Ellen Mayock Speaks at Centennial Celebration of Carmen Martín Gaite and Co-Edits Volume The Ernest Williams II Professor of Romance Languages shares her research on the Spanish author.

By Lily Caldwell
October 22, 2025

Ellen Mayock, Ernest Williams II Professor of Romance Languages at Washington and Lee University, was invited to speak at the Centennial Celebration of Carmen Martín Gaite in Salamanca, Spain. The international conference celebrates the centennial year of the birth of Spanish author Carmen Martín Gaite and was held in the author’s birthplace.

The celebration showcased the latest advances in research on Martín Gaite’s work and included discussions on her intellectual interests and significance to the history of women’s writing in Spain. The event featured sessions hosted by experts on the Spanish writer, including Mayock’s presentation, “Rhetoric and Reality of Silence in Usos Amorosos de la Postguerra Española (Courtship Customs in Postwar Spain) by Carmen Martín Gaite.”

Additionally, Mayock co-edited, alongside Debra Ochoa from Trinity University (Texas), a forthcoming volume, published by Liverpool University Press, on Martín Gaite. The volume, titled “Carmen Martín Gaite (1925-2000): Conversing Across the Genres in Poetry, Short Stories, and Theatrical Works,” celebrates the author’s centennial by including chapters written by Martín Gaite experts and well-known Spanish authors. The volume examines the many genres represented in Martín Gaite’s works and includes a first-ever bilingual edition of Noelia Adánez’s play about Martín Gaite, “Carmiña.”

Mayock has been a member of the W&L faculty since 1997. She is a co-founder of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program and teaches courses in the Department of Romance Languages and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Mayock is also the founder of the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Program and Pluma, W&L’s Spanish-language creative writing magazine. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in French and Spanish from the University of Virginia, a Master of Arts in Spanish from Middlebury College and a Ph.D. in Hispanic literature from the University of Texas at Austin.

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