Paula Straile-Costa

Associate Professor of Spanish

Educational Background: Ph.D. Comparative Literature Penn State University, Ph. D. Dissertation - "Miscegenation in Literature by Inter-American Women: A Comparative Study", Director — Dr. Earl E. Fitz M.A. Comparative Literature Penn State University, B.A. World Literature and Spanish Grove City College, Study Abroad at UDLA-Universidad de las Americas, Puebla, Mexico 1987.

Arrived at Ramapo College: 2003

Areas of Specialization: Inter-American Literatures: (Spanish American and Brazilian Literatures; Literatures of the United States; Afro-Hispanic Literatures); Literary Theory and Criticism; Communicative Language Teaching and Second Language Acquisition Languages of Scholarship: English (Native speaker), Spanish (Near-native), Portuguese (Brazilian Near-native), French (Reading fluency).

Courses regularly taught: Spanish Language all levels and literatures in Spanish.

Scholarship: "The Pillory/Pelourinho in Open Air Museums in the U. S. and Brazil: A Site of Racism and Racial Reconciliation." Conference proceedings from Race in the Humanities conference at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, November 2001. (accepted by editors, awaiting decision of book publisher).

Co-authored with Earl E. Fitz. "Rebellion in the Backlands, by Samuel Putnam, and Os Sertoes, by Euclides da Cunha: A Comparative Translation Study." Translation Review. 47 (1995) 45-51.

"The Parchment and the Mirror: Pataiijali's Yoga Sutras and Garcia Marquez's Cien anos de soledad." West Virginia Philological Papers 40 Special Issue Devoted to Cross-Cultural Encounters (1994-95) 44-9.

Points of interest: Learning a new language is a way of truly expanding your mind in so many ways! Speaking the language of another culture can give you a much deeper insight into it. You challenge your ways of looking at things and by studying about and hopefully navigating within another culture you can gain understanding of your own in the process. This makes you a more independent thinker, a freer person. I approach teaching Spanish communicatively, that means that we learn by using the language in meaningful ways as opposed to memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules. It takes commitment and usually quite some time to really become proficient in a new language, but just about anyone can do it and it is so worth the effort. With respect to literature, I work mostly in Inter-American literatures of the twentieth-century but also am interested in international works in all periods and in the history of the novel. I like to study literature by women and occult and spiritual themes in literature and cultural studies. When I'm not working, I love cooking, downhill skiing and yoga.