My educational experience is deeply rooted in the liberal arts. In my college years at the University of Salamanca, Spain, I became interested in learning how the perception of beauty motivates human behavior, and how reading fiction and exercising imagination develop the human mind. Later, by way of a study abroad experience, my intellectual aspirations led me to the University of Michigan, where I developed a passion for the classical and vernacular literatures of Europe. I ended up concentrating on the literatures of the Spanish Golden Age. After receiving my PhD, I spent most of my career teaching not only my native language at American colleges and universities, but also the cultures of the Hispanic world, and, not surprisingly, the topics of beauty and love in pre-1800 Spanish literature.
Love is the most common theme in the literatures of all times. Today, the fictional narratives and films of all genres contain stories of love. The ways in which humans express love are closely related to cultural characteristics in each society. I devoted most of my research efforts focusing on a genre that tells stories of unrequited love. As you know, happy love is not a good material for fiction. And fiction develops our understanding of life, as well as (research demonstrates) cognitive abilities in our brains that make us “smarter.” If you are interested in fiction, beauty, and love, I invite you to get in touch with me to explore how you and I can become intellectual partners.
