Cristina Guardiola-Griffiths

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