Rachel holds a BA in Modern and Medieval Languages from the University of Cambridge, an MA in Medieval Studies from King’s College London, and a PhD in Medieval and Early Modern Spanish Studies, also from King’s. She has previously taught undergraduate courses in medieval Spanish literature at King’s and in 2014-2015 was a Lecturer in Medieval Spanish Literature at Queen Mary, University of London, where she also ran the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar. 

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

• Medieval and Early Modern Spanish literature, cultural and intellectual history
• Comparative studies
• Reception studies

Rachel’s research focuses on late medieval and early modern Spanish literary and textual culture. She is particularly interested in intersections between East and West, cultural translation, and the reception of medieval literature in early modern Europe (including outside of Spain, e.g. in Italy and England). Her work considers the way in which the meaning of texts and culture change as they move across time and space and engages with scholarship on the history of the book to consider how material form both creates and reflects reception and significance.

She has won several awards for her research, including the Elsevier Outstanding PhD Thesis Prize (2015) and Association of Hispanists of Great Britain & Ireland Award for most distinguished doctoral thesis (2015).                                                          

Her monograph on the 16th-century reception of Celestina in Spain and Italy was published in 2017 with Tamesis: https://boydellandbrewer.com/i-celestina-i-and-the-human-condition-in-early-modern-spain-and-italy.html

For more details, please see her full research profile.

Expertise and Public Engagement

Through roles in the King’s Cultural Institute, Rachel has experience working at the intersection between academia and the cultural and educational sectors and is interested in the benefits brought by public engagement.