James Courtad

Teaching

Dr. Courtad teaches all levels of Spanish language, from beginning elementary Spanish through advanced conversation and composition. He also teaches courses on the culture and the literature of Spain. In addition, he has taught Spanish for business and graduate seminars on culture and travel literature at his previous institutions.

Scholarship

Dr. Courtad’s main areas of research are Spanish literature and culture from 1800 – present, specifically realist fiction and travel narrative. He has also published essays that  focus on 20^th C. Puerto Rican Women writers. Most recently he is working on the intersection of painting and fiction in Spanish culture as well as historical memory.

Book Chapters and Prefaces:

“¿Quién Soy? / ¿Quiénes somos?: el prisma de la identidad en los cuentos de Lourdes Vázquez”. Narradoras, cuentistas, cronistas, relatoras: La escritura de mujeres en Puerto Rico a finales del Siglo XX y principios del XXI. Amarilis Hidalgo de Jesús, ed. Edwin Mellen Press. 2012. 

"La frecuente meditación personal: nota preliminar". Adagio con fugas y ciertos afectos: Mis mejores cuentos. Lourdes Vázquez. Madrid: Editorial Verbum, 2013.

Journal Articles:

• “Appropriation of Culture and the Quest for a Voice in the Works of Luisa Capetillo”. Symposium 70.1 (Spring 2016): 24-35.

• “Cannibal Imagery in Galdós: Bourgeois Efforts at Social Dominance”. Monographic Review/Revista monográfica XXI (2005).
• “Juan Valera and the Business of Literature: Epistolary Confessions on Publishing in the 19^th Century”. Romance Notes 45.1 (Fall 2004): 23-33.
• “A Forgotten <<Dialogue>>: A Case of Intertextuality in Galdós’s Marianela and Valera’s Las ilusiones del doctor Faustino”. Michigan Academician 34.4 (Winter 2003): 417-425.

Service

Dr. Courtad has served on University Senate, the Library Committee and a semester on the Curriculum and Regulations Committee. He participates in the Mesa Hispánica and wherever else the Department needs his services.