Professor Catherine Boyle

Biography

Catherine studied Modern Foreign Languages at the University of Strathclyde, and then took an MA and PhD at the University of Liverpool. She returned to Strathclyde for her first academic post, and subsequently took up a post in Latin American Studies at King’s in 1990. She was Head of Department from 1997-2006, and became Professor of Latin American Cultural Studies in 2007. She became Head of the newly formed Department of Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies in 2010.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

• Spanish American literary and cultural studies
• Spanish American and Hispanic theatre studies
• Translation and cultural transmission
• Performance
• Gender studies

Catherine Boyle’s research has always been informed by the investigation of the ways in which cultural expressions are produced within their socio-historic context. This has led to extensive work in the areas of cultural studies, theatre and translation. Since her doctoral thesis (1986), published as Chilean Theater, 1973-1985. Marginality, Power and Selfhood (1992), she has developed methodologies for the study and practice of theatre in text and performance, incorporating ideas of cultural transmission and translation into the investigation of theatre practice, particularly in the Southern Cone. This has led to a number of translations and theatre work, most notably with the Royal Shakespeare Company for their Spanish Golden Age Season, for which she acted as academic consultant and translator of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s Los empeños de una casa as House of Desires (2004). A co-edited book (with David Johnston), The Spanish Golden Age in English. Perspectives on Performance (2007), derived from this experience, and seeks to explore the ways in which the ‘academic’ and the ‘creative’ meet in the performance space. She was co-founder and editor of the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (1992). Her work with research students both as supervisor and as director of the departmental Research Methodologies Seminar, led to the publication of a collection of essays based on papers presented at the Seminar, Exploración y proceso. Investigando la cultura hispánica (2007), which seeks to celebrate the space for work in progress.

Catherine Boyle is Principal Investigator on the major Research Grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council of over £765,439 on Spanish and Spanish American Theatres in Translation. A Virtual Environment for Research and Practice. The project is now more commonly known as Out of the Wings: www.outofthewings.org. She also runs the ‘Translating Cultural Extremity Project’ working with theatre practitioners interested in testing the possibilities of translating experiences that seem remote from ours.

Catherine Boyle supervises doctoral students on: Spanish and Latin American theatre; popular culture; translation and performance of theatre; cultural history, including the study of literary and cultural magazines; gender.

 For more details, please see her full research profile.

Teaching

Catherine Boyle teaches modules on areas from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the context of colonial New Spain, to cultural expressions of the Southern Cone, cultural history and memory, Gender in Spanish America, Hispanic theatre, and translation and performance studies.

Undergraduate

• 4AASA021 Key Terms and Concepts in Cultural History in Spanish America Introduction to Spanish American Narrative
• 5AASB072 Translating Cultures through Theatre: Spain and Latin America
• 6AASC013 Historical Change & Cultural Expression in the Southern Cone

Postgraduate

• 7AASM021 Spanish/American Theatres: Acts of Translation and Performance