Dr. Ángeles Encinar, Professor at Saint Louis University, Madrid

Dr. Ángeles Encinar, Professor at Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus, got her Ph.D.
in Spanish Literature from Washington University in St. Louis in 1988. She has been
Visiting Professor at Stanford University, The University of Texas at Austin and Växjö
Universitet, among other International Institutions. She has received different grants from
the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture. The most recent one, of $38,000, has been
conferred by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to continue her research –in
collaboration with others professors from Spain, Germany and the US- on Literary Short
Stories from Spanish Female Authors in the period 1975-2005. This three-year project has
concluded with the organization of a prominent seminar and the edition of a book related
to this research. Currently she is engaged in an International Conference about the works of
Carmen Martín Gaite.
Professor Alicia Ramos-Mesonero, Ph.D., studied Education in Madrid before going to the United
States. She received a B.A. from Northern Illinois University, and a Master and a Ph.D. from Northwestern
University. She has taught at Northern Illinois University, Northwestern University and University of
Missouri-St. Louis. She was a visiting professor at Växjö Universitetet in Sweden, and at St. Joseph’s
University. Since 1995, Ramos has been teaching at Saint Louis University - Madrid Campus. She is a
specialist in Contemporary Spanish Literature, and teaches a variety of Literature and Language courses: La
Novela Española del Siglo XX, La Narrativa de la Guerra Civil, Cine y Literatura, El Pensamiento Español
del Siglo XX, La Generación del ’98, La Literatura del Camino de Santiago, etc. Among her publications
there are articles on the works of Juan Goytisolo, Ortega y Gasset, Camilo José Cela, Esther Tusquets, Max
Aub, Augusto Roa Bastos, El Camino de Santiago, etc. She coauthored a bilingual dictionary, Diccionario
Akal del español coloquial: 1492 expresiones y más, and Literatura y confesión, a collection of interviews
with Spanish writers such as Antonio Buero Vallejo, Ángel Figuera Aymerich, Antonio Ferres, Carmen
Martín Gaite, Dolores Medio, José Manuel Caballero Bonald, Elena Soriano, Luis Riaza and Carlos Álvarez.
She has recently published two books: La incognita desvelada: ensayos sobre la obra de Rosa Montero,
and Memoria de las presas de Franco, a pioneering work on the recovery of Spanish Historical Memory. It
examines the theory and meaning of testimonio and how the genre serves to recount the plight of Spanish
Republican Women who were imprisoned in post-war Spain under Franco’s dictatorial regimen. This coming
summer she will be teaching a new graduate course titled: Testimonio de las presas de la posguerra española
(Literatura testimonial de las presas de Franco).
Graduate student Jessica Quick recently completed her MA English thesis, “Community and Exile in Frank
O’Hara’s Lunch Poems and Federico García Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York,” in which she considers urban
subjectivity from divergent cultural perspectives within New York City.
Jessica Quick will be beginning the PhD in English at Duke University in Fall 2013. She is interested
in pursuing research in twentieth century American poetry, with consideration of the development and
historicization of intellectual communities such as the New York School and Black Mountain College. She is
also the poetry editor and co-founder of SLU Madrid’s literary magazine, Penumbra.