Jessica Folkart

Jessica A. Folkart, Professor of Spanish

Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures
323 Major Williams Hall
Blacksburg, VA 24061
540-231-5361 | jfolkart@vt.edu

Jessica A. Folkart (PhD, 1998, University of Kansas) is a professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at Virginia Tech.

Folkart has authored two books, Liminal Fiction at the Edge of the Millennium: The Ends of Spanish Identity (Bucknell University Press, 2014) and Angles on Otherness in Post-Franco Spain: The Fiction of Cristina Fernández Cubas (Bucknell University Press, 2002), and many articles on Peninsular Spanish literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her articles have appeared in such journals as Philosophy and Literature, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, and Hispanic Review.

Her current research examines the representation of identity, immigration, and the liminal body. In the Spanish Program she is a Contemporary Peninsular specialist, teaching courses such as Sex and Power in Post-Franco Spain, Phantasms in Spanish Film and Fiction, and Cultural and Literary Studies of Modern Spain.

Folkart has won numerous teaching awards and is a member of the Academy of Teaching Excellence at Virginia Tech.

Principal Areas of Research Focus

Contemporary Spanish Fiction
Identity
Gender
Immigration
The Body

Education

Ph.D. in Spanish literature, University of Kansas, 1998
M.A. in Spanish literature, University of Kansas, 1993
B.A. in Spanish and International Relations, College of William and Mary, 1991

Professional Roles

Modern Language Association of America
Asociación de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades (member; past President and Vice President)

Awards and Honors

William E. Wine Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2020
Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching
Certificates for Teaching Excellence
Panhellenic Teacher of Excellence

Publications

Books

Liminal Fiction at the Edge of the Millennium: The Ends of Spanish Identity. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2014. 262 pages.

Angles on Otherness in Post-Franco Spain: The Fiction of Cristina Fernández Cubas. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2002. 254 pages.

Journal Articles

“On Doubling and Dis/ability: The Voice and View of Difference in ‘La habitación de Nona’ by Cristina Fernández Cubas.” Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures. Forthcoming.

“Of Prostitutes and Parchments: Sex, Immigration, and a Poetics of Skin in Lourdes Ortiz’s Fátima de los naufragios.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 40.2 (2016): 333-56.

“Scoring the National Hym(e)n: Sexuality, Immigration, and Identity in Najat El Hachmi’s L’últim patriarca.” Hispanic Review 81.3 (2013): 353-76.

“The Scatological Subject: Immigration, Evacuation, and the Abject in Juan Bonilla’s Los príncipes nubios.” Sociocriticism 27.1-2 (2012): 243-76.

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