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Catalina Andrango-Walker

Catalina Andrango-Walker, Associate Professor

Catalina Andrango-Walker portrait
Catalina Andrango-Walker, Associate Professor

Department of Modern & Classical Languages and Literatures
325 Major Williams Hall
Blacksburg, VA 24061
candrang@vt.edu

Professor Andrango-Walker's reserach seeks to recover the history and material culture of the colonial period in the Andean region by studying non-canonical texts by men and women who were agents of change in their societies. Her first book, El Símbolo católico indiano (1598) de Jerónimo de Oré: saberes coloniales y los problemas de la evangelización en la región andina (Vervuert/Iberoamericana 2018)show how Oré challenged imperial ideology regarding the construction of the Andean people, ideology that was based on contemporary Western theories that associated latitude and the natural environment with human nature and intellect. Her second book, La construcción de la santidad en la región andina. La vida de la beata Juana de Jesús (1662-1703) (Brill, 2022), expands on the study of criollo identity and also incorporates the question of gender in the periphery of the Spanish Empire. 

Currently she is preparing a scholarly edition and English translation of Miguel Cabello Balboa's True Description of the Esmeraldas Province (1583) and co-editing Babel: Multilingual Poetry in Colonial Latin America. In her latest book project, tentatively titled South Meets North America: Viceregal Contacts in the Hispanic World, Andrango-Walker analyzes the connections between the Viceroyalty of Peru and La Florida, which during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and included much of what is today the southeastern part of the United States.

Her research has been funded by a number of fellowships and institutions, including DRCLAS at Harvard University, NEH Summer Institute at the Newberry Library, The Mendel Fellowship at the Lilly Library, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and the John Carter Brown Library. She has published many articles and book chapters on religious women, the complicity between race, religion, and colonialism, the representation of Andean female historical figures in contemporary literature and culture, and Quechua poetry, among other topics. 

  • Colonial Latin American Literature & Culture
  • Colonialism and Imperialism
  • Religious Studies
  • Latin American Historical Novel
  • Race and Gender
  • Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature, Washington University in St. Louis                                               
  • M.A. in Hispanic Literature, Washington University in St. Louis                                                  
  • B.A. in Spanish (minor in English), University of Missouri-Columbia    
  • Associate Professor of Spanish, Virginia Tech (2017 - present)
  • Assistant Professor of Spanish, Virginia Tech (2011 - 2017)
  • Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish, Franklin and Marshall College (2010 - 2011)
  • Instructor of Literature (distance learning), Universidad San Francisco de Quito (2008 - 2011)
  • Lecturer of Spanish, Washington University in St. Louis (2009 - 2010)

Books

La construcción de la santidad en la región andina. La vida de la beata Juana de Jesús (1662-1703). [The Construction of Sanctity in teh Andean Region. The Life of the Lay Woman Juana de Jesús (1662-1703)]. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill 2022

El Símbolo católico indiano (1598) de Jerónimo de Oré: saberes coloniales y los problemas de la evangelización en la región andina [Luis Jerónimo de Oré’s Símbolo Católico Indiano (1598): Criollo knowledge and the problems of evangelization in the Andean Region]. Frankfurt and Madrid: Vervuert/Iberoamericana, 2018. 

Edited Journal Volume

Guest editor, Latin American Theatre Review (special issue on Colonial Latin American Theatre), vol. 54, no. 1, 2020.

Journal Articles

"Sacred Relics as a Remedy for Epidemics in Colonial Quito." Early Modern Women. An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 16, no. 1, 2021, pp. 114-22.

"Female Fashion, Divine Punishment, and Local Pride in the Accounts of the 1698 Ambato Earthquake." Colonial Latin American Review, vol. 29, no. 4, 2020, pp. 554-71.

"Música y perfomance como estrategias de conversión en el Virreinato del Perú." Latin American Theatre Review, vol. 54, no. 1, 2020, pp. 125-48. 

“La (de)construcción de la santidad criolla en Aprendiendo a morir.” Revista Iberoamericana. 84.264 (2018): 793-809.

 “Getrudes de San Yldefonso and Juana de Jesús: Exemplarity and the Construction of the Criollo Identity in Eighteenth Century Quito.” Chasqui. Revista de literatura latinoamericana. 47.1 (2018): 68-83.

 “Del discurso piadoso al discurso protonacionalista en la biografía de la beata Juana de Jesús.” Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures. 71.2 (2017): 93-104.

 “Memorias hegemónicas contadas desde la subalternidad: relatos femeninos en Memorias de la pivihuarmi Cuxirimay Ocllo.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos. 38.2 (2014): 273-94.

“El Colegio de caciques San Andrés y la transformación del espacio colonial quiteño.” Latin American Literary Review 40.80 (2012): 28-51.

“Formación de la identidad ecuatoriana a partir de la música y la poesía popular de las guerras de la independencia.” Araucaria 25.13 (2011): 108-25.

Introduction to Edited Volume

"Introducción: Las regiones que dejaron de ser artísticamente desiertas: Una exploración de las nuevas perspectivas de las prácticas teatrales coloniales latinoamericanas." Latin American Theatre Review, vol. 54, no. 1, 2020, pp. 7-16.

Book Chapters

"The Pacific Ocean as a Space of Freedom, Danger, and Economic Success for the Colonial Project in Verdadera descripción de la provincia y tierra de las Esmeraldas." Hydrocriticism and Colonialism in Latin America: Water Marks, edited by Mabel Moraña. Palgrave Macmillan Editors, 2022. 29-47.

“Armonías de descontento: La música de Getrudes de San Yldefonso en Quito colonial.” En La historia, el arte y la música en el manuscrito de la venerable Virgen del Monasterio de Santa Clara: Quito (1709-1917). Ed. Regina Harrison. Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar: Quito. 2019. 153-87.

“Writing Orality: Turning Quechua into a Language of Religious Conversion.” Latin American Textualities. Eds. Heather Allen & Andrew Reynolds. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018. 27-45.

“Cantando los salmos del Señor en tierra ajena: nostalgia, religiosidad y transculturación en el camino hacia la evangelización de la región andina.” Estudios coloniales latinoamericanos en el siglo XXI: Nuevos itinerarios. Ed. Stephanie Kirk. Pittsburgh: Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 2012. 167-80.

External

  • Peggy Rockefellar Visiting Scholar of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) at Harvard University- 2023-2024
  • NEH Summer Institute at the Newberry Library- 2022
  • Center for New World Comparative Studies Fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R.I.- 2020
  • The Mendel Fellowship, Lilly Library, Indiana University ($1,500)- 2016
  • Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection ($3,000)- 2013
  • Ruth and Lincoln Ekstrom Fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R.I. ($4,200)- 2012

Virginia Tech

  • Niles Research Grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences- 2022
  • Center for Humanitites Summer 2021 Stipend Award- 2021
  • College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences International Initiatives Support ($1000)- 2019
  • Niles Research Grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences ($500)- 2017
  • Niles Research Grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences ($2,400)- 2016
  • Niles Research Grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences ($3,500)- 2015
  • Humanities Summer Stipend from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. Also selected as Virginia Tech nominee to the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend competition ($4,000)- 2014
  • College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences International Initiative Small Grants ($750)- 2014
  • Visible Scholarship Initiatives Mini-Grant (with Elisabeth Austin) ($500)- 2013
  • International Travel Supplemental Grant ($1,500)- 2012
  • New Faculty Mentoring Project Grant ($1,500)- 2012

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