Amy R. Williamsen

It seems impossible that I have been teaching for almost thirty years. Every day my work brings me new challenges and opportunities to learn-especially in my new position as Head of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at UNCG. Before moving to North Carolina, I spent over two decades at the University of Arizona. Nothing brings me greater professional joy than seeing my students succeed. Imagine my surprise when at my first FLANC conference in Winston-Salem one of my former students from U of A, James McConnell, was honored as Educator of the Year for his work at NC State! My own teaching and research have been profoundly influenced by my experiences abroad in Spain and Mexico. For instance, my love for theater began when I toured the 17th century "corral" at Almagro during my early travels in Franco's Spain where I acquired Spanish through immersion (I learned firsthand why this approach is sometimes called "sink or swim"!) Recently, my translation of Ana Caro's seventeenth-century play, Courage, Betrayal and a Woman Scorned, has been performed on stage. I have also enjoyed the opportunity to introduce international theatrical companies at the annual "Siglo de Oro" festival in El Paso—literally watching "from the wings." (http://www.comedias.org) In addition to exploring our new home state, I continue to work on a book-length project tentatively entitled The Critical Quest: Lessons from the Margins of Early Modern Spanish Literature. Currently, however, most of my energy is devoted to furthering our departmental mission to promote cultural diversity and international awareness at UNCG (and beyond) by "Discovering ourselves+others through explorations in languages, literatures, and cultures."

There are 6 included publications by Amy R. Williamsen :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Back to Basics: What Every Comediante Should Know: Confessions of a Panel Organizer 2004 1372 Last fall, when visiting a graduate seminar composed of students who had just completed a course on the comedia, I was amazed at what I learned. When I asked something about the function of polymetry in La vida es sueño, the students chorused, "You m...
The Comic Function of Two Mothers: Belisa and Angela 1984 1005 Much of the existing criticism dealing with the mother figure in the comedia consists of broad generalizations. The present study analyzes the comic function of two very different mother characters in an attempt not only to provide a greater understa...
Re-Writing in the Margins: Caro's Valor, agravio y mujer as Challenge to Dominant Discourse 1992 3192 The title of this paper deliberately establishes a dialogic relationship with Paul Julian Smith's work Writing in the Margin; at the same time, it suggests the possibility of the "re"-writing of dominant discourse in marginalized works. The concept o...
Review of El teatro español del siglo de oro: métodos y enfoques críticos 1992 755 This article is a review of El teatro español del siglo de oro: métodos y enfoques críticos.
Review of Marcia Welles’s Persephone’s Girdle: Narratives of Rape in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Literature 2002 1048 This article is a review of Persephone's Girdle: Narratives of Rape in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Literature by Marcia L. Welles
Review of Tilting Cervantes: Baroque Reflections on Postmodern Culture 2009 658 This article is a review of Tilting Cervantes: Baroque Reflections on Postmodern Culture by Bruce R. Burningham.