W&L's Ellen Mayock Serves as Guest Editor on Spanish Journal
Ellen Mayock, professor of Romance languages at Washington and Lee University, served as guest editor on a new double issue of the journal Cuaderno Internacional de Estudios Humanísticos y Literatura (Volume 16/Fall 2011), published by the University of Puerto Rico.
The special issue brings together 26 essays from leading experts to discuss the Spanish novel since 1975. “That’s my area of expertise,” said Mayock, “so it was very appealing to me. I was completely honored that the editor-in-chief considered my scholarship important enough that I could manage a double volume.”
Mayock wrote the introduction to the volume and also contributed an article on contemporary Spanish novelist Rosa Montero. She has served on the journal’s editorial board for 12 years as a peer reviewer of essays submitted for publication.
Mayock explained that 1975 was an important year in Spanish history because it was the year of Francisco Franco’s death. “It was the year that the country was supposed to start its transition to democracy,” she said.
Mayock described the double issue as extremely timely. “A lot of the essays touch upon real political debates going on in Spain right now about historical memory and legal debates about exhuming corpses, including Franco’s,” she said. “Several of the essays also address the crisis about the place of literature and literary scholarship in the realm of the media in general. Does literature still matter, given all the other outlets there are?”
Mayock said that the authors include both established stars in the field as well as up and coming people. They hail from Argentina, Canada, England, Mexico, Spain and the United States. The major themes examined in the volume are the historical novel and the Spanish Civil war; space, memory and intertexts; Spanish regions and immigration; philosophy and power; and new and renovated genres.
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