Angela Acosta holds a Ph.D. in Spanish (Iberian Studies) from The Ohio State University. She researches twentieth century Spanish literature and culture with a focus on poetry and life writing. Her current project interrogates the production of homages to the Generation of 1927 that has denied the legacies of queer and female creatives active in the same cultural groups and institutions. She completed B.A. degrees in Spanish and English Language and Literature in addition to a Translation Studies Concentration at Smith College and has an M.A. degree in Spanish from The Ohio State University.
In this special issue on Spanish Sapphic Modernity, we introduce artists, writers, and performers... more In this special issue on Spanish Sapphic Modernity, we introduce artists, writers, and performers whose women-loving relationships and cultural production were connected to and through Spain, Europe (Ireland, Greece), the United States, and Hispanophone...
Ámbitos Feministas. Revista crítica multidisciplinaria anual de la coalición Feministas Unidas In... more Ámbitos Feministas. Revista crítica multidisciplinaria anual de la coalición Feministas Unidas Inc. Volumen 12, Primavera 2024 ÍNDICE-CONTENTS CRÍTICA-ESSAYS Christopher Davis "Imperfect Advocate: Edith Clarke’s Flawed Anthropological Projects on Rural Jamaica" pp. 13-42. Tania Carrasquillo Hernández "Colectivo Moriviví: Reconfiguring the Puerto Rican Nation through Feminist Art Activism" pp, 43-66. Alexandra Gonzenbach Perkins "The Seeing I: Queer Desire in Rosario Ferré’s “When Women Love Men” pp. 67-86. Carolina Rocha "Iniciación femenina en dos novelas de Claudia Piñeiro: Catedrales y El tiempo de las moscas" pp. 87-108. ESSAY PRIZE “EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN” 2023 Nora Muñiz "Escatón con glitter: las protestas feministas en Ciudad de México en 2019-2020" pp. 109-134. TRADUCCIÓN-TRANSLATION Karina M. Walker "Princesas naufragadas de Tessa Yang" pp. 135-137. Tessa Yang "Princess Shipwreck" pp. 138-142. SECCIÓN LITERARIA-LITERATURE Sokthan Yeng "The Subjugation of a Ghost" pp. 143-148. Paola Ehrmantraut "Invisible Labor" pp. 149-152. Juana Moriel-Payne "Clotheslines in the Borderlands" pp. 153-158. Ellen Mayock "Flower Ladies and Cloud Women" pp. 159-164. Olga Rivera "Viajero vespertino" pp. 165-166. Ángela Acosta "Poetic Tributes to “las Sinsombrero”: The Legacies of Modern Spanish Women" pp. 167-172. RESEÑAS-BOOKS REVIEWS Patricia Sagasti Suppes. Joni Boyd Acuff, Amelia M. Kraehe, and Gloria J. Wilson, A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back. U of Arizona P, 2022, pp. 173-174.
Ana I. Simón Alegre. Nuria Capdevilla-Arguelles. El regreso de las modernas. La Caja Books, 2018, pp.175-176.
Michelle Monaco. Maia Fernández-Lamarque. Cinderella in Spain: Variations of the Story as Socio-Ethical Texts. McFarland, 2019, pp. 177-179.
Mariana Ruiz-González. Rosita Scerbo. Latinas en los márgenes: QueerARTivismo y TRANSdisciplinariedad: hacia una politización de la autobiografía visual de mujeres invisibles. Peter Lang, 2021, pp. 180-181.
María Jesús Horta. Ana I. Simón Alegre. Concepción Gimeno de Flaquer (1850-1919): Her Personal Letters, Short Stories and Journalism. Vernon Press, 2023, pp. 182-183.
Robert C. Vest. Susy J. Zepeda. Queering Mesoamerican Diasporas: Remembering Xicana Indígena Ancestries. U of Illinois P, 2022, pp. 184-186.
Spanish archives house hundreds of documents related to avant-garde male poets who wrote during a... more Spanish archives house hundreds of documents related to avant-garde male poets who wrote during a period of cultural effervescence known as the Silver Age of Spanish literature (1898–1936). Feminist researchers like Tània Balló and Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles have successfully brought attention to the smaller corpus of archival materials related to modern women artists and writers, known as “las Sinsombrero”, who rebelliously took their hats off in public. Scholars working with female subjects must confront the inaccessibility of material documentation to address the historical absence of modern Spanish women. Balló's three Las Sinsombrero documentaries exemplify the wealth of non-material documentation about the lived experiences of women within cultural networks. I argue that Maurizio Ferraris's theory of documentality provides a key methodology for examining non-material social objects, such as gatherings of women at the “Academy of Witches,” as legitimate objects of study that can better represent the cultural milieu of Silver Age Spain.
Tània Balló's Las sinsombrero documentary series (2015-2021) about modern Spanish women led to th... more Tània Balló's Las sinsombrero documentary series (2015-2021) about modern Spanish women led to the creation of multimedia projects and online spaces for paying homage to forgotten women throughout history. However, such crowdsourced and scholarly recuperation efforts are at odds with the prevailing canonization of the Spanish avant-garde artistic group known as the "Generation of 1927". A deliberately constructed practice of homage has historically excluded women's legacies and granted nearly exclusive support for the ten male poets considered the originators of the Generation of 1927. Modern women writers like María Teresa León and Concha Méndez lacked such cultural support and thus constructed personas in their life writing by placing themselves outside the sphere of influence of the Generation of 1927 despite their successful literary careers. This creative piece brings together persona studies and homage to study how performances of prestige by writers and literary historians reveal the gendered, classed, and sexualised ways that the literary history of the Generation of 1927 has been constructed. My proposed theory of homage uncovers the closeted and undocumented sapphic and sororal relationships between women, and imagines queer feminist futures where women's work is central to understanding the cultural milieux of the Generation of 1927. These poetic tributes are what I call "life-making homages" that celebrate and grant prestige to recuperated knowledge of writers' queer, undocumented lives. The paper and accompanying poems demonstrate how, through life-making homages, scholars can propose alternate paradigms for tracing the development of the Generation of 1927 as part of Spain's cultural heritage.
Flying Island Online Literary Journal of the Indiana Writers Center, 2021
Creative Nonfiction about finding Amanda Junquera's short story collection "Un hueco en la luz" (... more Creative Nonfiction about finding Amanda Junquera's short story collection "Un hueco en la luz" ("A Gap in the Light") at the National Spanish Library (Biblioteca Nacional de España).
pretende ser un espacio académico de encuentro literario y cultural para entablar diálogo abierto... more pretende ser un espacio académico de encuentro literario y cultural para entablar diálogo abierto en el mundo hispanohablante. La revista tiene como objetivo promover entre estudiantes universitarios subgraduados y graduados, la crítica y la creación literaria y cultural a través del ensayo crítico, el cuento y la poesía. Los trabajos enviados deben ser inéditos y no deben estar siendo considerados para publicación en ninguna otra revista. Del mismo modo, los estudiantes interesados en enviar sus trabajos, deberán estar cursando español bien a nivel subgraduado o graduado. La lengua de publicación es solamente español. Los envíos se deben hacer de manera electrónica en formato word y no deben superar las 5000 palabras. Se otogará el Premio Ignacio R. M Galbis al mejor trabajo entre los seleccionados para publicación de la edición vigente.
The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal, 2017
This article discusses how historical and biographical information about Vicente Aleixandre (... more This article discusses how historical and biographical information about Vicente Aleixandre (1898–1984) shapes his conceptions of paradise and paradise lost in Sombra del Paraíso (Shadow of Paradise) (1944). Vicente Aleixandre was a Spanish poet and member of the “Generation of 1927” who lived in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship. He draws inspiration from his childhood in Málaga, the “City of Paradise,” to depict paradise in his book of long poems written at the midpoint of his career called Sombra del Paraíso. The book’s six sections alternate between depictions of paradise and paradise lost to create a sense of nostalgia for paradise. Aleixandre does not explicitly state whether each poem belongs to the world of paradise or paradise lost, yet his descriptions of these archetypal worlds clearly differentiate the emotions and images associated with each. I do a close reading of specific poems in the collection to examine the motif of the moon as an example of Aleixandre’s imagery of paradise. I argue that the image of the moon allows readers to differentiate between paradise as a bright place and the moonless paradise lost.
Angela Acosta reseña El Círculo Sáfico: Lesbianismo y bisexualidad en el Madrid de principios del... more Angela Acosta reseña El Círculo Sáfico: Lesbianismo y bisexualidad en el Madrid de principios del siglo XX de Paula Villanueva “El libro no es una mera reseña bibliográfica, sino un estudio pormenorizado sobre los desafíos personales y profesionales a los que se enfrentaron las mujeres lesbianas y bisexuales.”
In this special issue on Spanish Sapphic Modernity, we introduce artists, writers, and performers... more In this special issue on Spanish Sapphic Modernity, we introduce artists, writers, and performers whose women-loving relationships and cultural production were connected to and through Spain, Europe (Ireland, Greece), the United States, and Hispanophone...
Ámbitos Feministas. Revista crítica multidisciplinaria anual de la coalición Feministas Unidas In... more Ámbitos Feministas. Revista crítica multidisciplinaria anual de la coalición Feministas Unidas Inc. Volumen 12, Primavera 2024 ÍNDICE-CONTENTS CRÍTICA-ESSAYS Christopher Davis "Imperfect Advocate: Edith Clarke’s Flawed Anthropological Projects on Rural Jamaica" pp. 13-42. Tania Carrasquillo Hernández "Colectivo Moriviví: Reconfiguring the Puerto Rican Nation through Feminist Art Activism" pp, 43-66. Alexandra Gonzenbach Perkins "The Seeing I: Queer Desire in Rosario Ferré’s “When Women Love Men” pp. 67-86. Carolina Rocha "Iniciación femenina en dos novelas de Claudia Piñeiro: Catedrales y El tiempo de las moscas" pp. 87-108. ESSAY PRIZE “EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN” 2023 Nora Muñiz "Escatón con glitter: las protestas feministas en Ciudad de México en 2019-2020" pp. 109-134. TRADUCCIÓN-TRANSLATION Karina M. Walker "Princesas naufragadas de Tessa Yang" pp. 135-137. Tessa Yang "Princess Shipwreck" pp. 138-142. SECCIÓN LITERARIA-LITERATURE Sokthan Yeng "The Subjugation of a Ghost" pp. 143-148. Paola Ehrmantraut "Invisible Labor" pp. 149-152. Juana Moriel-Payne "Clotheslines in the Borderlands" pp. 153-158. Ellen Mayock "Flower Ladies and Cloud Women" pp. 159-164. Olga Rivera "Viajero vespertino" pp. 165-166. Ángela Acosta "Poetic Tributes to “las Sinsombrero”: The Legacies of Modern Spanish Women" pp. 167-172. RESEÑAS-BOOKS REVIEWS Patricia Sagasti Suppes. Joni Boyd Acuff, Amelia M. Kraehe, and Gloria J. Wilson, A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back. U of Arizona P, 2022, pp. 173-174.
Ana I. Simón Alegre. Nuria Capdevilla-Arguelles. El regreso de las modernas. La Caja Books, 2018, pp.175-176.
Michelle Monaco. Maia Fernández-Lamarque. Cinderella in Spain: Variations of the Story as Socio-Ethical Texts. McFarland, 2019, pp. 177-179.
Mariana Ruiz-González. Rosita Scerbo. Latinas en los márgenes: QueerARTivismo y TRANSdisciplinariedad: hacia una politización de la autobiografía visual de mujeres invisibles. Peter Lang, 2021, pp. 180-181.
María Jesús Horta. Ana I. Simón Alegre. Concepción Gimeno de Flaquer (1850-1919): Her Personal Letters, Short Stories and Journalism. Vernon Press, 2023, pp. 182-183.
Robert C. Vest. Susy J. Zepeda. Queering Mesoamerican Diasporas: Remembering Xicana Indígena Ancestries. U of Illinois P, 2022, pp. 184-186.
Spanish archives house hundreds of documents related to avant-garde male poets who wrote during a... more Spanish archives house hundreds of documents related to avant-garde male poets who wrote during a period of cultural effervescence known as the Silver Age of Spanish literature (1898–1936). Feminist researchers like Tània Balló and Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles have successfully brought attention to the smaller corpus of archival materials related to modern women artists and writers, known as “las Sinsombrero”, who rebelliously took their hats off in public. Scholars working with female subjects must confront the inaccessibility of material documentation to address the historical absence of modern Spanish women. Balló's three Las Sinsombrero documentaries exemplify the wealth of non-material documentation about the lived experiences of women within cultural networks. I argue that Maurizio Ferraris's theory of documentality provides a key methodology for examining non-material social objects, such as gatherings of women at the “Academy of Witches,” as legitimate objects of study that can better represent the cultural milieu of Silver Age Spain.
Tània Balló's Las sinsombrero documentary series (2015-2021) about modern Spanish women led to th... more Tània Balló's Las sinsombrero documentary series (2015-2021) about modern Spanish women led to the creation of multimedia projects and online spaces for paying homage to forgotten women throughout history. However, such crowdsourced and scholarly recuperation efforts are at odds with the prevailing canonization of the Spanish avant-garde artistic group known as the "Generation of 1927". A deliberately constructed practice of homage has historically excluded women's legacies and granted nearly exclusive support for the ten male poets considered the originators of the Generation of 1927. Modern women writers like María Teresa León and Concha Méndez lacked such cultural support and thus constructed personas in their life writing by placing themselves outside the sphere of influence of the Generation of 1927 despite their successful literary careers. This creative piece brings together persona studies and homage to study how performances of prestige by writers and literary historians reveal the gendered, classed, and sexualised ways that the literary history of the Generation of 1927 has been constructed. My proposed theory of homage uncovers the closeted and undocumented sapphic and sororal relationships between women, and imagines queer feminist futures where women's work is central to understanding the cultural milieux of the Generation of 1927. These poetic tributes are what I call "life-making homages" that celebrate and grant prestige to recuperated knowledge of writers' queer, undocumented lives. The paper and accompanying poems demonstrate how, through life-making homages, scholars can propose alternate paradigms for tracing the development of the Generation of 1927 as part of Spain's cultural heritage.
Flying Island Online Literary Journal of the Indiana Writers Center, 2021
Creative Nonfiction about finding Amanda Junquera's short story collection "Un hueco en la luz" (... more Creative Nonfiction about finding Amanda Junquera's short story collection "Un hueco en la luz" ("A Gap in the Light") at the National Spanish Library (Biblioteca Nacional de España).
pretende ser un espacio académico de encuentro literario y cultural para entablar diálogo abierto... more pretende ser un espacio académico de encuentro literario y cultural para entablar diálogo abierto en el mundo hispanohablante. La revista tiene como objetivo promover entre estudiantes universitarios subgraduados y graduados, la crítica y la creación literaria y cultural a través del ensayo crítico, el cuento y la poesía. Los trabajos enviados deben ser inéditos y no deben estar siendo considerados para publicación en ninguna otra revista. Del mismo modo, los estudiantes interesados en enviar sus trabajos, deberán estar cursando español bien a nivel subgraduado o graduado. La lengua de publicación es solamente español. Los envíos se deben hacer de manera electrónica en formato word y no deben superar las 5000 palabras. Se otogará el Premio Ignacio R. M Galbis al mejor trabajo entre los seleccionados para publicación de la edición vigente.
The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal, 2017
This article discusses how historical and biographical information about Vicente Aleixandre (... more This article discusses how historical and biographical information about Vicente Aleixandre (1898–1984) shapes his conceptions of paradise and paradise lost in Sombra del Paraíso (Shadow of Paradise) (1944). Vicente Aleixandre was a Spanish poet and member of the “Generation of 1927” who lived in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship. He draws inspiration from his childhood in Málaga, the “City of Paradise,” to depict paradise in his book of long poems written at the midpoint of his career called Sombra del Paraíso. The book’s six sections alternate between depictions of paradise and paradise lost to create a sense of nostalgia for paradise. Aleixandre does not explicitly state whether each poem belongs to the world of paradise or paradise lost, yet his descriptions of these archetypal worlds clearly differentiate the emotions and images associated with each. I do a close reading of specific poems in the collection to examine the motif of the moon as an example of Aleixandre’s imagery of paradise. I argue that the image of the moon allows readers to differentiate between paradise as a bright place and the moonless paradise lost.
Angela Acosta reseña El Círculo Sáfico: Lesbianismo y bisexualidad en el Madrid de principios del... more Angela Acosta reseña El Círculo Sáfico: Lesbianismo y bisexualidad en el Madrid de principios del siglo XX de Paula Villanueva “El libro no es una mera reseña bibliográfica, sino un estudio pormenorizado sobre los desafíos personales y profesionales a los que se enfrentaron las mujeres lesbianas y bisexuales.”
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Papers by Angela Acosta
ÍNDICE-CONTENTS
CRÍTICA-ESSAYS
Christopher Davis
"Imperfect Advocate: Edith Clarke’s Flawed Anthropological Projects on
Rural Jamaica" pp. 13-42.
Tania Carrasquillo Hernández
"Colectivo Moriviví: Reconfiguring the Puerto Rican Nation through Feminist Art Activism" pp, 43-66.
Alexandra Gonzenbach Perkins
"The Seeing I: Queer Desire in Rosario Ferré’s “When Women Love Men” pp. 67-86.
Carolina Rocha
"Iniciación femenina en dos novelas de Claudia Piñeiro: Catedrales y El tiempo de las moscas" pp. 87-108.
ESSAY PRIZE “EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN” 2023
Nora Muñiz
"Escatón con glitter: las protestas feministas en Ciudad de México en 2019-2020" pp. 109-134.
TRADUCCIÓN-TRANSLATION
Karina M. Walker
"Princesas naufragadas de Tessa Yang" pp. 135-137.
Tessa Yang
"Princess Shipwreck" pp. 138-142.
SECCIÓN LITERARIA-LITERATURE
Sokthan Yeng
"The Subjugation of a Ghost" pp. 143-148.
Paola Ehrmantraut
"Invisible Labor" pp. 149-152.
Juana Moriel-Payne
"Clotheslines in the Borderlands" pp. 153-158.
Ellen Mayock
"Flower Ladies and Cloud Women" pp. 159-164.
Olga Rivera
"Viajero vespertino" pp. 165-166.
Ángela Acosta
"Poetic Tributes to “las Sinsombrero”: The Legacies of Modern Spanish
Women" pp. 167-172.
RESEÑAS-BOOKS REVIEWS
Patricia Sagasti Suppes. Joni Boyd Acuff, Amelia M. Kraehe, and Gloria J. Wilson, A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back. U of Arizona P, 2022, pp. 173-174.
Ana I. Simón Alegre. Nuria Capdevilla-Arguelles. El regreso de las modernas. La Caja Books, 2018, pp.175-176.
Michelle Monaco. Maia Fernández-Lamarque. Cinderella in Spain: Variations of the Story as Socio-Ethical Texts. McFarland, 2019, pp. 177-179.
Mariana Ruiz-González. Rosita Scerbo. Latinas en los márgenes: QueerARTivismo y TRANSdisciplinariedad: hacia una politización de la autobiografía visual de mujeres invisibles. Peter Lang, 2021, pp. 180-181.
María Jesús Horta. Ana I. Simón Alegre. Concepción Gimeno de Flaquer (1850-1919): Her Personal Letters, Short Stories and Journalism. Vernon Press, 2023, pp. 182-183.
Robert C. Vest. Susy J. Zepeda. Queering Mesoamerican Diasporas: Remembering Xicana Indígena Ancestries. U of Illinois P, 2022, pp. 184-186.
paradise lost, yet his descriptions of these archetypal worlds clearly differentiate the emotions and images associated with each. I do a close reading of specific poems in the collection to examine the motif of the moon as an example of Aleixandre’s imagery of paradise. I argue that the image of
the moon allows readers to differentiate between paradise as a bright place and the moonless paradise lost.
Book Reviews by Angela Acosta
“El libro no es una mera reseña bibliográfica, sino un estudio pormenorizado sobre los desafíos personales y profesionales a los que se enfrentaron las mujeres lesbianas y bisexuales.”
ÍNDICE-CONTENTS
CRÍTICA-ESSAYS
Christopher Davis
"Imperfect Advocate: Edith Clarke’s Flawed Anthropological Projects on
Rural Jamaica" pp. 13-42.
Tania Carrasquillo Hernández
"Colectivo Moriviví: Reconfiguring the Puerto Rican Nation through Feminist Art Activism" pp, 43-66.
Alexandra Gonzenbach Perkins
"The Seeing I: Queer Desire in Rosario Ferré’s “When Women Love Men” pp. 67-86.
Carolina Rocha
"Iniciación femenina en dos novelas de Claudia Piñeiro: Catedrales y El tiempo de las moscas" pp. 87-108.
ESSAY PRIZE “EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN” 2023
Nora Muñiz
"Escatón con glitter: las protestas feministas en Ciudad de México en 2019-2020" pp. 109-134.
TRADUCCIÓN-TRANSLATION
Karina M. Walker
"Princesas naufragadas de Tessa Yang" pp. 135-137.
Tessa Yang
"Princess Shipwreck" pp. 138-142.
SECCIÓN LITERARIA-LITERATURE
Sokthan Yeng
"The Subjugation of a Ghost" pp. 143-148.
Paola Ehrmantraut
"Invisible Labor" pp. 149-152.
Juana Moriel-Payne
"Clotheslines in the Borderlands" pp. 153-158.
Ellen Mayock
"Flower Ladies and Cloud Women" pp. 159-164.
Olga Rivera
"Viajero vespertino" pp. 165-166.
Ángela Acosta
"Poetic Tributes to “las Sinsombrero”: The Legacies of Modern Spanish
Women" pp. 167-172.
RESEÑAS-BOOKS REVIEWS
Patricia Sagasti Suppes. Joni Boyd Acuff, Amelia M. Kraehe, and Gloria J. Wilson, A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back. U of Arizona P, 2022, pp. 173-174.
Ana I. Simón Alegre. Nuria Capdevilla-Arguelles. El regreso de las modernas. La Caja Books, 2018, pp.175-176.
Michelle Monaco. Maia Fernández-Lamarque. Cinderella in Spain: Variations of the Story as Socio-Ethical Texts. McFarland, 2019, pp. 177-179.
Mariana Ruiz-González. Rosita Scerbo. Latinas en los márgenes: QueerARTivismo y TRANSdisciplinariedad: hacia una politización de la autobiografía visual de mujeres invisibles. Peter Lang, 2021, pp. 180-181.
María Jesús Horta. Ana I. Simón Alegre. Concepción Gimeno de Flaquer (1850-1919): Her Personal Letters, Short Stories and Journalism. Vernon Press, 2023, pp. 182-183.
Robert C. Vest. Susy J. Zepeda. Queering Mesoamerican Diasporas: Remembering Xicana Indígena Ancestries. U of Illinois P, 2022, pp. 184-186.
paradise lost, yet his descriptions of these archetypal worlds clearly differentiate the emotions and images associated with each. I do a close reading of specific poems in the collection to examine the motif of the moon as an example of Aleixandre’s imagery of paradise. I argue that the image of
the moon allows readers to differentiate between paradise as a bright place and the moonless paradise lost.
“El libro no es una mera reseña bibliográfica, sino un estudio pormenorizado sobre los desafíos personales y profesionales a los que se enfrentaron las mujeres lesbianas y bisexuales.”