Gabriela S
- Research Program Mentor
PhD at Stanford University
Expertise
American Literature, Philosophy and Film, Feminist and Queer Literature, Political Theory and Philosophy, History, Confessional and Autobiographical writing
Bio
I’ve taught humanities at Stanford for over twelve years—first as a PhD candidate in the Department of English, where I worked as a teaching assistant, and now as a professor in Stanford’s intensive first-year program, Structured Liberal Education (SLE). In SLE, students read major works from antiquity to modernity, beginning with figures like Plato and Homer in the fall and ending with Marx and Fanon in the spring. The curriculum includes some of the most important—and challenging—texts in philosophy, religion, and literature, alongside films and selected works of art. I am an expert in mentoring students on writing. Most of my experience lies in academic writing and research, but I also draw on experience in magazine and editorial work to support students who are writing essays for wider audiences. My teaching philosophy is to help students identify their passions and collaborate with them to build research agendas and questions that reflect their authentic interests. A key strength I bring to our time together is translating the conventions of academic writing into a clear process that makes sense to high school and early college students who are just beginning to develop their skills. Although I have spent the bulk of my career working with undergraduates, I also have experience with a wide range of learners. At Stanford, I’ve taught in the Summer Humanities Institute for high school students, and before graduate school I taught middle school and spent a summer tutoring high school students in SAT reading. Outside of teaching and research, I love music, letter-writing, home cooking, and spending time outdoors. I am an avid reader of political theory and history, and I follow contemporary events and social movements closely. In addition to my university teaching, I volunteer on collaborative editorial projects for online and print publications that cover political and cultural issues. Whether in the classroom or beyond it, sharing ideas and supporting others in developing their voices has always been at the center of my work.Project ideas
Review of Reviews: How Canons Are Made
For this project, you'll select a very recently published work of literature and conduct a survey of the critical reception of the work. What are critics saying about the work? How do they value the work's worth? Putting your own reading of the work together with research on the author and on the genres with which that author is staging a conversation, you will determine, in an analytical piece of writing, whether the work you have read merits the reception that it has received. For example, if the author you've chosen has written a work of historical fiction, how does the work speak to the tradition of historical fiction? Does the work carry out any innovations on the genre? Or does it abide by certain conventions visible in other novels belonging to a similar body of works? To answer such questions, you will bring your own reading of the text and the survey of its critical reception together with a historical understanding of the genre to which it belongs or to which it aspires to belong. This project is intended both to deepen your relationship to a contemporary living author, and to engage your critical sensibilities with the question of canon formation. What kinds of works earn accolades? How do critics make determinations about generic belonging? When and how are new genres born? Depending on your own interests, your project can take a more scholarly tone or it can be written more in the style of a New York Review of Books feature, helping you hone your own voice as a public intellectual.