About the Professor

Professor Olivera-Williams Ph.D. focuses on 19th - 21st-century Latin American literature, with special emphasis on the Southern Cone literature and culture, Women's literature and feminist criticism. Her book El salto de Minerva: Intelectuales, género y Estado en América Latina, co-edition with Mabel Moraña, has just been published by Iberoamericana-Vervuert (2005). She is also the author of La poesía gauchesca de Hidalgo a Hernández (1986) and numerous studies on a range of Spanish American authors. She is finishing a book-length manuscript entitled The Art of Creating the Feminine: Power, Sexuality and Desire in Spanish American Women Writers of the Southern Cone, and working on a new research project, Changes in Urban Rhetoric: Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile. Professor Olivera-Williams, twice honored with a Kaneb Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education (1999; 2005), has been elected member of the executive committee of the division on Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature of the Modern Languages Association (2003-2007), and is the 2006 Nevada Humanities Scholar.  For more information on Professor Olivera-Williams, please consult the website of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.

As mentioned in the Course Description, this course is a true seminar.  Professor Olivera-Williams suggested the topics and readings, but students led discussion.  Along these lines, the lecture notes to be found in this OpenCourseWare course are compilations of past students' reflections, insights, and ideas.  The following students provided their notes, insights, and reflections to help make this OpenCourseWare course complete: John Daly, Lindsay Finger, Libby Hasse, Tyler Stavinoha, and Kimmy Tavarez.  To learn more about these particular students, please see About the Students.