Prof Sarah Leggott

Qualifications

MA, PhD Auck

Profile

Professor Sarah Leggott is Acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences—Te Wāhanga Aronui and the Wellington Faculty of Education—Te Whānau O Ako Pai. In this role Professor Leggott is responsible for providing strategic leadership across both faculties and works to promote the value of studying the humanities, social sciences, education, and creative arts.

Professor Leggott completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Auckland, receiving a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Spanish and English, and a Master of Arts (MA) and PhD in Spanish. She also completed doctoral courses at the University of Oviedo in Spain.

Professor Leggott joined Victoria University of Wellington in 1998 as the University’s first Lecturer in Spanish. She has held various leadership roles at the University, most recently as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. As Professor of Spanish, her research expertise is in the field of Spanish literary and cultural studies, and she has published extensively on works by women writers related to the Spanish Civil War, Franco dictatorship, and Spain’s transition to democracy.

Current research projects

Sarah’s most recent book, published in July 2015, discusses recent novels by Spanish women writers that represent women’s experiences in Spain during the years of the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship. Memory, War, and Dictatorship in Recent Spanish Fiction by Women (Bucknell University Press), analyses a series of novels in the context of the "memory boom" in contemporary Spain, which has seen a huge upsurge in interest about the events of the Civil War and Franco dictatorship and has sparked intense social debate in Spain.

Sarah is now working on a project on women writers in 1940s and 1950s Spain, many of whom enjoyed significant success in their day but who have received little critical attention. She is also working on recent literary representations of the Republican exile from Spain after the Spanish Civil War.

Research supervision

Current supervision

• Dissident Memories and Identities in Contemporary Chilean Culture
• Literature and Nationhood in the Works of Nicolás Guillén.

Proposals welcome

• Autobiography and testimonial literature
• Memory Studies
• 20th and 21st century Spanish literature
• Hispanic Women Writers
• 20th century Spanish history.

Teaching interests

Sarah has taught Spanish language courses at all levels, as well as courses on Spanish history, literature and cultural studies at undergraduate and Honours levels.

Key achievements

• Victoria University of Wellington Teaching Excellence Award, 2002
• Marsden Fund Fast Start Grant, 2004–2005
• Victoria University of Wellington Award for Excellence in Research, 2008
• University Research Fund Grant, 2009
• Head of the School of Languages and Cultures, July 2010–July 2013
• Universities New Zealand Women in Leadership Programme, 2013
• Deputy Dean, Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, July 2014–2018
• Dean, Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2019-2022
• Actin Pro Vice-Chancellor, 2022 -

Selected publications

Memory, War, and Dictatorship in Recent Spanish Fiction by Women. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2015.

"Experimental Narrative and Social Critique in the Works of Elena Quiroga." International Journal of Literary Humanities 13.3 (2015): 9-16.

"La violencia contra las mujeres durante el franquismo: Su representación en testimonio y novela " In Estupro: Mitos antiguos y violencia moderna (Colección Escritoras y escrituras), edited by Daniele Cerrato, Claudia Collufio, Silvio Cosco, and Milagro Martín Clavijo, 337-49. Seville: Arcibel Editores, 2014.

Memory and Trauma in the Postwar Spanish Novel: Revisiting the Past, edited by Sarah Leggott and Ross Woods. Lewisburg, PA.: Bucknell University Press, 2013.

"Remembering the Spanish Civil War in Fiction: Dulce Chacón’s La voz dormida and Ángeles Caso’s Un largo silencio."The Spanish Civil War: Exhuming a Buried Past. Ed. Anindya Raychaudhuri. University of Wales Press, 2013. pp 159-71.

"Traumatic Legacies of Spain’s Republican Exile." The International Journal of the Humanities 9, no. 7 (2012): 31-38.

The Workings of Memory: Life-Writing by Women in Early Twentieth-Century Spain. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2008. 176pp.

"Representing Spain’s 20th-Century Trauma in Fiction: Memories of War and Dictatorship in Contemporary Novels by Women." Trauma, Media, Art: New Perspectives. Eds. Mick Broderick and Antonio Traverso. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2010. pp. 120-131.