Skip to main content

Kimberly Nance

Professor
Lang Literatures & Cultures
Office
STV Stevenson Hall 204
  • About
  • Education
  • Awards & Honors
  • Research

Biography

PhD University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Spanish American Literature Secondary Areas: Folklore, Critical Theory, Educational Policy MA University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Spanish Literature BA University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Spanish Education, Summa cum laude

Current Courses

203.001Nations And Narration AMALI: Latin America

385.001Topics In Hispanic Literature

305.001Current Topics In Hispanic Civilization & Culture

400.001Independent Study In Spanish

203.001Nations And Narration AMALI: Latin America

235.001Spanish for Health Care

Teaching Interests & Areas

Offices: Modern Language Association of America, Division on Teaching as a Profession, Executive Committee, 2012-2017

Modern Language Association of America, Division on Teaching of Literature, Executive Committee, 2000-2005, Chair 2002-2004

Midwest Modern Language Association, Division on Multicultural Literature in the Classroom, Chair 2005, Secretary, 2004

Midwest Modern Language Association, Division on Peace Literature and Pedagogy, Chair, 1998, Secretary 1997

Award: College of Arts & Sciences Outstanding Humanities Teacher

Courses taught:
Children on the Edge: Young Narrators in Novels of Dictatorship; Bildungsroman Across Borders; Mirame, Diversity and Visibility in Spain and Latin America; Nations & Narrations of Latin America; Latin American Popular Culture; Spanish for Health Care, The Boom: Latin American Literature Goes Global; Larger than Life: Latin American Icons; Spanish American Short Stories from 1996-Next Month: Proyecto Sherezade; Seminar on Form and Function in Spanish American Folklore; Latin American Novels of the 1960s; Sor Juana Seminar; Latin American Lifewriting; Literatures of Cultural Encounter; Violence and Responses to Violence in Latin American Narrative; Borges, Bombal and Cortázar; Chronicles and Travelers’ Tales; Latin American Folklore and Popular Culture; Casona, Sastre and Buero Vallejo; Images of the Indio in the Modern Spanish-American Novel; Fantastic and Magical Realism in Latin American Literature; Senior Seminar; Survey of Spanish-American Literature; Introduction to Hispanic Literature; Spanish American Civilization; Serving Spanish-Speaking Populations; Modern Spanish Novel; Academic Spanish for Spanish Speakers; Grammar; Composition; Conversation

Research Interests & Areas

American Library Association/Choice Academic Book Award for Can Literature Promote Justice? Trauma Narrative and Social Action in Latin American Testimonio (2007)

Interests:
theories of reading and reception, literature and social justice, psychology and neurobiology of narrative, narrating war and torture, Aristotelian rhetorical categories and persuasion, folklore and literature, second person narrative, innovations in narrative technique, theories of the fantastic and magical realism, teaching literature

Ph D Latin American Literature and Culture

University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign

MA Spanish Literature

University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign

BA Teaching of Spanish

University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign

American Library Association Choice Academic Book for Can Literature Promote Justice?

American Library Association
2007

College of Arts & Sciences Outstanding Humanities Teacher

1990

Book Review

Nance, Kimberly A. Review of Ortiz-Vilarelle, Lisa. Americanas, Autocracy, and Autobiographical Innovation. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. 26 October 2022.
Nance, Kimberly A. Review of Weldt-Basson, Helene. Masquerade and Social Justice in Contemporary Latin American Fiction. Hispanófila, 182 (2018): 208-210.
Nance, Kimberly A. Review of Nava, Alex. Wonder and Exile in the New World. Bulletin of Spanish Studies (formerly Bulletin of Hispanic Studies), 93, 5, 22 June 2016: 887-888.
Nance, Kimberly A. Review of Robinson, Lorna. Gabriel García Márquez and Ovid. Magical and Monstrous Realities. Bulletin of Spanish Studies (formerly Bulletin of Hispanic Studies). 92, 2, 2015. 310-312. This number of the journal was released online in December, 2014.
Nance, Kimberly A. Review of Amaya, Hector, Screening Cuba: Film Criticism as Political Performance During the Cold War. Reception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, History. 4 (Fall 2012): 17- 18.

Book, Authored

Nance, Kimberly A. Ethics of Witness in Global Testimonial Narratives: Responding to the Pain of Others. Lanham MD: Lexington/Rowman and Littlefield, 2020. 158 pp.
Nance, Kimberly A. Teaching Literature in the Languages. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 2010. 258 pp.
Nance, Kimberly A. Can Literature Promote Justice? Trauma Narrative and Social Action in Latin American Testimonio. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. 2006. 212 pp. [American Library Association/CHOICE Award Outstanding Academic Book 2007; Reviewed in Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 40 3 (2006): 604-605; Human Rights Quarterly 29.2 (2007) 533-537; Contra corriente: A Journal on Social History and Literature in Latin America 5 1 (Fall 2007): 228-235]
Nance, Kimberly A. Cervantine Satire and Folk Syncretism in Paulo de Carvalho-Neto’s Mi tío Atahualpa. Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press. 2004. 175 pp.

Book, Chapter

Nance, Kimberly A. “Empirical Ethics, Theoretical Mechanics: Toward a Prosaics of Teaching Human Rights Literature.” Teaching Human Rights in Literary and Cultural Studies. MLA Options for Teaching Series. Ed. Alexandra Moore & Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg. NY: MLA: 2015. 218-226.
Nance, Kimberly A. “Hispanic literatures and cultures throughout the curriculum.” The Routledge Handbook of Hispanic Applied Linguistics. Ed. Manel Lacorte. NY: Routledge: 2014. 202-220.
Nance, Kimberly A. “’Something that might resemble a call’: Testimonial Theory and Practice in the Twenty-First Century.” Pushing the Boundaries of Latin American Testimony: Metamorphoses and Migrations. Ed. Janis Breckenridge & Louise Detwiler. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2012. 239-247.
Nance, Kimberly A. “Borges and Georgie: Childhood Reading, Adult Writing, and the Shape of the Latin American Fantastic.” Twice-told Children’s Tales: The Influence of Childhood Reading on Writers for Adults. Ed. Betty Greenway. New York: Routledge. 2005. 11-25.
Nance, Kimberly A. “‘Let us say that there is a human being before me who is suffering’: Empathy, Exotopy and Ethics in the Reception of Latin American Collaborative Testimonio.” Bakhtin: Ethics and Mechanics. Ed. Valerie Nollan. Rethinking Theory Series. Evanston: Northwestern. 2004. 57-73. [Reviewed in Modern Language Review 101 4 (1 October 2006): 1194-1195; Russian Review 64 1 (January 2005): 112-181]

Encyclopedia

Nance, Kimberly A. “Barnet, Miguel.” The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies. Ray, Sangeeta, Henry Schwarz, José Luis Villacañas Berlanga, Alberto Moreiras and April Shemak (eds). Blackwell Publishing, 2016. Blackwell Reference Online. 18 February 2016
Nance, Kimberly A. “Justice and Injustice” (Kimberly Nance and Jane Garry) Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook, ed. Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy. NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2005. 445-450. [Reviewed in Journal of American Folklore 122, 484 (Spring 2009)]
Nance, Kimberly A. “Seduction.” Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook, ed. Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy. NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2005. 283-288 [Reviewed in Journal of American Folklore 122, 484 (Spring 2009): 237-238]

Journal Article

Nance, Kimberly A. “Recursive Witness: Narrative Critique of Testimonial Criticism in Alicia Partnoy’s ‘Rosa, I Disowned You’ and ‘Disclaimer Intraducible: My Life / Is Based / On a Real Story’” in a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. 31.7 (published 13 February 2023). 113-128.
Nance, Kimberly A. “Considering Social Efficacy in Peter Dickinson’s AK.Sankofa: Journal of African Children's and Young Adult Literature 9 (2010) 18-26.
Nance, Kimberly A. “Reading Human Rights Literature in Undergraduate Literature Classes: Professorial Desire, Disciplinary Culture, and the Chances of Cultivating Compassion.” Journal of Human Rights. 9 2 (April 2010) 161-174.
Nance, Kimberly A. “Mountains beyond Mountains: Role Models and the ‘Problem of Goodness’ in Socially Engaged Teaching.” ADFL Bulletin. 37 1 (Fall 2005) 22-26. (issue published spring 2006)
Nance, Kimberly A. “Newer Than Nuevas Novelas: Rhetorical Challenges and Ethical Import of Fetal Narrators in Ariel Dorfman’s La última canción de Manuel Sendero and Carlos Fuentes’ Cristóbal Nonato.” Hispanófila. 147 (2006) 51-68.

Textbook, New

Nance, Kimberly A. and Isidro J. Rivera. Aprendizaje: técnicas de composición. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co. 1996. 233 pp. [Ranked 4th in national adoptions in Educational Testing Service survey; Reviewed in Hispania, 81, 1 (March 1998): 115]

Textbook, Revised

Nance, Kimberly A. and Isidro J. Rivera. Aprendizaje: Strategies for Writing. 2nd edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2003. 196 pp. [Adopted at over 200 universities, including UC-Berkeley and Harvard]

Presentations

2019: “Critique of Testimonial Criticism in Alicia Partnoy’s 'Rosa, I Disowned You’ and ‘Disclaimer Intraducible’” Modern Language Association, Chicago.
2019: “Implications and Applications of Repens and Repositio for Language Curricula” Modern Language Association, Chicago.​
2018: “The Work of Empathy in Global Testimonial Narrative” American Comparative Literature Association, Los Angeles, CA.
2017: “Clea Koff’s The Bone Woman: From Memoir and Documentary to Social Intervention” Midwest Modern Language Association, Cincinnati OH.
2015: “Teaching as a Profession: Nice Work, Good Work, Better Work” Modern Language Association, Vancouver, Canada.
2014: "'An infection with the other's suffering, nothing more'? Pathological versus Productive Empathy and Narrative Strategy" Modern Language Association, Chicago.
2014: “Hundreds of bodies on two continents, telling a single story” Assembling Narratives of Genocide in Clea Koff’s The Bone Woman. Modern Language Association, Chicago.
2013: “Use beginning, middle, and end”: Testimonial Narrative as Reintegrative Strategy in Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen & Me” Modern Language Association, Boston.
2013: “’There are some things so serious that you have to laugh at them’: Humor in the Concentration Camp Narratives of Alicia Partnoy and Hernán Valdés” Modern Language Association, Boston.
2012: “Careers for Humanists: Roles of Graduate Programs” Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools, Chicago.