Angela Acosta received a Beinecke Scholarship while attending Smith College in 2016 to pursue a PhD in Spanish with a specialization in Iberian Studies at The Ohio State University. She completed her degree in 2023, and she is now an Assistant Professor of Spanish Contemporary Literature and Culture at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Angela is a bilingual poet
and author of two speculative poetry collections.
From an early age, I knew I wanted to become fluent in Spanish, but it was not a language that was spoken at home or often heard in my hometown of Gainesville, Florida. My parents encouraged my passion for learning about our cultural heritage, and they helped me seek out amazing teachers who introduced me to the many cultural and literary traditions of the Iberian Peninsula, Latin America, and the United States.
My father, the first person in my family to complete a PhD, shares his love for physics with my brother and I, and he has helped us envision the milestones we would reach during our educational journeys. I followed my passion for literature and completed BA degrees in English Language and Literature and Spanish at Smith College. During my first two years at Smith, I worked in the Poetry Center through Smith’s Student Research in Department (STRIDE) Program and was delighted to be around fellow poets. I took courses on modern and contemporary Spanish and anglophone literature and became interested in how Spanish modernist literary circles were formed. The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program (MMUF) provided me with the research training and mentorship that led me to apply for the Beinecke Scholarship.
The Beinecke Scholarship has been an incredible resource for completing my graduate education and joining the professoriate, and it paved the way for archival research trips to Spain that have been fundamental for my research. I completed MA and PhD degrees in Spanish in the Program
in Iberian Cultural and Literary Studies at The Ohio State University in 2019 and 2023, respectively, and wrote a dissertation on the Spanish avant-garde group known as the Generation of 1927. I received excellent scholarly and pedagogical training at Ohio State that has served me well as a professor. The 2019 summer research trip I took to Madrid and Málaga, Spain was instrumental for finding archival sources about the formation of the Generation of 1927 and “las Sinsombrero” (the “hatless” modernist women). The tributes to writers that I accessed in Spain are a key source of primary source documentation for my book project on the role of homage in constructing the literary canon of the Generation of 1927 in anticipation of the 2027 centennial celebration. My doctoral advisor, Dr. Rebecca Haidt, guided me in my study of the theories and methodologies that have enriched my research projects, and she continues to be a great source of support as I move forward in my career in academia.
I am the first woman in my family to complete a PhD, and I have grown as a scholar, writer, and person in the decade since receiving the Beinecke Scholarship. After graduating, I taught Spanish at Davidson College for a year as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies. I am now an Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of South Carolina, Columbia where I teach courses on contemporary Spanish culture, speculative literature, and the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship.