Dr. Milagros Lopez-Pelaez Casellas
My research vision
The book I published in 2012 contributes to the analysis of the cultural output of the first Chicana novelists: Maria Amparo Ruíz de Burton and Jovita González. Using a hermeneutic approach to the texts of these early writers, this book suggests the existence of a definite embryonic Chicano conscience, reflecting as they do women in a process of self-definition and in search of a new border identity. This book is the first that fully studies and combine both writers and the first to point out their marked feminist and postcolonial character. The methodology employed in the book encompasses feminist and post-colonial criticism together with Lotman’s cultural semiotics.
Biography
Mila obtained her PhD in Chicano/Latin American Studies with a Minor in Humanities and Film Studies in Arizona State University (USA). She has also a Diploma de Estudios Avanzados (equivalent to an MA plus PhD Dissertation proposal) from the Universidad de Jaén, and an MA on Chicano literature from Arizona State University. She has also taught at Arizona State University (USA) and at Mesa Community (USA) College where she was a Lecturer in Spanish (with Tenure). Before starting her Senior Lectureship position at Coventry University, she was a Teaching Fellow in Latin American Studies at the University of Leeds (2009-2012) where she also acted as Deputy Director of the Colonial and Postcolonial Institute as well as SPLAS Year Abroad co-ordinator.
She is also an MA dissertation supervisor and has been an online lecturer for the MA in “Applied Linguistics for Teaching Spanish/English as a Foreign Language” programmes at the Universidad de Jaén (Spain). In 2012 she published her first single-authored monograph, What about the girls?: estrategias narrativas de resistencia en la primera literatura chicana (Oxford: Peter Lang) She has articles and book chapters on Chicano and English literature, Hispanic film and Pedagogy published in national and international peer-reviewed journals. She is an Editorial Board Member for The Grove: Journal of English Studies, as well as a Member of the Research Committee HUM 0271 (University of Jaen, Spain). She has served as an external referee for national and international peer-reviewed journals and has given papers on literature and film in both Europe and the USA.
Selected outputs
- Lopez-Pelaez Casellas, M. (2012) What about the girls?: Estrategias narrativas de resistencia en la primera literatura chicana. Oxford: Peter Lang.
- López-Peláez Casellas, M. (2012) ''Chastising the evil spirit': novela chicana del suroeste'.Letras Femeninas 38 (2), 193-216.
- López-Peláez Casellas, M.P., and López-Peláez Casellas, M. (2013) Gitanos y flamenco en el cine español: teorías de identidad y género en educación superior [Gypsies and Flamenco Music in Spanish Cinema: Identity and Gender Theories in Higher Education]”Aula (in press).
- López-Peláez Casellas, M. (2013) ''Traidoras a la raza': una re-textualización de la Malinche chicana'. The Grove. Working Papers on English Studies.
- López-Peláez Casellas, M., and López-Peláez, J. (2013) 'The Importance of the Smaller Things in Elizabeth Adams’ “Walk on a Grey Morning” and Jüri Talvet’s “Nimetule Kassile” [‘To a Nameless Cat’]'. In Teaching by Doing. A Professional and Personal Life. Ed. by Moreno, R., and Palomo, S. Jaen: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Jaen.
- Oliva, J.I., and López-Peláez Casellas, M. (2007) 'Identity Revisited'. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 54, 13-23.
- López-Peláez Casellas, M. (2006) 'El siglo XIX'. In Historia Breve de las Islas Britanicas. Ed. by Lopez-Pelaez Casellas, J. Madrid: Silex Ediciones SL.
- López-Peláez Casellas, M. (2006) 'Feminist Consciousness amongst Early Chicano Writers'.Interlitteraria 11 (2), 471-483.
- López-Peláez Casellas, J and López-Peláez Casellas , M. (2006) 'Literature and Identity: An introduction'. The Grove. Working Papers on English Studies 13 (Literature and identity), 9-18.
- López-Peláez Casellas, M. (2006) 'Dew on the Thorn: propuesta feminista de liberación chicana'. Cuadernos de ALDEEU 23, 183-199
Selected projects
- I+D+I project proposal (in progress): Working with a group of researchers from the Universidad de Jaén (Spain) in a project titled “Cuerpos generados” (Gendered Bodies).
