Kathryn M. Mayers (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison 2003) is Associate Professor of Spanish at Wake Forest University. Her research interests are Renaissance and Baroque poetry and literary historiography with a particular focus on visual culture and the intersections of verbal and visual representation. Her publications include articles on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Hernando Domínguez Camargo, and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. Her book Visions of Empire in Colonial Spanish American Ekphrastic Writing (in press) studies the rhetorical and ideological role of a number of texts that speak for and about pictures during the period between the Conquest and the independence of Spanish America.

EDUCATION

Ph.D.   University of Wisconsin-Madison (2003)
Field: Hispanic Literature

M.A.    University of Wisconsin-Madison (1995)
Field: Hispanic Literature and Linguistics
Granted with distinction

M.A.    University of Wisconsin-Madison (1994)
Field: Comparative Literature
Granted with distinction

B.A.    State University of New York at Binghamton (1990)
Fields: Spanish and German Language and Literature

Université de Montréal, Canada. Studies in French language and Québecois civilization (July 1992)

Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany. Educational exchange through the State University of New York. Studies in contemporary German language, literature, and film. (July 1986 to July 1987)

Preparatoria de la Universidad de Guaymas, Mexico. Educational exchange through Rotary International. (September 1982 to May 1983)

PROESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Associate Professor, Wake Forest University (2004-present)
Lecturer, University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Spanish and Portuguese
(2000-2001, 2002-3)
Teaching Fellow, University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Letters and Science
(2002)
Teaching Assistant, University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Comparative
Literature (2001-2)
Instructor, University of Wisconsin-Madison College for Kids (2000, 2001)
Teaching Assistant, University of Wisconsin-Madison (1993-2001)

CONFERENCE PAPERS AND PANELS

“The Rhetoric of Vision in Hernando Domínguez Camargo’s Poema heroico a San Ignacio de Loyola.” Paper read at the conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Atlanta 2010.

“Religion and Society in the Spanish Empire.” Panel moderated at the Dominant Discourses, Guarded Voices: Religion and Society in Spain and its Empire, 14th-16th centuries Conference, WFU 2010

 “Scopic Regimes and Modernity in the Escuela cuzqueña and Guamán Poma de Ayala.” Paper read at the Atlantic World Literacies Conference, Greensboro, 2010.

“Sesión especial en honor de Leroy Quintana.” Panel moderated at the Conference of Spanish and Hispanic-American Poetry, Winston-Salem, 2010.

“Poetic Pictures as Local Theory in Hernando Domínguez Camargo.” Paper read at the IXth Biennial Meeting of the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry, Eugene, 2009.

Cuban History, Diverse Expression, and the Art of Collecting. Panel moderated at the Cuban Culture, History, and the Business of Art Symposium, Winston-Salem, 2009.

“Truth and History in Columbus’s Carta a Santángel and Léry’s Histoire d’un voyage.” Paper read at the Fifth International and Interdisciplinary Conference Alexander von Humboldt, Berlin, 2009.

Diálogos trashumantes del período colonial. Panel chaired at the Carolina Conference on Romance Literatures. Chapel Hill, March 2008.

“Americanismo y criollismo en tres poemas ecfrásticos de Hernando Domínguez Camargo y Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.” Paper read at the VIII Biennial Conference of the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry. Córdoba, Spain. October 2007.

“La evocación de un conocimiento social criollo en tres retratos literarios de Sor Juana.” Paper read at the Third International Interdisciplinary Symposium for CASO (Colonial Americas Studies Organization). Quito, Ecuador. June 2007.

“Illusion and Elision in the Ekphrastic Imagery of the Poema heroico a San Ignacio de Loyola.” Paper read at the symposium The Soul of Empire: Visualising Religion in Early Modern Spain and the New World. London, England. November 2006.

“Autorrepresentación, andinismo, y artificio barroco en el “Apologético” de Juan de Espinosa Medrano.” Paper read at the VII Jornadas Andinas de Literatura Latinoamericana(JALLA). Bogotá, Colombia. August 2006.

“The Politics of Plenty in the cornucopia of Hernando Domínguez Camargo.” Paper read at the Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference (MIFLC). North Carolina, October 2005.

“Americanismo y criollismo en la cornucopia de Hernando Domínguez Camargo.” Paper read at the Colonial Americas Studies Organization (CASO). Bogotá, Colombia, August 2005.

“Cross-Currents in the Literature Classroom: Teaching Hernando Domínguez Camargo’s Poema Heroico from a Trans-Atlantic Perspective.” Paper read at the Latin American Studies Association Congress (LASA). Las Vegas, October 2004.

“Hybridity and Self-Confrontation in Nicolás Echeverría’s Cabeza de Vaca.” Paper read at the Early Ibero/Anglo Americanist Summit. Tucson, Arizona, May 2002.

“Re-Reading / Re-Writing Baroque Form: The Politics and Aesthetics of Ekphrasis in Domínguez Camargo’s Poema heroico.”Paper read at the conference Re-Thinking the Baroque: Genres and Subjectivities in the Seventeenth-Century Americas. Madison, March 2002.

“Imag(in)ing Differently: Sor Juana’s Ekphrastic Innovation as an Expression of Creole Consciousness.” Paper read at the 54th Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (KFLC). Lexington, April 2001.

“Early Modern and/or/versus Renaissance.” Talk given in a panel discussion of the faculty-graduate workshop Early Modernity and Its Borders: Transnationalism, Humanism, and the Humanities. Madison, November 2000.

“Br(e)aking Tradition: Gongoran Ekphrastic Innovation and its Significance for the Social Other.” Paper read at the First Annual Graduate Student Conference in Luso-Hispanic Literatures at Harvard University. Cambridge, May 2000.

“Lorca’s Hidden Rebellion: The Gender Politics of His Popular Plays.” Paper read at a conference of the Graduate Student Organization of Comparative Literature. Madison, April 1994.

FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS AND AWARDS

Reynolda Campus Research and Publication Materials Award, Wake Forest U (2010)
Junior Faculty Fellowship, Wake Forest U (2010)
QEP Faculty Stipend for International Course Development, Wake Forest U (2009).
Internal Research Grant for the planning of a Global Humanities Center, Wake Forest U (2008 grant researcher).
Archie Travel Grant, Wake Forest U (2007).
Wake Forest Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation Junior Faculty Leave for Research (2007).
Junior Faculty Nomination for a National Endowment for the Humanities NEH Summer Stipend, Wake Forest U (2007).
Kress Foundation Grant for International Conference Presentation (2006).
Mellon Grant for the Development of a Course with an International Focus, Wake Forest
U (2006).
Student Government Certificate of Appreciation for Valuable Contribution to the Students of Wake Forest U (2006).
Tri Delta Apple Pie Award for Excellence in Teaching, Wake Forest U (2005).
Letters and Science Teaching Fellowship, U Wisconsin-Madison (2003-3).
Vilas Travel Award, U Wisconsin-Madison (2002).
Mellon Foundation Conference and Workshop Grant (2000, 2002).
Department of Spanish and Portuguese Conference Grant, U Wisconsin-Madison (2002).
Early Modern Research Circle Conference Grant, U Wisconsin-Madison (2002).
Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Center Conference Grant, U Wisconsin-Madison (grant author 2002).
IN TIME 2 Grant, U Wisconsin-Madison (2000).
Lucía Caycedo Garner Award for Teaching Excellence, U Wisconsin-Madison (1993).
Graduate School Fellowship, U Wisconsin-Madison (1992-3).
Alumni Research Foundation New Graduate Student Materials Grant, U Wisconsin-Madison (1992-3).
Rotary Fellowship for Study Abroad (1982-3).

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

Society of Early Americanists
Modern Language Association
Latin American Studies Association
Society of Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry
Colonial Americas Studies Organization

Book:

Visions of Empire in Colonial Spanish American Ekphrastic Writing(Forthcoming 2011, Bucknell University Press: Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory series).

Articles:

“Modelos de mirar y epistemología colonial en las ékfrasis icónicas del Poema heroico de Hernando Domínguez Camargo.” Cuadernos de Literatura del Departamento de Literatura de la Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá (forthcoming 2011).

“Counter-Reformation Visuality and the Animated Icons of Domínguez Camargo’s Poema heroico.” Calíope, Journal of the Society for Renaissance & Baroque Hispanic Poetry. Vol. 16 No. 1 (2010): 119-140.

“El retrato verbal como mecanismo de autoconstrucción: Sor Juana y la subjetividad multiposicional.” In Poéticas de lo criollo. La transformación del concepto ‘criollo’ en las letras hispanoamericanas (siglos XVI al XIX). Eds. Juan Vitulli, David Solodkow. Argentina: Editorial Corregidor, 2009. 147-165.

“American Artifice: Ideology and Ekphrasis in the Poema heroico a San Ignacio de Loyola.” Hispanófila. Vol. 155 No. 1 (2009): 1-19.

“Of Third Spaces and (Re)localization: Critique and Counterknowledge in Nicolás Echeverría´s Cabeza de Vaca.” Confluencia: Revista Hispánica de Cultura y Literatura. Vol. 24 No. 1 (2008): 2-16.

“Autorrepresentación, andinismo, y artificio barroco en el “Apologético” de Juan de Espinosa Medrano.” Memorias de las VII Jornadas Andinas de Literatura Latinoamericana. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 2006.

“Americanismo y criollismo en la cornucopia de Hernando Domínguez Camargo.” Revista Memoria y Sociedad Vol. 9 No. 19 (2005): 47-53.

“Between allá and acá: The Politics of Subject Positioning in the Ekphrastic Poetry of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.” Calíope, Journal of the Society for Renaissance & Baroque Hispanic Poetry. 11.2 (2005): 5-20.

SPN 359         “The Occidental Tourist: Transatlantic Travels in Art, film, and Literature”
SPN 379         Special Topics: “From Imagination to Image: Representations of
European-American Encounter from 1492-1992”
SPN 351         Transatlantic Renaissance
SPN 318         Literary and Cultural Studies of Spanish America
SPN 213         Encounters: Hispanic Literature and Culture
FYS 100         “From Imagination to Image: Representations of European-American
Encounter from 1492-1992”
FYS 100         “The Occidental Tourist: Transatlantic Travels in Art, Film, and
Literature”