Professor of Spanish
Director, Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum
B.A., Central College; M.A., Middlebury College; Ph.D., Minnesota
Semester I Office Hours:
M 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
W 3:15 – 4:45
and by appointment
Tomson 324
barnesg@stolaf.edu
(507) 786-3380
Gwendolyn Barnes-Karol (Ph.D., Minnesota) is a specialist in Spanish Literature with a secondary interest in curriculum and instruction (second languages and cultures), whose research interests highlight the interaction between oral and written/print culture, the development of the Spanish literary canon, the reception of literature by both native- and non-native-speakers of Spanish, the use of authentic cultural materials in the classroom, and content-based instruction in foreign languages. As an undergraduate, she studied at the Universities of Santiago de Compostela, Granada, and Complutense (Madrid) in Spain; as an MA student, she completed her degree through Middlebury College’s Graduate School of Spanish at Madrid’s Instituto Internacional. Barnes-Karol teaches Spanish language as well as the literature and culture of Spain; her recent major-level courses have focused on 17th century literature, religious minorities throughout Spanish history (Jews, Muslims, and Protestants), literature of the Spanish Civil War, and narrative in post-Franco Spain. She has taught St. Olaf January Terms abroad in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Spain in addition to graduate courses in Spain through the Quincentennial Summer Program for U.S. High School Teachers sponsored by Spain’s Ministry of Culture, the Fundación Ortega and Gasset, and the University of Minnesota. She is co-editor with the late Cristina Dupláa of Las nacionalidades del Estado español: una problemática cultural (1986), and her articles, translations, and book chapters have been published in the Hispanic Issues monograph series, the ADFL Bulletin, Foreign Language Annals, Hispania, and other edited volumes. In 1997, Barnes-Karol received the Ricardo A. Narváez Award for excellence in the teaching of Spanish from the Minnesota chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP). She has served as a member of the Modern Language Association’s Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize Committee, which selects the outstanding book in the field of the teaching of languages other than English, and is currently chair of the Executive Committee for the MLA’s Division of Teaching. She chaired the Department of Romance Languages at St. Olaf from 2002-2008.