Lisa Surwillo
Associate Professor of Iberian and Latin American Cultures
Bio
Professor Surwillo teaches courses on Iberian literature, with an emphasis on the nineteenth-century. Her research addresses the questions of property, empire, race and personhood as they are manifested by literary works, especially dramatic literature, dealing with colonial slavery, abolition and Spanish citizenship. Surwillo is the author of Monsters by Trade (Stanford 2014), a study of slave traders in Spanish literature and the role of these colonial mediators in the development of modern Spain. She is also the author of The Stages of Property: Copyrighting Theatre in Spain (Toronto 2007), an analysis of the development of copyright and authorship in nineteenth-century Spain and the impact of intellectual property on theater. She is currently completing two books: the first is a study of freedom petitions by enslaved Afro-Cuban women during the 1870s and the second is a co-authored study, with Martín Rodrigo, of a major Cuban financier and Catalan real estate magnate.
Academic Appointments
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Associate Professor, Iberian and Latin American Cultures
Administrative Appointments
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Faculty Director, Introductory Seminars, Stanford (2019 - 2025)
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Department Director, Iberian and Latin American Cultures (2023 - 2025)
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Acting Department Director, Slavic Department Stanford (2021 - 2022)
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Department Director, Iberian and Latin American Cultures (2015 - 2018)
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Associate Professor, Stanford University (2013 - Present)
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Faculty Leader, Stanford Alumni Association. Cuba (2013 - 2013)
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Ponente, “Curso de Verano”, University of Cadiz (2011 - 2011)
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Assistant Professor, Stanford University (2006 - 2013)
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Assistant Professor, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park (2002 - 2006)
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Lecturer, University of California, Santa Cruz (2001 - 2001)
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Program Assistant, UC Berkeley Summer Sessions Program in Madrid (2001 - 2001)
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Graduate Student Instructor, University of California, Berkeley (2000 - 2000)
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Graduate Student Instructor, University of California, Berkeley (1995 - 1998)
Honors & Awards
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Fellowship, Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University (2023-24)
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W. Warren Shelden University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, Stanford University (2023-2028)
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Faculty Grant, Tinker Foundation (2023)
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Annenberg Faculty Fellow, University of Southern California (2010 - 2012)
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Fellowship, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (2006)
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Fellowship, Spanish Ministry of Culture Program for Cultural Cooperation (2006)
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Research Fellowship, University of Wisconsin Library (2000)
Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations
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Member, Modern Language Association Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession (2010 - 2013)
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Manuscript Evaluator, Bucknell University Press (2004 - 2004)
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Manuscript Evaluator, Bucknell University Press (2005 - 2005)
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Manuscript Evaluator, The journal of the Modern Language Association (2004 - 2004)
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Manuscript Evaluator, The journal of the Modern Language Association (2005 - 2005)
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Manuscript Evaluator, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies (2006 - 2011)
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Manuscript Evaluator, Modern Philology (2009 - 2009)
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Manuscript Evaluator, Bulletin of Spanish Studies (2011 - 2011)
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Manuscript Evaluator, Eighteenth-century Studies (2013 - 2013)
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Member, Latin American Studies MA, Selection Committee, Stanford University (2011 - 2011)
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Member, Italian Search Committee, Stanford University (2011 - 2011)
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Member, Division of Literature, Cultures and Languages Working Group, Stanford University (2009 - 2009)
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Director of Undergraduate Studies, Stanford University (2006 - 2009)
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Director of Undergraduate Studies, Stanford University (2011 - 2013)
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Member, Planning and Personnel Committee, Stanford University (2007 - 2008)
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Chair, Curricular Committee, Stanford University (2007 - 2007)
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Faculty Scholar (VPUE), Stanford University (2013 - 2014)
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Pre-Major Advisor, Stanford University
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Fellowship Evaluator, Stanford Humanities Center (2006 - 2006)
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Fellowship Evaluator, Stanford Humanities Center (2007 - 2007)
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Fellowship Evaluator, Stanford Humanities Center (2008 - 2008)
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Fellowship Evaluator, Stanford Humanities Center (2012 - 2012)
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Member, Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Search Committee, Pennsylvania State University (2004 - 2004)
Program Affiliations
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Center for Latin American Studies
Professional Education
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Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, Romance Languages and Literatures (2002)
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B.A., University of Wisconsin, Madison, History and Spanish (1994)
2024-25 Courses
- Curricular Practical Training
ILAC 680 (Aut) - Introduction to the Profession of Literary Studies
COMPLIT 369, DLCL 369, FRENCH 369, GERMAN 369, ITALIAN 369 (Aut) - Masterpieces: 19th Century Iberia
ILAC 343 (Win) - Modern Iberian Literatures
ILAC 136 (Win) - Neoliberal Entanglements: Polycrisis in Contemporary Cinema from Spain
ILAC 320 (Spr) -
Independent Studies (6)
- Honors Thesis Oral Presentation
DLCL 199 (Spr) - Honors Thesis Seminar
DLCL 189B (Win) - Honors Thesis Seminar
DLCL 189C (Spr) - Individual Work
ILAC 199 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Individual Work
ILAC 299 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Individual Work
ILAC 399 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Honors Thesis Oral Presentation
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Prior Year Courses
2023-24 Courses
- Modern Iberian Literatures
ILAC 136 (Win) - Reading Drama: Chile and Voice
OSPSANTG 89 (Sum) - Senior Seminar: Food Studies
ILAC 278A (Spr) - Spanish Immersion
SPANLANG 10SC (Sum)
2022-23 Courses
- Literatures of the War of 1898: Spain, Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and the United States
COMPLIT 335, ILAC 225 (Spr) - Modern Iberian Literatures
ILAC 136 (Win)
2021-22 Courses
- Modern Iberian Literatures
ILAC 136 (Win) - Transatlantic Methodologies
ILAC 223, ILAC 323 (Aut)
- Modern Iberian Literatures
Stanford Advisees
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Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Laura Menendez Gorina -
Doctoral Dissertation Advisor (AC)
Tania Flores, Sergio Martinez Rey, Joe Wager -
Doctoral (Program)
Tania Flores
All Publications
- “Petitioning from the Body: Cuba and Spain in 1873” Slave Subjectivities In The Iberian Worlds (16th-19th Centuries) Brill. 2023: 268-285
- "Unlocking the Historical Truth of Abolitionist Literature: Beecher Stowe's A Key in Spanish Translation." Rethinking Spain’s Atlantic Empire Berghahn Books. 2021: 145-66.
- "Migrant Maya and the Limits of 'Spain' in the 1850s" The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spain Routledge. 2020
- "Transatlantic Currents: Oceanic crossings in Novás Calvo's El negrero" Transatlantic Studies: Latin America, Iberia, and Africa Liverpool UP. 2019: 76-84
- "Eva Canel and the Gender of Hispanism" Unsettling Colonialism SUNY Press. 2019: 55-80
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"Like the Pirate and the Slave Trader Before Him": Precedent and Analogy in Contemporary Law and Literature
LAW AND HISTORY REVIEW
2017; 35 (1): 81-98
View details for DOI 10.1017/S0738248016000523
View details for Web of Science ID 000394404900005
- Monsters by Trade: Slave Traffickers in Modern Spanish Literature Stanford University Press. 2014
- Copyright, Buildings, Spaces and the Nineteenth-Century Stage Cambridge History of Spanish Theatre edited by Gies, D. T., Delgado, M. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2012: 244–263
- Enslaved to Liberalism: Spain After 1868 Republic of Letters 2012; 3 (1)
- Impurity of Blood: Defining Race in Spain, 1870–1930 - Joshua Goode Hispanic Review 2011; 79 (4): 676-78
- Pituso en blackface: una mascarada racial en Fortunata y Jacinta Hispanic Review 2010; 78 (2): 189-204
- Speaking of Race in Don Álvaro Revista Hispánica Moderna 2010; 63 (1): 51-67
- Mujer pública y vida privada - Pura Fernández Revista Hispánica Moderna 2010; 63 (2): 224-6
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PASSING COUNTERFEIT WHITENESS AND MULATTA WEALTH IN LOS MISTERIOS DE BARCELONA
JOURNAL OF SPANISH CULTURAL STUDIES
2009; 10 (1): 75-87
View details for DOI 10.1080/14636200902771111
View details for Web of Science ID 000207864000006
- The Conquest of History: Spanish Colonialism and National Histories in the Nineteenth Century - Christopher Schmidt-Nowara Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 2007; 8 (2): 297- 98
- The Stages of Property: Copyrighting Theater in Spain University of Toronto Press. 2007
- Poetic Diplomacy: Carolina Coronado and the American Civil War Comparative American Studies 2007; 5 (4): 409-422
- Don Alvaro or the Force of Fate Bulletin of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies 2006; 31 (1): 28-30
- The Latest Style: The Fashion Writing of Blanca Valmont and Economies of Domesticity - Kathleen E. Davis Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 2006; 10 (1): 275-6
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Representing the slave trader: Haley and the slave ship; or, Spain's 'Uncle Tom's cabin'
PMLA-PUBLICATIONS OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
2005; 120 (3): 768-?
View details for Web of Science ID 000231291300006
- Historia social y literatura: Familia y clases populares en España (siglos XVIII-XIX) The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography (ECCB) 2005: 271-273
- Mendizábal, García Gutiérrez and the Property of Spanish Theater Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 2002; 6: 43-56