Ouachita’s Carvajal-Villamar presents paper at Society for Amazonian & Andean Studies meeting
October 28, 2019
- Ashly Stracener 
Ouachita Baptist University’s Dr. Jerusa Carvajal-Villamar, assistant professor of
Spanish, recently presented a paper at the biennial meeting of the Society for Amazonian
& Andean Studies (SAAS). The conference was held Oct. 5-6 in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and
was hosted by the University of Alabama.
The SAAS national conference is dedicated to studying, featuring and promoting research
about the Amazonian and Andean regions of South America. Attendees represent a wide
diversity of disciplines and fields, such as literature, ethnography, cultural studies,
dietetics, contemporary themes, archaeology and more.
With her area of expertise being literature, Carvajal-Villamar said she attended the
conference to seek “to deepen my knowledge of this region.”
“I believe the conference offered me a valuable opportunity to learn from the different
disciplines that study it, to meet other people who are also interested in the regions
and to be exposed to their different contributions from their areas of study,” Carvajal-Villamar
said.
Carvajal-Villamar presented her work, “A Portrait of the Amazons in a Play of American-Theme
in the Spanish Golden Age.” Her essay analyzed Amazonas en las Indias, a 17th century Incan comedy by Tirso de Molina. Carvajal-Villamar focused on the justification
of conquest and the actions of conquerors, regardless of the reality of the original
inhabitants. Her essay also highlighted how Spanish Golden Age literature about America
is interconnected with the diverse fields that study both the Amazonian and Andean
regions.
“I witnessed how the literature written in the 17th century about the Incario could be very relevant and a good tool that can help in
the interpretation and recreation of the data presented by the social sciences,” Carvajal-Villamar
said. “The literary evidence represented in the comedies of the American theme, which
show the ideas that circulated during that time, now help us raise awareness about
the injustices and misrepresentations of the original inhabitants of America.
“I hope that my work, as well as the work of other participants from the different
specialties, will provide a more complex vision of what the Incario was when the Spanish
arrived,” Carvajal-Villamar continued. “Archaeological findings and ethnographic research
tell us something about the Amerindian culture and people. Seventeenth century literature
written by the Spaniards also provides evidence regarding the life of this culture
and how it was perceived.”
“We are so pleased to have a scholar of Dr. Carvajal's caliber on our faculty at Ouachita,”
said Dr. Doug Sonheim, chair of Ouachita’s Department of Language and Literature and
holder of the Clarence and Bennie Sue Anthony Chair of Bible and Humanities. “Her lively
curiosity brings delight to her colleagues in the Department of Language and Literature, to
her colleagues across campus and, of course, to her students, who benefit from her
diligent teaching.”
Dr. Carvajal-Villamar has taught in Ouachita’s Department of Language and Literature
since August of 2017. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from the University
of Massachusetts at Boston and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Spanish literature from Western
Michigan University. She also holds an M.A. in Christian education and a Master of
Divinity degree from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.
In addition to SAAS, Carvajal-Villamar is a member of the Association for Hispanic
Classic Theater and the Modern Language Association.
For more information, contact Dr. Carvajal-Villamar at carvajalj@obu.edu or (870) 245-5287.
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