Faculty Profile

Carolina Castellanos

Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese (2010)

Contact Information

castellc@dickinson.edu

Bosler Hall Room M12
717-245-1834

Office Hours for None: T 10:30 - 11:30pm

Bio

Professor Castellanos Gonella's research focuses on 20th and 21st centuries Latin American literature (Brazilian and Mexican narrative). More specifically, she works with a gender and sexuality studies lens to analyze topics such as warrior women, female masculinities, lesbianism, homoeroticism, and trans representation. Her first book manuscript analyzes gender transgressive characters--warrior women and trans warriors--in Latin American literature, more specifically in Los de abajo, Doña Bárbara, and Grande sertão: veredas (Forthcoming Purdue University Press). She is currently preparing her second book manuscript, which examines how women involved in drug trafficking in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico are portrayed in literature and newspapers. Professor Castellanos Gonella's work has been published in scholarly journals such as Latin American Research Review, Luso-Brazilian Review, Revista canadiense de estudios hispánicos, Journal of Lusophone Studies, Chasqui, Literatura mexicana, and others.

Education

  • B.A., Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, 2000
  • M.A., University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2004
  • M.A., Vanderbilt University, 2007
  • Ph.D., 2010

2023-2024 Academic Year

Fall 2023

PORT 200 Port for Speakers of Rom Lang
This course is designed for students who have previously studied another Romance language and would like develop speaking, reading, writing and listening skills in Portuguese. The course assumes no previous knowledge of Portuguese, and will rely on the comparative grammar and cognate vocabulary of Spanish and other Romance languages to develop language skills over the course of the semester. In addition, the class will explore aspects of Portuguese-speaking cultures in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Prerequisites: four semesters of a Romance language (or the equivalent), or permission of instructor.

SPAN 231 Spanish Composition
Across the world and throughout history, statistics have shown that men commit more crimes than women. However, women’s involvement with drug trafficking in Latin America has grown exponentially. The main goal of this class is to analyze Mexican women’s diverse and complex participation in drug trafficking while developing writing skills in Spanish. Some of the questions the course will discuss are: How are women represented? What are women saying and experiencing? Does women’s participation in drug trafficking challenge traditional rules and values? Are conventional notions of femininity and masculinity redefined by women’s participation in the criminal world? Because it is a writing-intensive (WR) course, students will take a process approach to writing (drafting, peer reviewing, feedback, and editing). Students will read newspaper clips, testimonials, interviews, watch a film, and listen to narcocorridos.

PORT 500 Independent Study

SPAN 500 Independent Study

Spring 2024

LALC 285 Cuír/Queer Brazil
Cross-listed with PORT 380-01.

PORT 380 Cuír/Queer Brazil
Cross-listed with LALC 285-01. Stereotyped as the country of carnival and licentiousness, Brazil combines a complex history of traditional, oppressive, and progressive values and laws. Same-sex marriage was approved in 2013, sex-correction surgeries are supported by the universal health care system, and São Paulo hosts the largest LGBTQIA+ parade in the world. Still, Brazil has the highest recorded number of murders of trans* people in the world. The goal of this course is to analyze the complexities of the literary, historical, and cinematographic production in Brazil of cuír authors and topics. The course examines how self-representations and representations have created, challenged, promoted, and affected the LGBTQIA+ community. At the same time, the course foregrounds the importance of how Brazilians have thought about their own cuírness. This course is taught in English.