Melissa Dinverno

Melissa Dinverno

Associate Professor (Profesora Titular), Spanish and Portuguese

Fulbright Scholar Liaison, IUB

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2000
  • M.A., University of Michigan, 1994
  • B.A., Kalamazoo College, 2000

    Affiliations

    • Institute for European Studies
    • Gender Studies

    About Melissa Dinverno

    Sobre Melissa Dinverno

    My main area of research is 20th-century Spanish literature and culture, focusing specifically on five areas: García Lorca studies, memory studies, gender and sexuality, textual scholarship and editorial theory, and archival studies. I approach literature as an intervention in ongoing cultural debates; as such, my scholarship most often requires multi-disciplinary research. It also often involves a heavy component of archival research, with an aim to offering new perspectives on original materials and changing our visions of a work, an artist, an issue, or a moment. My first book is a major reconstruction, literary-critical study, and experimental critical edition of Lorca's posthumous poetic collection, Suites; my editorial work on Suites was also included in three important U.S. editions of Lorca. In 2020, I curated a major museum exhibit on Suites at the Centro Lorca in Granada, bringing the book to a wider public; during the COVID-19 crisis, the monograph Suites y el viaje de la percepción / Suites and the Voyage of Perception can be consulted for free on the Centro Lorca website. The draft of my second book project, Editorial Creativity and the Mediation of Literature, reflects on the theoretical implications and problems that are bound up in editing as a practice that mediates the reader's relationship to the literary work.

    My current book project, Deconstructing Lorca: Memory, Culture and Nation in Contemporary Spain, analyzes how the figure and works of García Lorca were constructed in Spain’s post-dictatorship period, aiming to both spark a shift in Lorca Studies and offer a new vantage point for examining contemporary Spanish politics and society. Working with materials such as literary editions, film, theatre, archives, exhibits, newspapers, magazines, photographs, biographies, and clothing, Deconstructing Lorca proposes a multi-faceted overhaul of how we understand Lorca and his work, analyzing the dynamics and complex transitional cultural politics wrapped up in his construction at a pivotal moment in contemporary Spanish history, a moment that, I argue, forged the narratives that continue to frame current scholarly and popular understandings of Lorca and point to the country’s persistently fraught relationship with its dictatorial past.

    I've received a national research award from the Women's Caucus for the MLA for one of my articles and both internal (e.g. College Arts and Humanities Institute, Institute for Advanced Study, Institute for European Studies, Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities) and external fellowships and grants (e.g. Bibliographical Society of America, the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spains Ministry of Culture and U.S. Universities). In 2019-2020 I was awarded a a U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar Award for Research to work on Deconstructing Lorca and was a Visiting Scholar at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid affiliated with the Research Group “Literatura, Heterodoxia y Marginación”.

    I teach a range courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, most often focusing on issues of power, cultural memory, and gender/sexuality. Examples of recent courses are Cultural Memory and the Negotiation of the Past in Democratic Spain, Contesting Repression: Spanish Fiction from the 1940s-1990s,“Hispanic Film, Master Directors: Almodóvar, del Toro, Amenábar and Iñárritu” and Gender and Hispanic Literature. I've received the IU Trustees Teaching Award twice, the Outstanding Mentor Award from our departmental graduate students, and have been nominated twice for the Indiana University Distinguished Teaching Awards. I was also granted the state-wide IU teaching award of induction into the Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching.

    Specializations

    • 20th-Century Spanish Literature, Film, & Culture
    • García Lorca Studies
    • Spanish Cultural Production of 20s, 30s & Post-War Diaspora
    • Gender and Sexuality Studies
    • Memory Studies
    • Historical Avant-Garde
    • Editorial/Textual Theory, Scholarly Editions
    • Archival Studies

    Selected publications

    Teaching

    Graduate
    • S803:  Independent study Identity and Nation: 20th-Century Basque Literature
    • S708:  Seminar Reading/Rewriting García Lorca
    • S648:  Cultural Memory and the Negotiation of the Past in Democratic Spain
    • S648:  Representing the Body in Post-Franco Spanish Cultural Production
    • S648:  Reading Modernism in Spain
    • S548:  Contesting Repression: 20th-Century Spanish Cultural Production
    • S504: Bibliography and Methods of Research
    Undergraduate
    • S495:  Federico García Lorca (Hispanic Colloquium)
    • S490: Women, Identity, and the Family in Contemporary Spain (Independent Study)
    • S473//S474:  Memory Studies//Cultural Memory and Negotiating the Past in Contemporary Spain.  (Hispanic Literature & Society//Literary Theory & Hispanic Literature)
    • S470:  Women, Gender and Hispanic Literature
    • S422:  Almodóvar, del Toro, Amenábar and Iñárritu (Hispanic Cinema)
    • S419:  Contesting Repression: Spanish Fiction from the 1940's to the 1990's (Modern Spanish Prose Fiction)
    • S418:  Gender and Sexuality in Hispanic Theatre (Hispanic Theatre)
    • S417:  Modernism: Poetry, The Poet and Society (Hispanic Poetry)
    • S411:  Constructing Contemporary Spain (Spain: The Cultural Context)
    • S328:  Introduction to Hispanic Literature
    • Individualized Undergraduate Capstones in International Studies: Border Narratives of Morroccan Immigration in Spain; the Media and the Formation of a Basque Political Identity

    Selected honors & awards

    Research
    • U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar Award for Research, Spain. 2019-2020.
    • Visiting Scholar. Departamento de Literaturas Hispánicas y Bibliografía. Facultad de Filología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 2019-2020.
    • National Research Award: Florence Howe Award for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship.  Women’s Caucus of the Modern Languages. For article “Gendered Geographies.” 2003. 
    • Summer Incubator. Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, Indiana University. Spring 2022.
    • Emergency Grant-in-Aid for Research Travel. Office of the VP for Research, Indiana University. Spring 2022.
    • IU Presidential Arts and Humanities Production Grant. Office of the VP for Research, Indiana University. Spring 2022.
    • IU Presidential Arts and Humanities Research Travel Grant, Office of the Vice President for Research. Indiana University. Spring 2022.
    • Research Fellow. College Arts and Humanities Institute, Indiana University. Awarded 2021.
    • Title VI Funding Award in Support of Research. Institute for European Studies, Indiana University. 2021.
    • Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. College Arts and Humanities Institute, Indiana University. 2021.
    • Emergency Equity Fund for Research Award. Office of the Vice President for Research, Indiana University. 2021.
    • Individual Research Award. Institute for Advanced Study, Indiana University. 2020.
    • Emergency Grant-in-Aid of Research. Office of the Vice Provost for Research, Indiana University. 2015.
    • Individual Research Award. Institute for Advanced Study, Indiana University. 2014.
    • New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities Exploratory Travel Fellowship. Office of the Vice Provost for Research, Indiana University. 2014.
    • Research Travel Grant. College Arts and Humanities Institute, Indiana University. 2008.
    • Faculty Research Grant. West European Studies National Resource Center, Indiana University. 2006.
    • Fellow, College Arts and Humanities Institute. Indiana University. 2004.
    • President’s Arts and Humanities Initiative Summer Fellowship. Indiana University. 2003.
    • International Projects and Activities Grant. President’s Council on International Programs, Indiana University. 2002.
    • Bibliographical Society of America Short-Term Fellowship. 2001.
    • Short-Term Faculty Exchange with the University of Seville, Seville, Spain. Office of International Programs, Indiana University. 2000.
    • The Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States Universities. 1997, 1995.
    Teaching
    • FACET Member.  Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching.  Statewide Indiana University System.  Spring 2006 - current.
    • Trustees Teaching Award.  Indiana University.  2001, 2014.
    • Indiana University Distinguished Teaching Awards.  Nominated 2006, 2007.
    • Outstanding Mentor Award for 2004-2005.  Graduate Student Advisory Committee, Dpt. Spanish & Portuguese, Indiana University.