Hobart and William Smith Colleges

5 March 2018 Rodriguez-Mansilla on Spanish Golden Age

Assistant Professor of Spanish and Hispanic Studies Fernando Rodriguez-Mansilla recently joined three scholarly events centered on Spanish philology, sharing his expertise in the field as a keynote speaker and twice as guest lecturer.

In celebration of the 400th anniversary of the second part of Don Quijote de la Mancha (published in 1615), Rodriguez-Mansilla offered the keynote address for a graduate colloquium organized by the Master of Arts of Spanish Program in Central Michigan Universitys Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures. The title of Rodriguez-Mansillas presentation was Hidalgos pobres: a social approach to Don Quijote.

I analyzed the Duke and Duchess episode of part two of Cervantes masterpiece, where the author develops a critique of the discourse of nobility embodied by the hidalgua, which reveals the intense interaction between social tensions and the literary artifact, Rodriguez-Mansilla explains.

In March, as part of a course on Spanish Golden Age comic literature organized by the Instituto de Investigaciones Filolgicas of the Universidad Autnoma de Mexico (UNAM), Rodriguez-Mansilla served a guest lecturer for a seminar focused on laughter found in picaresque novels a literary style first developed in the 16th century of the Spanish Golden Age. UNAM hosted a series of seminars throughout the spring featuring scholars from universities of Mexico, Spain and United States.

Following the UNAM seminar, Rodriguez-Mansilla also gave a talk on acclaimed Early Modern feminist writer, Mara de Zayas. Presented to an audience of Spanish philology students, the lecture focused on Zayas novel, Amar slo por vencer, and its picaresque undertones, which often has been overlooked by the critics.

Both the seminar and lecture were streamed live. As part of UNAMs commitment to promote digital humanities in the Hispanic world, the seminar on laughter in the picaresque novels isavailable on YouTube.

A member of the HWS faculty since 2010, Rodriguez-Mansilla is an expert on Spanish Golden Age narratives and poetry, picaresque novels, and Spanish philology.

At the Colleges, he teaches the courses, Golden Age: Renaissance and Baroque, La Espaa del Siglo de Oro, Rutas literarias de Espaa and In the Shadow of Dulcinea: Love and Women in Golden Age Spain. Among several professional affiliations, he is a member of the Golden Age Research Group, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. The author of several books, including Picaresca femenina de Alonso de Castillo Solorzano (2012), and numerous publications.

Rodriguez-Mansilla holds a B.A. in Hispanic literature, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru; a Licentiate in Hispanic literature, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru; and a Ph.D. in Spanish philology from Universidad de Navarra, in Pamplona, Spain.