Alisa Tigchelaar

Education

• BA (Spanish and Philosophy) 1992
• MA Indiana University (Hispanic Literature) 1995
• PhD Indiana University (Hispanic Literature) 1999

Biography

Hobbies

Reading, house and garden, crossword puzzles, good conversation, shopping, antiques

Spanish-speaking countries visited

• Spain, Mexico
• Has directed Calvin's semester program in Spain and will direct it again in Spring 2017

Additional information

• One of her favorite quotes on literature:
  "De[l alma] han nacido en todos tiempos artes y letras; siendo aquellas tan necesarias para que el entendimiento perciba clara y distintamente las cosas, como luz para distinguir cuanto se encuentra al alcance de nuestras miradas…Hace que el espíritu vea determinadamente todo lo que deba ver y apreciar. Cuánto más activa no será esta impresión mediante la representación viva y real de los objetos mismos, fin a que se dirige el teatro?"
• One of her favorite Biblical figures is Simon Peter

Academic interests

I enjoy investigating what literature reveals about society and people, and, concurrently, how it gives its readers a platform from which to dialogue about their own environments, ideas, and realities. I also enjoy teaching the Spanish language for a similar reason: the space that it gives its student speakers to broaden their cultural and relational perspectives. My own continuing study of the peoples that speak Castilian and their cultural production both informs my profession and my horizons. My scholarship is in the area of Early Modern Spanish religious literature. I deal mainly with the production of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish cloistered nuns, with an emphasis on what their literature reveals about their lives and the expression of their spirituality. Particular interests include contrasting the roles afforded secular women versus religious as suggested in their respective literary production.

Research and scholarship