Nick Phillips
Associate Dean of Curriculum and Academic Programs
Nick Phillips received his PhD from Indiana University in 2014. His dissertation, titled “Space and the City: Peripheral Communities of Madrid and Barcelona”, focused on the production and representation of suburban spaces in contemporary Spanish detective fiction. His research and scholarly interests include contemporary Spanish and Latin American detective fiction, Spanish cinema, television and popular music, urban studies, studies of space and everyday life, Spanish ecocriticism, and Catalan language, literature, and film.
SCHOLARSHIP
Crisis Unleashed: Crime, Turmoil, and Protest in Hispanic Literature and Visual Culture. Edited by Diana Aramburu and Nick Phillips. Hispanic Issues, Vol. 29, 2022. Available online.
“The Thrill of the Crime in a Decade of Crisis: Carlos Montero’s El desorden que dejas”. Crisis Unleashed: Crime, Turmoil, and Protest in Hispanic Literature and Visual Culture. Edited by Diana Aramburu and Nick Phillips. Hispanic Issues, Vol. 29, 2002. Available online.
“Digital Cities, Digital Crimes: Mapping Spanish Detective Fiction”. Hispania vol. 104, no. 4, December 2021. Available online.
“When the Bubble Bursts: A Spatial Interrogation of Spanish Crisis in José Ángel Mañas’ Sospecha.” Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2019. Available online.
“Stuck in La Prosperidad: Madrid’s Metamorphosis from Dictatorship to Democracy in La soledad era esto.” Hispanófila. Vol. 182, 2018. Available online.
“Localizing Humor and Crime in Julio Muñoz Gijón’s El asesino de la regañá.” Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2018. Available online.
“Spanish Cinema and Ecocritical Labor Migrations: Immigrants as Human Waste in Las cartas de Alou and Biutiful.” Letras Hispanas, Vol. 13, 2017. Available online.
WEB PUBLICATIONS
“Digital Cartographies of Spanish Detective Fiction.” Digital Bridges for Humanistic Inquiry. December 2016. Ongoing web project, available here.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Nick is currently working on a book project on contemporary Spanish detective fiction, especially from Andalucía, and its depiction and resistance to political and economic crisis following the 2008 recession.
COURSES TAUGHT
SPN 385: Studies in Contemporary Spanish Literature and Film
Este seminario se enfoca en el género detectivesco y la novela negra de España producido desde el fin de la dictadura de Franco hasta hoy día. Los textos incluidos son o pueden ser representantes del género popular detectivesco, tanto en la literatura como en el cine y la televisión. Además, investigaremos otras fuentes culturales producidas durante la democracia, como la arquitectura, la novela gráfica y la música popular, para interrogar los cambios inherentes en la transformación económica y cultural de España desde los años 70 hasta el siglo XXI. Adicionalmente, emplearemos la crítica literaria sobre los textos y sobre el género detectivesco para ampliar nuestro análisis.
SPN 320: Cultures of the Spanish Speaking World: Historical Memory and Cultural Production in 20th and 21st Century Spain
El objetivo de este curso es examinar la influencia de los productos culturales contemporáneos como los programas de televisión, el cine, la música y otros textos visuales y su relación con y manipulación de la memoria histórica española del siglo XX. Usaremos estos textos para criticar las representaciones históricas en comparación con los eventos reales, como por ejemplo la Segunda República, la Guerra Civil, la dictadura de Franco, y la transición a la democracia. Examinaremos también cómo las memorias pueden ser creadas, manipuladas, y destruidas a través de la producción y el consumo de estos géneros visuales.
SPN 314: Studies in Modern Spanish Literature
El objetivo de este curso es ofrecer al/a la estudiante un panorama sobre la literatura española de los últimos dos siglos, a través del enfoque temático del desarrollo del tema del espacio, desde lo rural hasta lo urbano contemporáneo. Así el/la estudiante entenderá mejor varios movimientos literarios diferentes, pertenecientes a los siglos XIX, XX, y XXI de la historia de España, además de mejorar sus habilidades en la comprensión oral y escrita del español, la producción escrita, y el proceso de análisis textual. Esta clase se centrará en tres géneros literarios principales: la narrativa (tanto novela como cuento corto), la poesía, y el teatro. A través de los textos estudiados y el acercamiento a varios espacios específicos, podemos analizar más a fondo los contextos históricos y políticos presentes en España durante los últimos 200 años.
SPN 343: The Art of Language
SPN 295: Keeping up with your Spanish II (online conversation class taught during the COVID-19 pandemic)
SPN 285: Introduction to Textual Analysis
SPN 217: Intermediate Spanish
SPN 106: Beginning Spanish II
SPN 105: Beginning Spanish I
TUT 100: American Detective Fictions
In the tutorial every entering student explores a topic of interest to the student and the instructor in a small group, discussion-intensive setting. The objectives of the tutorial are to illuminate methods of inquiry rather than to cover topics comprehensively, focusing particularly on writing, critical reading, oral communication, and information literacy skills.
This class posits that the global popularity of detective dramas, murder mysteries, and shady sleuths can be traced to a uniquely American configuration of the genre. This semester, our investigation will take us down the dark alleys of detective fiction, allowing us to discover the evolution of the detective protagonist, the types of crimes uncovered, and the genre’s role in critiquing American society. We will begin with the Hardboiled subgenre of the 1930s and continue through the rise of the Police Procedural in the 1960s, ending with television’s impact on the genre in contemporary society. We will read two detective novels, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep and John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night, and we will view several Hollywood adaptations of the genre, including The Maltese Falcon, Chinatown, Harper, and Fargo. Finally, we will watch the first season of HBO’s hit series True Detective. We will also read several texts on the rules of the genre and its critical and popular appeal, both within America and beyond.