Hispanic Studies’ Faculty Focus for October 2022 is Dr. Sharonah Fredrick
Hispanic Studies is pleased to welcome Dr. Sharonah Fredrick as a member of its faculty.
Dr. Fredrick, who joins the department as an Instructor of Spanish—hired, in part, to broaden and deepen offerings in the Spanish for Health field—has an impressive academic pedigree, which includes a PhD in Hispanic Language and Literature at the State University of New York at Stony Brook (where she studied as a Turner Diversity Scholar), a Master’s Degree from Tel Aviv University in Israel in Medieval, Renaissance and Colonial History, and a B.A. in Anthropology and Languages (again) from SUNY Buffalo.
As both her students and colleagues can readily attest, Dr. Fredrick possesses a wealth of knowledge on a variety of subjects, ranging from indigenous medicine of the Americas, to Indo-Hispanic theatre, to Catalan Nationalism in Spain–even to the musical complexities of one of her favorite bands, The Beatles.
Among her most recent academic publications (of which I cite only a few) are “Piracy as Resistance in Early Modern Caribbean and Pacific,” in (REWR) Routledge Encyclopedia of the World Renaissance, (forthcoming) April 2023, “Mayan and Andean Medicine and Urban Space in the Colonial Spanish Americas,” in Renaissance & Reformation (R&R) Journal of U Toronto, 44.2, December 2021, and her upcoming book, Killing the Deities: Resistance in Mayans and Andean Colonial Epics-A Comparative Study of the Popul Vuh and the Huarochiri Manuscript. University of Nebraska Press. (forthcoming) June 2023.
Add to these impressive credentials and accomplishments Dr. Fredrick’s evident passion for teaching and enthusiasm for engaging in the life of the department and its easy to see why we are proud to be able to feature her as October’s Faculty Focus.
In her own words…
“The atmosphere of Hispanic Studies at CofC instils genuine excitement in the students and the faculty who teach there. I find it inspiring to know that the things we talk about, from universities in Latin America to artistic festivals in Spain, from science and medicine in the Hispanic world to business and commerce, and of course, to our great love of literature and languages (including both Spanish Portuguese!!) can be experienced by the student in real time. I adore the fact that I can teach a student about community health in Uruguay and colonial and indigenous medicine in Peru and Costa Rica, and they will have the possibility of experiencing these things, either in trips abroad or in the Casa Hispana, or any of the many forums that Hispanic Studies gives them. Teaching Spanish and Latin American literature is not just an intellectual exercise. It has an urgency to it that is the main reason I love teaching. Classical paradigms connect with present reality, so no one has to ask why literature, linguistics and culture are ‘relevant’; they obviously are. It is delightful to teach in an atmosphere that recognizes the value of the Humanities.”
Bienvenida, Sharonah! 🙂