Department of World Languages & Cultures

Julia Domínguez

Assistant Professor

I am originally from Cáceres, Spain, a mid-size Spanish city in the region of Extremadura. I received dual B.A.s in Hispanic Philology Linguistics and English Philology Linguistics from the Universidad de Extremadura (1998), a Masters degree in Hispanic Studies from Michigan State University (2000), and my Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from the University of Arizona (2004). My research interests embrace a wide variety of topics such as cartography and space in the transatlantic world through the themes of travel and autobiography as found in a range of writings from Cervantes to contemporary Latin American authors. Hence, much of my research deals with the cultural interaction in the Atlantic world and transatlantic studies such as the Picaresque novel and women authors of Spain and the New World.

Currently my research deals with a book manuscript entitled "Cartografías imaginarias: la creación de espacios utópicos en el Lazarillo de Tormes, el Quijote y la Relación de Cabeza de Vaca" (Imaginary Cartographies: the Creation of Utopian Spaces in Lazarillo de Tormes, the Quijote and the Relation by Cabeza de Vaca) which combines Fredric Jameson’s ideas on cognitive mapping with Henri Lefebvre’s theories on the production of space, and Tom Conley’s concept of “cartographic writings.” The thesis examines how the textual space described in each of the three (pseudo)autobiographical texts are cultural products resulting from what the narrators have chosen to perceive and shape. Their narrations become products of their own subjugation to particular social, political or economic interests and although the narrators seem to act freely, I believe that they only enjoy the illusion of autonomy. Instead, their actions are related to a manipulation of cognitive maps, an exploitation of textual space that shapes the narrators and their stories, and which ultimately defines anew the very space they have set out to describe. I believe that these “cartographic writings” came about as a result of the geographical expansion and scientific advances of the Renaissance. They appeared at the same time when perspectivism facilitated innovative methods to characterize space in art, architecture and cartography, leading to ground-breaking methods of mapping reality during the Renaissance.