Michael Kidd

Associate Professor and Chair

Department of Languages & Cross-Cultural Studies

¡Hola!

Before coming to Augsburg in 2008, I taught at St. Olaf, Macalester, Carleton, and the University of New Mexico. I love Augsburg’s urban location and its emphasis on international education and global citizenship.

My academic training is in Spanish literature and Classics. I am especially interested in Spanish theater of the late medieval and early modern periods (approximately 1450-1650). I teach everything from first-semester Spanish to upper-division literature and culture.

In addition to my position as chair of Languages and Cross-Cultural Studies, I am a member of the Medieval Studies faculty and collaborate closely with the Theater Department and the M.F.A. program. I am also a translator and a creative writer.

Education

• B.A., Pomona College, 1990
• Ph.D., Cornell University, 1995

Honors and Distinctions

• Colorado Endowment for the Humanities Publication Prize, 2004
• American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 2001
• Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, 1990-95
• Phi Beta Kappa, 1990

Courses

• SPA 111-112: Beginning Spanish I & II
• SPA 211-212: Intermediate Spanish I & II
• SPA 295: Hispanic Film
• SPA 311: Spanish Conversation and Composition
• SPA 312: Spanish Expression
• SPA 331: Spanish Civilization and Culture
• SPA 352-353: Survey of Spanish Literature I & II

Selected Publications

BOOKS

• Life’s a Dream/La vida es sueño. Oxford: Aris and Phillips, 2011. Anthologized in the Bedford Introduction to Drama, 7e (2013).
• Life’s a Dream: A Prose Translation. Boulder: UP of Colorado, 2004. Anthologized in the Bedford Introduction to Drama, 6e (2009).
• Stages of Desire: The Mythological Tradition in Classical and Contemporary Spanish Theater. Penn State Studies in Romance Literatures. University Park: Penn State UP, 1999.

ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS

• “Del objeto al sujeto: fetichismo y autonomía en El señor de Pigmalión de Jacinto Grau.” Mitos clásicos en la literatura española e hispanoamericana del siglo XX. Ed. Juan Antonio López Férez. Vol. 1. Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas, 2009. 275-85. 2 vols.
• “Queer Myth and the Fallacy of Heterosexual Desire: Luis Riaza’s Medea es un buen chico (1981).” Medeas: versiones de un mito desde Grecia hasta hoy. Ed. Aurora López and Andrés Pociña. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2002. 1059-71.
• “The Fairest of Them All: Racial and Sexual Signification in Vélez de Guevara’s Virtudes vencen señales.” A Society on Stage: Essays on Spanish Golden Age Drama. Ed. Edward H. Friedman, H. J. Manzari, and Donald D. Miller. New Orleans: UP of the South, 1998. 117-32.
• “Myth, Desire, and the Play of Inversion: The Fourteenth Eclogue of Juan del Encina.” Hispanic Review 65 (1997): 217-36.
• “Libidinal Expression and Artistic Repression: Juan Timoneda’s Tragicomedia llamada Filomena.” Texto y Espectáculo: Selected Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Golden Age Theatre Symposium (March 8-11, 1995) at the University of Texas, El Paso. Ed. José Luis Suárez García. York, South Carolina: Spanish Literature Publications, 1996. 74-85.
• “The Performance of Desire: Acting and Being in Lope de Vega’s El laberinto de Creta.” Bulletin of the Comediantes 47 (1995): 21-36.
• “Triangular Desire and Sensory Deception in Francisco de la Cueva y Silva’s Trajedia de Narciso.” MLN 110 (1995): 271-83.
• “Playing with Fire: The Conflict of Truth and Desire in Galdós’s Electra.” Anales Galdosianos 29-30 (1994/95): 105-20.
• “Laughing Matters: Reading, Gusto, and Narrative Entrapment in Don Quixote.” Cervantes 14.2 (1994): 27-39.

CREATIVE

• “Peninsula.” Out of the Gutter Online. January 21, 2013.

Favorite Quotes from Spanish Literature

• De los sos ojos tan fuertemientre lorando / tornava la cabeça y estava los catando.

—Anonymous, Poema de Mio Cid (13th century)

• Porque es umanal cosa el pecar.

—Juan Ruiz, Libro de buen amor (14th century)

• Siempre fue la lengua compañera del imperio.

—Antonio de Nebrija, Gramática de la lengua castellana (15th century)

• Coged de vuestra alegre primavera / el dulce fruto.

—Garcilaso de la Vega, Soneto 23 (16th century)

• Polvo serán, mas polvo enamorado.

—Francisco de Quevedo, Soneto 471 (17th century)

• ¿Qué pasado bien no es sueño?

—Pedro Calderón de la Barca, La vida es sueño (17th century)