Barrea-Marlys, Mirta 1955-

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Barrea-Marlys, Mirta 1955-

PERSONAL:

Born September 19, 1955. Education: Rutgers University, B.A., 1977; University of Florence, certificate, 1978; Villanova University, M.A., 1980; University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D., 1989.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Foreign Language Studies, Monmouth University, 400 Cedar Ave., West Long Branch, NJ 07764-1898.

CAREER:

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, instructor in Spanish and Italian, 1984-88; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, instructor, 1991-93, assistant professor of Spanish and Italian, 1993-2000; Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, instructor in Spanish, beginning 2001, became assistant professor. Drexel University, instructor, 1985-87; workshop presenter; conference participant. Volunteer translator for physicians with Hispanic patients; volunteer at fund-raising events for area hospitals and churches.

MEMBER:

American Association of University Professors, American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Modern Language Association, American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, Asociación de Literatura Femenina Hispánica, Asociación de Licenciados y Doctores Españoles en Estados Unidos, Instituto Literario y Cultural Hispánico, Instituto Cervantes, Northeast Modern Language Association.

WRITINGS:

Jael: A Critical Study of Neoclassic Heroes of the Eighteenth Century Spanish Theater, Editorial Alpuerto (Madrid, Spain), 1996.

(Editor, with Eladio Cortés, and contributor) Encyclopedia of Latin American Theater, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2004.

Contributor to books, including La gesta literaria de Marcos Aguinis, edited by Juana Alcira Arancibia, Ediciones Perro-Azul (San Jose, Costa Rica), 1998; Narradoras ecuatoriana de hoy: una antologia critica, edited by Adelaída López de Martínez and Gloria Cunha-Giabbai, University of Puerto Rico Press (San Juan, PR), 1998; and La narrativa histórica de escritoras latinoamericanas, Ediciones Corregidor (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2004. Contributor to language and literature journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mirta Barrea-Marlys told CA: "My primary motivation for writing is academic. My scholarly activity in the field of Hispanic literature begins with the eighteenth-century Spanish theater. My research has followed a trajectory of research on theater, starting with my first book, Jael: A Critical Study of Neoclassic Heroes of the Eighteenth Century Spanish Theater. That study shows the influence of the Siglo de Oro on eighteenth-century Spanish theater, as well as proving it to be the precursor of Romanticism in nineteenth-century Spain. I continue to follow the development of the genre in Encyclopedia of Latin American Theater. The encyclopedia, the first of its kind in English, presents the history of the theater of Latin America, as well as the history of the Nuyorican and Chicano theaters of the United States, within a sociocultural context. The encyclopedia has received positive reviews, and I feel it is a valuable addition to any university library and/or literature course.

"I am fascinated by Latin-American women authors, especially Isabel Allende. My interest in these writers has propelled me to become involved in projects that seek to bring these women to international recognition. For example, I have a book chapter published in La narrativa histórica de escritoras latinoamericanas; the chapter, on Paraguay and Bolivia, is a critical study that contributes to the investigation of Latin American female authors from a historical perspective. It was very exciting for me to discover the existence of forgotten or unknown works by outstanding authors from colonial times to the modern day, and to examine their interpretations of history in their writings."