Advanced Reading for Comprehension Workbook

Ana M. Lopez-Aguilera (Ph.D. Univ. Nebraska-Lincoln) studied Translation, Interpreting and Pedagogy in Málaga (Spain) and she obtained her Ph.D. in Spanish at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a dissertation on Spanish novelist Belén Gopegui. As Assistant Professor of Spanish at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT), she taught courses in Translation, Interpreting, Spanish for Healthcare, as well as courses in Spanish language and Hispanic Cinema. Also, she created the program of Spanish for the Professions and Translation, and designed and carried out assessment for the department of Languages and Cultures. In 2019, Dr. Lopez-Aguilera joined Bemidji State University (MN) where she teaches Spanish language and Hispanic Cultural Studies. She regularly incorporates high impact practices into her teaching. Her students engage in service learning activities, volunteering as interpreters for schools and translator for NGOs. Students engage in research activities in her courses and have presented their scholarly work in different events in collaboration with Dr. Lopez-Aguilera.

Her research and teaching interests focus on cultural products that show a strong civic commitment, environmental humanities, and translation and interpreting for the community. Her textbook Advanced Reading for Comprehension Workbook (in collaboration with Dr. Lola Lorenzo) creates and supports a pathway for Spanish students without previous literary knowledge to establish connections between literary readings, history and society. Dr. Lopez-Aguilera has published literary and movie reviews in different journals, as well as teaching tips and activities on how to bring critical analysis of visual products and environmental topics into the Spanish language class. Her article on Gopegui´s political literature for children will soon be published in the journal Hispania, and her chapter on Spanish cinema on evictions and house insecurity will appear in a collective edition on narratives of the global recession in film and TV. Currently, Dr. Lopez-Aguilera is working on an anthology in Spanish of ecofeminist texts by Latin American and Spanish authors.

Lola Lorenzo, (PhD, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) has a B.A. in Art History (Autonoma University, Madrid, Spain) and a Ph.D. in Spanish Literature and Culture (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007). Her dissertation, "Sensibilidad melodramática y metamelodrama en Benito Pérez Galdós y Pedro Almodóvar," (Melodrama and Metamelodrama in Benito Perez Galdos and Pedro Almodovar) links the work of the nineteenth century novelist with the films of the present-day director through the notion of 'meta-melodrama,' a type of melodrama that displays a combination of identification and distance (Verfredung) without preventing the cathartic function. Dr. Lorenzo has published two textbooks on the Hispanic fields: Advanced Reading for Comprehension Workbook (in collaboration with Dr. Ana M. López-Aguilera) and Exploring Spain: Un recorrido por la historia y la cultura de España (in collaboration with Jenifer Isasi and Naroa Puente).

Other areas of interest are the social and political history of Spain and the connections between culture and politics. For several years she has taught an ample variety of classes at the University level. She has experience teaching, coordinating and designing basic, intermediate and advanced language classes, as well as upper level courses. She uses a variety of educational approaches and she is particularly interested in incorporating culture and technology in her teaching.