Cristina Guardiola-Griffiths
Associate Professor of Spanish
University of Delaware
315 Jastak-Burgess Hall
Newark, DE 19716
302-831-0835
Biography
Cristina Guardiola-Griffiths is an Associate Professor of Spanish, whose area of interest is fifteenth century Medieval literatures. She teaches courses in medieval early modern literature and culture for the Foreign Language and Literatures Department. She teaches courses in medieval literature and culture, oral communication, and composition. Her latest work deals with the growth of the cosmetic branch of medicine within the medieval and early modern world. The focus is on the paradoxical growth of the cosmetics industry, which targeted the aesthetic and medicinal uses of cosmetics for women, with the moral and medical condemnation of women who participated in the cosmetic industry. The work explores the concomitant exclusion of women from a public space and a professional sphere with their loss of literary voice.
Professor Guardiola has published several articles on the fifteenth century masterpiece by Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina. Currently, she is co-editing an edition of the Amadís de Gaula with fellow UD professor, Jesús Botello.
In 2010, Professor Guardiola published a book, Legitimizing the Queen: Literary Ambitions and Political Projects in the Reign of Isabel I (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press), which studies the many narrative images of Castilian queen, Isabel I, seen in mirror of prince texts. These texts expose the propaganda used to garner power for the female sovereign, and once maintained, further her agenda.
Degrees
Ph.D., Romance Languages and Literatures, University of California, Berkeley
Publications
Legitimizing the Queen deals with a genre particular to the Middle Ages: the specula principum (mirror of prince). Its importance as an object of study may be understood in light of the political instability that wracked the Castilian fifteenth century. The many works written for and dedicated to Isabel I of Castile depict her kingdom as a shipwrecked boat, a wayward realm, and a land of bankrupt people. These works suggest the kingdom’s need for redemption through the strong leadership of the Catholic monarchs. These largely propagandistic works were designed to garner power, and once maintained, further Isabel’s agenda. This book frames the concept of sovereignty from the theoretical perspective of the speculum principum dedicated to her. It offers a Bourdieuian approach to the more literary specula texts used to legitimize and uphold Isabel’s power.
This book reveals propagandistic qualities promoting the ideology necessary to legitimize and support Isabel’s claims to the throne. Written primarily between 1468 and 1493, these works are literary artifacts that mark the rise to power of a female sovereign. The study discusses the various strategies of legitimation employed by these propagandists whose works circulated within noble and royal courts, and presumably extended into Castile as justification for her sovereign claim to the throne. By analyzing fifteenth century texts from within a modern critical framework, this book reexamines Isabel’s position as queen and contributes to the understanding of her shared sovereignty in a period political and social evolution.
Professional Activities
- MLA Delegate Assembly (2013-2015)
- MLA Division on Medieval Hispanic Languages, Executive Committee (2013-2018)
- Guest Co-Editor, La Corónica, special cluster on Medieval Gardens (2013-2014)
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