Lisa Surwillo in Spain and Portugal

Lisa Surwillo, associate professor in Stanford’s department of Iberian and Latin American cultures and faculty director of the Introductory Seminars Program, teaches courses on Iberian literature with an emphasis on 19th-century Spanish theater. Her interest in modern Spain and Portugal has grown since her first courses in history as an undergrad and developed through numerous research and study trips abroad. Her course topics at Stanford range from race and slavery in 19th-century Spain to theater, society and politics in 20th-century Spain and Portugal. Her research deals with questions of property, modernity and the individual as they are manifested in Spanish literary works, with a special focus on dramatic literature that deals with colonial slavery, abolition and citizenship. She is currently writing a book on letters written by enslaved Cuban women to the president of Spain during the 1870s. She has taught at the BOSP center in Madrid three times, leading Stanford students through a deep study of Spanish theater, hopefully guiding our students to become lifelong devotees of the stage! She previously led a Travel/Study trip to Cuba and remarked, “What I like about Stanford travelers is that they ask such good questions and are so well read. I love engaging in thoughtful conversations with informed travelers who choose to spend their vacation time learning.”

During our program her lectures will dig into Iberian literature and significant events including the history of the Catalan independence movement; readings of Ibn Rushd, Lorca, and Vaz de Camões; the Moroccan battle of Alcazarquivir; and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

• Associate professor, department of Iberian and Latin American cultures, 2014–present

• Faculty Director of Introductory Seminars, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, 2019–present

• W. Warren Shelden University Fellow in Undergraduate Education

• Assistant professor, department of Iberian and Latin American cultures, 2006–2014

• Director, department of Iberian and Latin American cultures

• Director, undergraduate studies, 2006–2009, 2011–2012 

• Annenberg faculty fellow, 2011–2012; Hewlett faculty grant, 2006 

• Assistant professor, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 2002–2006 

• Author, The Stages of Property: Copyrighting Theater in Spain (University of Toronto Press, 2007)

• Member, MLA Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession, 2010–2013 

• BA, Spanish and history, 1994, University of Wisconsin, Madison 

• PhD, romance languages and literature, 2002, UC-Berkeley