Spanish

Dr. Laura Barbas Rhoden

Professor of Spanish

Dr. Laura Barbas Rhoden’s teaching interests include environmental humanities; Latin American literary and cultural studies; collaborative projects-based learning and research; and community-engaged learning in Spanish. Her research focuses on environmental humanities, ecocriticism and public humanities (multilingual, multiethnic engagement and research). She earned her B.A. degree from the University of Georgia, and her M.A. degree and Ph.D. from Tulane University. She enjoys teaching and learning with students on a leafy urban campus. She appreciates the chance to engage students in thinking and learning, and the opportunity to further community efforts for positive change through undergraduate research and co-created endeavors that Wofford provides.

Dr. Amanda L. Matousek

Associate Professor of Spanish

B.A., B.S. and M.A., University of Akron
Ph.D., The Ohio State University

Dr. Amanda Matousek’s teaching interests include Mexican, Latin American and Latinx novels and short stories; female Latin American and Latina rebels, divas, performers, artists, and writers; Latinx pop culture and popular music; Argentine Dirty War and Spanish Civil War literature; and intermediate language course design and instruction. Her research interests include Mexican, Latin American and Latinx literatures and cultures; Chicanx studies; U.S.-Mexico border studies; popular music and popular culture studies; women and violence in Latin American and Iberian literatures and cultures; women’s studies; and modern language pedagogy. Away from Wofford, she enjoys sharing musicals and pop music with her children. She says she is a TV and true crime junkie and a Selena Quintanilla-Pérez superfan.

Dr. Patricia G. Nuriel

Associate Professor of Spanish

Dr. Patricia G. Nuriel teaches intermediate and advanced Spanish, as well as courses on 20th and 21st century literature and cultures of Latin America. In all her courses, she emphasizes task-based language acquisition, minority voices and underrepresented topics to create an inclusive environment for collaborative learning. Her research focuses on Latin American literature and film, particularly on the area of Latin American Jewish studies. She co-edited the special issue Jewish Identities in Latin American Cinema for Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities with Luca Barattoni. She has published articles in scholarly journals such as Hispamérica and Revista Iberoamericana, as well as in the volume Evolving Images: Studies on Latin American Jewish Cinema. Her current work relates to the cultural production of Yiddish-speaking immigration to Latin American in the first half of the 20th century. She holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Ph.D. from Arizona State University.