Contact Julia Kushigian
Education
B.A., University of Connecticut; M.A., New York University; M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Yale University
"In a traditional reading of the novel of growth and development - or Bildungsroman - a white, male, middle-class individual emerges as protagonist. Kushigian's bold, interdisciplinary study offers new approaches to the Bildungsroman and ably demonstrates that its design is anything but monolithic. Expanding the definition beyond the limitations imposed by the traditional form, Kushigian (Connecticut College) brings to the discussion the experiences of women, the marginalized, and the disenfranchised. Two premises underscore her analysis: The individual identity often appears problematic and inextricably intertwined with national and cultural identity, and that the path to self-knowledge leads to engagement with the Other. The novel of self-realization and actualization thus becomes a type of hero journey marked by an exploration of gender roles and socioeconomic difference. Kushigian examines myriad cultural components present in both canonical and less-studied texts and employs four basic reading strategies: the standard view of Bildungsroman as rite of passage, new models of wholeness or self-actualization, a redefinition of the concept of the heroic, and ambiguity and hybridization of identity through parody and pastiche. Including ample documentation and bibliography, this major study will change the way scholars view the coming-of-age novel." -- Choice
Julia A. Kushigian
Professor of Hispanic Studies
Chair of Hispanic Studies Department 2002-2005
Chair, Foreign
Language Caucus, 2002-2003
Associate Director of the Holleran Center for Community Action and Public
Policy, 2001-2002
Director, Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal
Arts, 1995 - June, 1999
Chair, Hispanic Studies Department, June, 1993 - June, 1995; December
1997 - June, 1999; July 2002 - June 2005
Joined Connecticut College: 1985
Specialization:
- Contemporary Latin American literature
- Gender, Culture, and Race in Spanish America
Professor Kushigian was director of SATA Seville 2006: Focus on Transatlantic Orientalisms.
Professor Kushigian teaches Spanish language courses and Latin American literature courses that cover over six centuries of Latin American literature and culture from pre-Columbian texts through the contemporary and postmodern. She takes a Liberal Arts approach to her teaching and research. By placing different disciplines including art, philosophy, history, music, economics, the sciences, anthropology and sociology in the context of this tradition, she views reality as a whole.
Kushigian promotes an inquiry into the complexities of postmodern life through a reading of the past to enliven both literary and cultural studies. A sample of her courses are "Old World/New World: Tradition and Innovation in Latin American Literature," "Growing Up In Latin America: The Bildungsroman in Latin American Narrative," "Orientalism in Hispanic Literature and Culture," “History of Hispanic Art” for which she designed the computer program, and "Myth, Folklore and Legends of Spanish America", a course she created for the Hispanic Studies department. Kushigian will be on sabbatical leave 2006-2007 to continue her research on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz begun spring 2006 in the Archivo de las Indias in Seville while directing the SATA/Spain program, and to further her book project on race and whitening in Spanish America.
Kushigian has numerous articles and books to her credit including Orientalism in the Hispanic Literary Tradition: In Dialogue with Borges, Paz and Sarduy (New Mexico Press, 1991); an edited collection of essays titled "International Studies in the Next Millennium: Meeting the Challenge of Globalization (Praeger Press, 1998), and her most recent book Reconstructing Childhood. Strategies of Reading for Culture and Gender in the Spanish-American Bildungsroman (Bucknelll University Press, 2003).
Her numerous articles, interviews, and reviews range from a demystification of the Columbian exchange to a postmodern analysis of Diamela Eltit's works as performance pieces. Her most recent publications include: "El Primero sueño de Las mil y una noches: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, orientalista" Published spring 2005 online in the collection "Moros en la costa: el orientalismo en América Latina"; http://maqvar-irodalom.elte.hu/palimpszeszt/23 szam/index.html; and forthcoming in a collection of essays to be published in Spain by Editorial Iberoamericana-Vervuert/Verlag; " Reconstructing Childhood: El cuarto mundo and Vaca Sagrada as Bildungsromane and Gendered, Social History" in Diamela Eltit , La Torre, Revista de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Año. X, Num. 38, octubre-diciembre 2005; and "Culturas híbridas y el análisis de las razas en Yo el Supremo de Augusto Roa Bastos", Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Volume 83, Number 4 / June 2006. She publishes on poetry, short story, novel and essay.
Kushigian's recent research explores the relationship between Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the seventeenth-century Mexican nun, poet, playwright, and feminist, scientific and religious enigma with Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz, the bishop of Puebla, her ambitious friend and mentor. Through a reading of original documents and a re-reading of "Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz" Kushigian sheds light on the linguistic strategies and traps that draw these figures to each other but curiously lead to a breach in trust too wide to mend. This research is an outgrowth of her previous publication on Sor Juana, a seminar Kushigian led in Seville on "Transatlantic Orientalisms" and a course she taught on "Old World/New World: The Clash of Cultures", during spring, 2006 for a group of intelligent and resourceful Connecticut College students.
View the Hispanic Studies department site.