scholarly works
recent articles
“Healing on the Margins: Ana de San Bartolomé: Convent Nurse.” Early Modern Studies
Journal (Fall 2014).
“Going for the Subjective: One Way to Write Biographical Fiction” a/b: Auto/Biography
Studies 31:1 (December 2015). 11-20.
“Don Quijote: A Collision of Mindsets.” Approaches to Teaching Don Quijote.” Ed. Lisa Vollendorf and
Edward Friedman. New York: Publications of the Modern Language Association. , 2015. 138-146.
“Comedia Actresses, Then and Now: The Case of Ana Caro’s Valor, agravio y mujer.” Remaking
the Comedia: Spanish Classical Theater in Adaptation. Eds. Harley Erdman and Susan Paun de García.
London: Tamesis, 2015.
“Actresses as Athletes and Acrobats.” Prismatic Reflections on Spanish Golden Age Theater. Eds.
Gwyn Campbell and Amy Williamsen. New York: Lang, 2015. 229-242.
“Lope de Vega’s El Castigo sin venganza: What Do Readers Know and When Do They Know It?”
Comedia Performance (Guest edited by Susan Paun de García and Donald Larson). 12.1 (Spring 2015). 50-79.
“Teresa de Avila: Portrait of the Saint as a Young Woman.” Romance Quarterly 63:1 (2016). [Special issue in commemoration of the fifth centenary of Saint Teresa’s Birth]
“Cecilia del Nacimiento.” Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation. (2016).
“Evil Within, Evil Without: Teresa of Avila Battles the Devil.” The History of Evil in the Early Modern Age (1450-1700). Ed. Daniel Robinson, University of Oxford; General Editors History of Evil Series, Chad Meister and Charles Taliaferro. London and New York: Routledge, 2018. 95-112.
“Three Sisters of Carmen: The Youths of Teresa de Jesús, María de San José, and Ana de San Bartolomé.” Youth of Early Modern Women. Elizabeth Cohen and Margaret Reeves, eds. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, 2018. 137-158.
“Allegories of Faith: Lope de Vega’s Two Extant Plays on Teresa de Ávila.” Religious and Secular Theater in Golden Age Spain: Essays in Honor of Donald T. Dietz. Susan Paun de García and Donald Larson, eds. New York: Lang Iberica, 2018. 63-76.
“María de San José in Portugal: Life in the Lisbon Carmel.” Miríada Hispánica 16 (2018). [Special issue in honor of Alison Weber] (121-234)
“Early Modern Scholarship: The Good New Days.” Sixteenth Century Journal. 50:1 (Spring 2019). 55-61.
“Older Actresses on the Early Modern Stage: Roles and Challenges.” Living the Comedia: Essays Celebrating Amy Williamsen. Eds. Esther Fernández and J. Yuri Porras. New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2020. 53-64.
Women Religious and Epistolary Exchange in the Carmelite Reform;
The Disciples of Teresa de Avila
Coming soon from Amsterdam University Press
A New Anthology of Early Modern Spanish Theater: Play and Playtext
The first performance-based anthology of early modern Spanish theater ever published,
this new collection incorporates the newest critical trends and offers the reader a wide
selection of both canonical and non-canonical texts.
Shakespeare and the Spanish Comedia
Shakespeare and the Spanish Comedia is a nearly unique transnational study of the
theater / performance traditions of early modern Spain and England. Divided into three parts,
the book focuses first on translating for the stage, examining diverse approaches to the topic.
It asks, for example, whether plays should be translated to sound as if they were originally
written in the target language or if their "foreignness" should be maintained and even highlighted.
Section II deals with interpretation and considers such issues as uses of polyphony, the relationship
between painting and theater, and representations of women. Section III highlights performance
issues such as music in modern performances of classical theater and the construction of stage
character. Written by a highly respected group of British and American scholars and theater
practitioners, this book challenges the traditional divide between the academy and stage
practitioners and between one theatrical culture and another.
Teresa de Avila, Lettered Woman
In 1562, Teresa de Avila founded the Discalced Carmelites and launched a reform movement that would pit her against the Church hierarchy and the male officials of her own religious order. This new spirituality, which stressed interiority and a personal relationship with God, was considered dangerous and subversive. It provoked the suspicion of the Inquisition and the wrath of unreformed Carmelites, especially the Andalusian friars, who favored the lax practices of their traditional monasteries. The Inquisition investigated Teresa repeatedly, and the Carmelite General had her detained. But even during the most terrible periods of persecution, Teresa continued to fight for the reform using the weapon she wielded best: the pen. Teresa wrote hundreds, perhaps thousands, of letters to everyone from the King to prelates to mothers of novices.
Teresa's epistolary writing reveals how she used her political acumen to dodge inquisitors and negotiate the thorny issues of the reform, facing off the authorities--albeit with considerable tact--and reprimanding priests and nuns who failed to follow her orders. Her letters bring to light the different strategies she used--code names, secret routing--in order to communicate with nuns and male allies. They show how she manipulated language, varying her tone and rhetoric according to the recipient or slipping into deliberate vagueness in order to avoid divulging secrets. What emerges from her correspondence is a portrait of extraordinary courage, ability, and shrewdness.
Women Writers of Early Modern Spain
This collection gathers together a wide variety of works by Spanish women writers of the Golden Age. In the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, the cloister was a refuge for women with intellectual aspirations. A few of these women produced biographies of founding sisters, histories of their orders and even poetry and theater. Most of these writings were never published and only now, at the beginning of the 21st century, are researchers beginning to unearth and transcribe them. Barbara Mujica provides an ample introduction to the volume in English, placing early modern Spanish women's writing within the broader context of Europe of the time. The remaining text is in Spanish, and for each of the selections Mujica offers an introduction with biographical and critical information.