Dr Nicola Gilmour
Qualifications
MA, PhD Auckland
Profile
Dr Gilmour completed her PhD in 2001 at the University of Auckland, having joined Victoria University of Wellington at the beginning of that year. She was appointed Senior Lecturer in 2008. Her undergraduate degrees are also from the University of Auckland, however she spent several years studying Filología Española, specialising in Literatura Moderna y Contemporánea at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. Within the Victoria University of Wellington administration, Nicola has served on the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Leave Committee, the School of Languages and Cultures Learning and Teaching committee and a working party of the Review of Undergraduate Education, as well as having held other administrative roles within the School of Languages and Cultures. She was co-President of the Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia (AILASA) from 2012-2016 and is still a member of its executive committee.
Current research projects
My current areas of specialisation are twofold. Firstly, the 19th- and 20th-century Hispanic novel, with a particular focus on psychoanalytic criticism and the first-person narrative voice, the literary movements and genres of Realism and Romanticism, and the figure of the author in relation to the canon. My book, Transvestite Narratives in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Hispanic Writers: Using the Voice of the Opposite Gender (Edwin Mellen UK, 2008) reflects that interest. A second important focus of my research is representations of the historical cultural minorities (Hispanic Muslims and Jews) in contemporary Spanish literature and mass media, and the uses to which those images are put. This research, focussed around the topic of historical memory and the historical novel, has led me into the field of Memory Studies and Holocaust Studies, as well as Migration Studies. Ultimately this research will result in two monographs, one on representations of the historical Hispano-Jewish community and the other on the Hispano-Muslim community.
Research supervision
Proposals welcome
- Contemporary Spanish literature (19th-21st centuries), particularly in areas with a focus on immigration
- Cultural diversity, gender, or national identity, as well as historical memory
- Latin American Studies with a focus on the work of Cristina Peri Rossi (Uruguay) and Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera (Peru)
- Latin American women’s writing
- Topics supervised for Honours research projects include: the work of Federico García Lorca, magic realism, the Spanish historical novel and the place of bullfighting in modern Spain.
Teaching interests
My teaching interests include all aspects of Spanish language, cultural and literary studies, as well as European Studies and comparative literary studies. I am also interested in developing courses which help students to advance their knowledge of and skills in literary analysis. I am also developing blended learning and online resources for Beginners Spanish.
Key achievements
- January-June 2016: Visting Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, University of Oxford
- Awarded a Victoria University Teaching Excellence Award in 2011
- 2009-10: Appointed Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
- Winner of Best Doctoral Thesis Prize, University of Auckland, 2001.
Selected publications
Books
Transvestite Narratives in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Hispanic Writers: Using the Voice of the Opposite Gender. Lewiston, NY and Lampeter, UK: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008.
Edited special issues
Editor with Andrea Hepworth, Centring the Margins in Iberian and Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies. Special Issue of the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research (JILAR), 21.2, August 2015.
Editor with Professor Warwick Murray, Parallel Pasts, Convergent Future? Comparing New Zealand, Iberia and Latin America. Journal of New Zealand Studies, Special Issue NS 11, 2011.
Refereed articles
“Representing and Accounting for the Expulsion of the Sephardic Jews in Contemporary Spanish Historical Fiction”, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies forthcoming in 2017.
“Contemporary Spanish Fictional Representations of Ethno-Religious Convivencia in Medieval Iberia: César Vidal’s Medievalizing Novels”, Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies, Special Issue. After Eco: Novel Medievalisms. Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2016. 257-272.
“The Afterlife of Traumatic Memories: The Workings and Uses of Empathy in Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Sefarad” Bulletin of Spanish Studies, vol. LXXXVIII (6) 2011, 839-62.
“Carme Riera’s En el último azul (1994): An Encounter with Spain’s Conflicted Past” Humanities Research vol. XVII no. 1, 2011, pp. 7-21.
“Les gardiens du secret: réflexions sur la convivencia dans deux romans historiques espagnols.” Horizons Maghrébins Le droit à la mémoire, vol. 61, 2009, pp. 184-90.
"Turkish Delight: Antonio Gala’s La pasión turca as a Vision of Spain’s Contested Islamic Heritage." Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies (AJHCS) Vol. 10, 2006, pp. 77-94.
“Oriente: nostalgia cultural y regeneración nacional en La pasión turca de Antonio Gala.” In Oriente y Occidente en la cultura hispánica. Eds. R. de la Fuente and J. Pérez Magallón. Valldolid, Spain: Universitas Castellae, 2005. Colección Cultura Iberoamericana, pp. 59-69.
Invited reviews
Review of Gabriel Miró Ferrer. Epistolario. Edición de Ian R. Macdonald y Frederic Barberà, con la colaboración de Alba Chaparro. Alicante: Caja Mediterráneo y el Instituto Alicantino de Cultura Juan Gil-Albert, 2009. Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research (JILAR) 16.1, July 2010, pp. 79-81.
Published translations
Poems by Kiri Piahana-Wong in Twelve Heavens. A Trilingual Anthology of Māori Poetry. Auckland: Letras Latinas Publishing House, 2016, pp 33-54.
“Base by Height Divided by Two” by Hipólito G. Navarro. In Been There, Read That! Stories for the Armchair Traveller, ed. Jean Anderson, Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2008, pp. 159-67.