Prof. Matthew J. Marr (Ph.D., University of Virginia) specializes in contemporary Spanish literary and cultural studies, with a particular emphasis on fiction, poetry, and cinema produced since Spain’s post-1975 transition to democracy and during its subsequent integration with the European Union. His scholarly work seeks to open up Peninsular studies to internationally comparative perspectives by positioning recent texts within a critical framework attentive to issues such as globalization, transnationalism, postmodernism, transatlantic intertextuality, and the cultural construction of marginalized subjectivities in a newly pluralistic Spain. The author of several essays and a monograph (Postmodern Metapoetry and the Replenishment of the Spanish Lyrical Genre, 1980-2000), he is currently at work on a second book that examines the politics of representation with regard to youth, age, and disability in Spanish cinema from the 1990s through the present. Before coming to Penn State in 2007, Dr. Marr held a tenure-line faculty position at the University of Illinois at Chicago (2004-07), as well as visiting appointments at Northwestern University (Fall 2006, by invitation) and Middlebury College (2003-04).

Research Interests | Education | Publications | Courses Taught

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Contemporary Spanish Film

Late Twentieth-Century Spanish Poetry

Comparative Approaches to the Contemporary Spanish Novel

Cultural Studies in the Post-1975 Peninsular Context

---

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in Spanish, University of Virginia (2003)

Dissertation: The “Metapoetics” of Postmodernism: Self-Consciousness and Creative Renewal in Peninsular Verse of the 1980s and 1990s (Director, Andrew A. Anderson)

M.A. in Spanish, University of Virginia (1999)

A.B. in Spanish & English, College of William & Mary (1997)

Studies Abroad: Universitat de València (Spain), Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (Chile)

 

PUBLICATIONS

Marr, Matthew J. “Representation and the Cultural Politics of Aging in Justino, un asesino de la tercera edad (La Cuadrilla, 1994).” Studies in Hispanic Cinemas 6.2 (Forthcoming, Spring 2010)

Marr, Matthew J.  “‘Rogamos hagan uso / del cinturón’: A Flight through Found Texts in Luis García Montero’s ‘Life vest under your seat.’”  Letras Peninsulares 21.2-3 (2009): 509-24.

Marr, Matthew J. “Generation X and Its Discontents: The Girl Aggressor and Youth Subjectivity in the Cinematic Adaptation of Mensaka.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 42.1 (2008): 131-55.

Marr, Matthew J. “Stepping Westward from Spain: Literary and Cultural Reversal in Recent Transatlantic Academic Novels by Josefina Aldecoa, Javier Cercas, & Antonio Muñoz Molina.” Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea 33.1 (2008): 105-26.

Marr, Matthew J. “Realism on the Rocks in the Generational Novel: ‘Rummies’, Rhythm, and Rebellion in Historias del Kronen and The Sun Also Rises.” Generation X Rocks: Contemporary Peninsular Fiction, Film, and Rock Culture. Eds. Christine Henseler and Randolph Pope. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2007. 126-52.

Marr, Matthew J. Postmodern Metapoetry and the Replenishment of the Spanish Lyrical Genre, 1980-2000. Anstruther, Fife, Scotland: La Sirena, 2007. (Available through Grant & Cutler, Ltd.)

Marr, Matthew J. “An Ambivalent Attraction?: Post-Punk Kinship and the Politics of Bonding in Historias del Kronen and Less Than Zero.” Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 10 (2006): 9-22.

Marr, M.J. “Mapping the Space of Self: Cartography and the Narrative Act in Esther Tusquets’s El mismo mar de todos los veranos.” Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea 29.1 (2004): 217-33.

Marr, Matthew J. “Out of the Office: Comic Self-Derision as a Vacation from Solemnity in the Postmodern Metapoetry of Roger Wolfe.” Revista Hispánica Moderna 56.2 (2003): 421-32.

Marr, Matthew. “Formal Subversion and Aesthetic Harmony in Mascarilla y trébol: A Reconsideration of Alfonsina Storni’s Late Poetics.” Romance Quarterly 49.1 (2002): 50-60.

Marr, Matthew J. “‘Dolor común’: Ontological (In)security in Unamuno’s Rosario de sonetos líricos.” España Contemporánea 14.1 (2001): 43-57.

Marr, Matthew J. “(Anti)heroism in Ángel Ganivet’s Los trabajos del infatigable creador Pío Cid.” Revista Hispánica Moderna 54 (2001): 231-37.

LITERATURE, FILM, & CULTURAL STUDIES COURSES TAUGHT

The Pennsylvania State University (2007-present):

“Generation X” Literature, Film, & Media in Post-Transition Spain (Graduate)

The Contemporary Hispanic Thriller (College of Liberal Arts First-Year Seminar)

Globalization and Social Conflict in Recent Spanish Cinema (College of Liberal Arts First-Year Seminar) 

Contemporary Spanish Poetry (Graduate)

Survey of Spanish Literature Since 1700

Introduction to Hispanic Literature

University of Illinois at Chicago (2004-07):

Recent Spanish Film from Fiction (Graduate)

Post-Civil War Narrative (Graduate)

Spanish Narrative from Realism to the Generation of 1898 (Graduate)

Spanish Poetry of the (Post)Modern Century (Graduate)

The Emerging Canon of Recent Spanish Fiction (Graduate)

Topics in Contemporary Spanish Cultural Studies (Senior Seminar)

Modern Spanish Literature & Society

Civilization and Culture of Spain

Northwestern University (Fall 2006)

Literature in Spain since 1700

Middlebury College (2003-04)

The Changing Face of the Hero in the Modern Spanish Novel