Click for Professor Gascón-Vera's Biography in Spanish

 

Elena Gascón Vera, Marion Butler Maclean Professor of History of Ideas at Wellesley College, has a Licenciatura de Filosofía y Letras from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a M.Phil and a Ph. D. both from Yale University. Since 1973 she has been teaching at the Department of Spanish of Wellesley College where she was the Chair from 1977-84 and 1999-2001. She is the author of Don Pedro, Condestable de Portugal (1979) and Un mito nuevo. La mujer como objeto/sujeto literario (1992). In addition, she is the co-author of Homenaje a Jorge Guillén ( I978); María Luisa Bombal. Apreciaciones críticas;(1987) Nuevo cine español / New Spanish Cinema (1980); Homenaje a Justina Ruiz de Conde en su ochenta cumpleaños (1992); Signos y fábulas. Ensayos sobre Pedro Salinas.(1993) She has also written numerous articles on topics that range from Spanish Medieval Literature and Feminist Studies to Spanish Postmodernism and Spanish and Mexican Cinema. She is currently working on several book-projects: " Inventio and Tragedy. 15th Century Spain and the Spirit of Empire;" Enclaves feministas; Rationality and Subjectivity": "Women Philosophers of Spain in the 20th Century" . Wellesley, "Unharmed Memory": Spain in Wellesley College". She has been awarded research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Insitituto de la Mujer de España and the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States Universities.

This is my professional and academic profile, which stands as an explanation that I spend most of my time thinking, reading, writing and teaching. As a Professor, I consider myself an educator who intends to teach a higher spiritual and ethical attitude toward life. As a Spaniard born during the Second World War who grew up during the hunger years of the post-war and General Franco's fascist dictatorship, I see myself as a representative and a witness of a Latin and Hispanic way of being, supported by a rich and varied culture. I try always to transmit to my students not only the teaching of Spanish language, culture, literature and film, but also how to arrive at a deeper knowledge of alternative modes of thinking which will hopefully make them better human beings, honest and critical, responsible and open, tolerant and creative, independent and, above all, free.