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Modern Languages and Literatures
Stephanie Mueller

Stephanie Mueller

Associate Professor of Spanish
Karp Hall 220
(518) 388-6763
muellers@union.edu
MLL, Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies

Areas of expertise

Hi, I’m Steph! I am from a small town in Iowa. Learning Spanish, studying abroad in Chile as an undergrad, and living in Spain as a graduate student expanded my horizons and inspired me to become a Spanish professor. I hope for my students to experience a similar transformative journey through language and cultures, whatever their life and career goals may be.

Biography

I earned a B.A. in English and Spanish from Luther College, and my M.A. and PhD. in Hispanic Studies from the University of Iowa. I have also studied Basque, Catalan, and Portuguese. I have been at Union since 2013. In addition to my work in the Spanish, Hispanic and US Latino Studies Department, I am affiliated with the Film Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Programs. I’m currently coordinating with the Health Professions and Leadership in Medicine offices to build more courses and connections between our two fields.

Teaching interests

I teach courses on language, film, and the cultures of Spain and Latin America in Spanish and English. I love the horror genre, so two of my favorite courses to teach are "Hauntings in Hispanic Fiction" and "Spanish Horror Films." Most recently I created a new course called "Illness and Medicine in Hispanic Cultures," and I am working to design more Spanish offerings for students interested in health professions. Stay tuned!

These are some of the exciting classes that I teach:

  • Spanish for beginners
  • Intermediate Spanish
  • Spanish Horror Films
  • Illness & Medicine in Hispanic Cultures
  • Colliding Worlds: Cross-Cultural Encounters in Hispanic Literature & Film
  • Hauntings in Hispanic Fiction
  • “Spain is Different”: Current Debates Shaping Spain’s Future
  • Basque Cinema
  • Cultures in Contact (and Conflict) in Contemporary Spain
  • Spain on Screen

Publications

My research specialty is contemporary Spain. My home base in Spain is Bilbao, a city in the beautiful, bilingual Basque Country and the place that inspired my interest in the intersection of multiple national identities within the Spanish State.

I have published articles in journals such as Revista de estudios hispánicos, Romance Quarterly, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, and Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies on the topics of nationalisms, terrorism, immigration, economic crisis, disability, gender, and rural culture, which I explore through contemporary Basque, Catalan, and Spanish film, literature and popular culture. Currently I am working on a book project with Prof. Henseler and two more collaborators on innovative pedagogies in Spanish programs across the country.

A few of my publications include:

“Doubled Brothers: Misfitted Male Bodies and Minoritized Basque Culture in Handia (2017).” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, December 2022.

“Terrorist-Turned-Entrepreneur: Basque Masculinities in Fe de etarras.” Revista de estudios hispánicos, vol. 55, no. 1, March 2021.

“Jordi Puntí’s Els castellans: Reshaping Catalan Narratives of Immigration and Integration.” Romance Quarterly, vol. 67, no. 4, September 2020.

“Basque Ghosts, Spanish Specters: Jon Juaristi’s Cambio de destino and the Self-Fashioning of a (Still) Nationalist Intellectual.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, vol. 91, no. 4, 2014.

“Afterword: A Bookless Literature?” Co-authored with Luis Martín-Estudillo. Hybrid Storyspaces: Redefining the Critical Enterprise in Twenty-First CenturyHispanic Literature. Ed. Christine Henseler and Debra A. Castillo. Hispanic Issues Online, vol. 9, 2012.

Additional media

Academic credentials

B.A., Luther College; M.A., Ph.D., The University of Iowa
Karp Hall

Karp Hall 120

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Fax: (518) 388-6462