¡Hola! Et salve!
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, its emphasis on global citizenship, and its unique Medieval Studies program.
With academic training in Hispanic Studies and Classics, I teach a broad array of courses in Spanish language, literature, and culture as well as first-year Latin. My scholarship focuses on medieval, early modern, and contemporary Spain along with literary translation.
In addition to holding positions in Languages and Cross-Cultural Studies and Medieval Studies, I collaborate closely with the Departments of English and Theater, with the M.F.A. program, and with the Center for Global Education. I am also a literary translator and creative writer. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @prof_kidd!
Education
- B.A. magna cum laude, 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
- ENL 360: The Classical Tradition
- ENL 361: The Medieval World
- HUM 120: Medieval Life in 12th-Century Europe (a.k.a. “Medieval Connections”)
- LAT 101-102: Beginning Latin I & II
- SPA 111-112: Beginning Spanish I & II
- SPA 211-212: Intermediate Spanish I & II
- SPA 248: Spanish and Latin American Culture through Film
- SPA 295: Translation Theory and Practice
- 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
- SPA 354: Representative Hispanic Authors
- SPA 356: Latin American Literature
Selected Publications
BOOKS
- Black Protagonists of Early Modern Spain: Three Key Plays in Translation. Hackett, 2023.
- Lorca: Four Key Plays. Hackett, 2019.
- Life’s a Dream/La vida es sueño. Aris and Phillips, 2011. Anthologized in the Bedford Introduction to Drama, 8e (2018).
- Life’s a Dream: A Prose Translation. 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. Penn State UP, 1999.
ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
- “Consequences of Color: Translating Blackness in Three Early Modern Spanish Plays.” Necessary Fiction.
- “Presencia y ausencia de mitología clásica en las obras laicas de Lucas Fernández.” Homenaje al profesor Juan Antonio López Férez. Ed. Luis Miguel Pino Campos and Germán Santana Henríquez. Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas, 2013. 419-26.
- “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.
Favorite literary Quotes
Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.
—Virgil
Rapiebant me spectacula theatrica, plena imaginibus miserarium mearum et fomitibus ignis mei.
—St. Augustine
Quid igitur, O mortales, extra petitis intra vos positam felicitatem?
—Boethius
De los sos ojos tan fuertemientre llorando, tornava la cabeça e estávalos catando.
—Poem of the Cid
¿Qué pasado bien no es sueño?
—Pedro Calderón de la Barca
La puerta del teatro no se cierra nunca.
—Federico García Lorca
Take one of my courses to learn more, or follow me on Twitter @prof_kidd!