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Sonia Perez Villanueva

Humanities Department Chair and Professor

Sonia Perez Villanueva

Dr. Sonia Pérez Villanueva, a scholar from the Basque Country, holds a PhD in Spanish Studies from the University of Birmingham in England. Her research interests are Peninsular Studies (Spain and Portugal), Autobiographical Studies, and Gender Studies, particularly cultural, visual, and media representations of violence against women in Spain.

Her latest research project focuses on the persecution of Crypto-Jewish women in Spain by the Inquisition. She is the founding editor, with Leyla Rouhi and Irene Mizrahi, of ConSecuencias: A Journal of Spanish Criticism.

Sonia is the co-founder and co-chair, with Lisa Fiore and Meenakshi Chhabra, of the Violence against Women Initiative at Lesley University, a platform to give voice to victims and survivors of gender-based violence.

Publications

Book

  • The Life of Catalina de Erauso, the Lieutenant Nun: An Early-Modern Autobiography. Farleigh Dickinson University Press: 2014.

Journal Editions

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

  • “The “Fallen Women” of Francisco Rizi’s Profanación de un Crucifijo or Familia de Herejes Azotando un Crucifijo.” (2021). Women, Witchcraft, and the Inquisition in Spain and the New World. Edited by María Jesús Zamora Calvo, LSU press.
  • La violencia de la esclavitud femenina en los Desengaños amorosos de María de Zayas y Sotomayor.” (2021). Trazas, ingenio y gracia. Estudios sobre María de Zayas y sus «Novelas amorosas y ejemplares». Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra, pp. 193-210. 
  • “#MeToo in Early Modern Spain: Visual Pleasures and Silence Breakers.” (2021). Reconsidering Early Modern Spanish Literature through Mass and Pop Culture: Contemporizing the Classics for the Classroom, edited by Mindy Badia and Bonnie Gasior, Juan de la Cuesta, pp.106-131.
  • “#MeToo in Early Modern Spain: Visual Pleasures and Silence Breakers.” Reconsidering Early Modern Spanish Literature through Mass and Pop Culture: Contemporizing the Classics for the Classroom (2021). Edited by Mindy Badia and Bonnie Gasior, Juan de la Cuesta, pp.106-131.
  • “Rape, Censorship, and El alcalde de Zalamea, 2008.” (2020). Co-authored with Mindy Bahía, Living the Comedia. Essays Celebrating Amy Williamsen. Edited by Esther Fernández and J. Yuri Porras, The University Press of the South.
  • Las mujeres criptojudías en la primera mitad del siglo xviii: recuperación histórica e inquisición.” (2019). Edad de Oro. vol. 38., pp. 197-215.
  • “Misericordia y justicia. La representación del cuerpo de la mujer en la Inquisición." (2017). Mulieres Inquisitionis. La mujer frente a la Inquisición en España. Edited by María Jesús Zamora Calvo, Madrid, Editorial academia del Hispanismo, pp. 147-176.
  • “The ‘Beauty’ of Suffering: Representations of Violence against Women in Spain – From María de Zayas to Alicia Luna and Iciar Bollaín.” (2016). Hispanic Review. vol. 84. no. 2, pp. 125-146.

Selected Conference & Seminar Papers

  • “Borricas, puercas y bestias femeninas: la demonización de la mujer judía a través de la iconografía cristiana.” “Donkeys, Pigs and Female Beasts: The Demonization of the Jewish woman through Christian Iconography” Zoom, University Autónoma. Madrid. November 2020.
  • “The Politics of Appropriation: Racism and ‘Humor’ in Los melindres de Belisa by Lope de Vega”. Zoom, AHCT Virtual Symposium, July 2020.
  • “Las mujeres criptojudías en la primera mitad del siglo xviii: recuperación histórica e inquisición.” Crypto-Jewish Women in the First Half of the 18th Century: Historical Recovery and the Spanish Inquisition”. University Autónoma, Madrid. November, 2019.
  • “Calderón de la Barca’s El Nuevo Palacio del Buen Retiro and the Performance of Propaganda”. The Association for Hispanic Classical Theatre. El Paso, Texas, April 2019.
  • “La representación de la mujer judía en Profanación de un crucifijo o Familia de Herejes azotando un crucifijo de Francisco Rizi”. “The Representation of the Jewish Woman in Francisco Rizi’s Desecration of a crucifix or Family of Heretics whipping a crucifix” III Congreso Internacional: Mujer, violencia e Inquisición. Instituto Cervantes. Harvard University, Cambridge, March 2019.
  • “The Appropriation of the Jewish Female Body in the Iconography of the Spanish Inquisition: Profanation of a Crucifix”. AEGS. University of Chicago, Chicago, September 2018.
  • “De la invisibilidad de la belleza al sufrimiento. La representación del cuerpo de la mujer en la Inquisición”. “From the Invisibility of Beauty to the Reality of Suffering: The Appropriation of the Female Body by the Spanish Inquisition” 1st Early Modern Iberian Studies Seminar of New England, Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College and University of Massachusetts, Amherst, September 2017.

Invited Lecturer

  • “#Metoo in Early Modern Spain. A lecture on the legal, visual, and literary histories of early modern Spain regarding violence against women. Bowdoin College, ME, April. 2019.
  • “Beautiful” Memories of the Spanish Inquisition. A lecture on the representations of violence against women through the iconography of the Spanish Inquisition. Bennington College. Bennington, September 2017.
  • The Beauty of Suffering: Representations of Violence against Women in Spain. (16th-21st century). A lecture on the aesthetics of violence against women through narrative and art. The University of Birmingham. England, October 2015.
  • Book Presentation. The Life of Catalina de Erauso, the Lieutenant Nun: An Early-Modern Autobiography. University of the Basque Country. Spain, May 2015.

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