Galdós.] . Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi, 2000.

Book Contributions

  • "“The Astigmatic Vision and the Perception of Minority Literatures”." Writers in Between Languages: Minority Languages in the Global Scene. University of Nevada UP, Center for Basque Studies, 2010.
  • "“Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda: escritura, feminidad y reconocimiento.”." La mujer de letras o la letraherida. Textos y representaciones del discurso médico-social y cultural sobre la mujer escritora en el siglo XIX. Ed. Pura Fernández and Marie L. Ortega. Madrid-Toulouse-LeMirail: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2008.
  • "“El artista frente al abismo. Modernidad y decadencia de Antonio de Hoyos.”." En el país del arte: la novela del artista. Ed. Facundo Tomás. Valencia: Biblioteca Valenciana, 2003. 101-23.

Journal Articles

  • Delgado, Luisa Elena. ""The Sound and the Red Fury: The Sticking Poings of Spanish Nationalism"." Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 11.3-4 (2010): 263-286.
  • Mendelson, Jordana, and Luisa Elena Delgado. " “Recalcitrant Modernities: Spain, Cultural Difference and the Location of Modernism.” ." Special issue of Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 13.2.3 (2007):