Judith Nantell received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Indiana University-Bloomington. She taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Florida State University before coming to the University of Arizona in 1987. Her scholarly publications center largely on Spanish Peninsular Poetry, Modern and Contemporary. Her current research concerns the recent poetry published in Spain and culminates in The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today. This critical monograph was published in fall 2019 by Bucknell University Press and debuted on November 15. In 2020 it was nominated for the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Studies Book Award. This work is Professor Nantell's third book published with distinguished University Presses. Her other books include The Poetry of Francisco Brines: The Deconstructive Effects of Language. Lewiston, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1994 and Rafael Alberti’s Poetry of the Thirties: The Poet’s Public Voice Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1986, which won the 1984 South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA) Studies Award. In fall 2011 she was invited to deliver the Merle E. Simmons Distinguished Alumni (MESDA) Lecture at Indiana University–Bloomington on the poetry of Luis Munoz. In that same year she received the College of Humanities Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award. In spring 2013 and spring 2014, on behalf of the Department, she organized the visits and public readings of selected poems by the contemporary Spanish poet Luis Muñoz.
Judith Nantell served as the appointed Associate Dean and then appointed Vice Dean of the College of Humanities from 1993-2008. In May of 2008 she was recognized by the Dean’s Office for her Extraordinary Contributions and Service to the College of Humanities.
In 1989 she was invited by the distinguished Hispanist Andrew P. Debicki to present a lecture at the University of Kansas for the National Endowment for the Humanities 1989 Summer Seminar for College Teachers: Critical Approaches to Poetry and Twentieth Century Hispanic Poetry. Her July 18, 1989 lecture concerned “Un-censoring Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Reading of the Poetry of Ana Rossetti.”
Most Recent Courses Taught:
Graduate Classes: For example, Spanish 521 Spring 2017 TOPIC: La Modernidad y la Cultura de 27; Spanish 521 Spring 2016 TOPIC: La poesía y la epifanía: La poesía española reciente 2000-2015; Spanish 521 Spring 2015 TOPIC: La Modernidad y la Cultura de 27; Spanish 521 Spring 2014 TOPIC: La poesía contemporánea: Los poetas de “aquí y ahora” en la España de cambio de siglo.
Undergraduate Classes: For example, Spanish 350 Introduction to Readings in the Literary Genres; Spanish 449A Topics in Spanish Literature and Cultural Studies. TOPIC: La poesía de la Generación del 1927 en España: La Modernidad, los Ismos y el Cine Mudo; Spanish 449A Topics in Spanish Literature and Cultural Studies. TOPIC: Visualizar La Modernidad 1907 – 1939 en el Cine Experimental Internacional, el Arte Moderno Español, la Poesía Española, la Guerra Civil Española: Lo Novísimo sin Fronteras.
Selected Recent Publications:
The Poetics of Epiphany in the Spanish Lyric of Today. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 2019.
Epilogo. Antologia bilingue. Josep M. Rodriguez. Lucena, Spain: El Orden del Mundo. 2017. 78 - 79. [Invited]
“Crafting the Image: Poetry as Epiphany in the Work of Josep M. Rodríguez.” Fragmenta. Revista Anual de Poesía. (Madrid). Dir. Rafael Morales Barba. Número monográfico VII: La Poesía de Josep M. Rodríguez. (septiembre 2016): 117-28. [Invited]
“The Poetics of Epiphany: Recent Works by Abraham Gragera and Josep M. Rodríguez.” Poéticas. Revista de Estudios Literarios. Ed. Remedios Sánchez García. (La Universidad de Granada) Numero 2 (septiembre 2016): 62-87. [Invited]
“La Poesía de Luis Muñoz” Arquitrave. Revista Colombiana de Poesia. 61 (octubre-diciembre 2015): 11 – 15. [Invited]
“Resisting Exclusion: Francisco Brines’ Poemas excluidos." Huésped del tiempo esquivo. Francisco Brines y su mundo poético. Ed. Sergio Arlandis. (Sevilla: Renacimiento) 2013: 541 – 576. [Invited]
“Syntactically Silent Subjects: Luis Muñoz and Poetry of Ellipsis.” Special issue, “Defining Differences: 20th and 21st Century Spanish Poetry” Ed. Sylvia Sherno. Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature. 36.2 (Summer 2012): 324 – 339. [Invited]
“Cinematic Art, Maruja Mallo and Modern Visual Culture.” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies. 12.4 (December 2011): 463 – 487.