Hello, and thanks for visiting this site! I am the Ernest Williams II Professor of Spanish at Washington and Lee University, where I also teach courses in the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. My research focuses on workplace fairness, Title IX, gender-based violence, and historical memory. I’m also a creative writer (poetry and nonfiction essays) and literary translator (Spanish-English).
Here’s the official bio:
Ellen Mayock is the Ernest Williams II Professor of Spanish at Washington and Lee University, where she teaches courses in Spanish, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Mayock is the founder and, until 2023, was the director of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), a large student volunteer organization working primarily in the Latina/x community of Rockbridge County, Virginia, and of Pluma, a Spanish-language creative-writing magazine based at Washington and Lee. The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia honored Mayock with an Outstanding Faculty Award in 2010. In 2019, Georgetown University Press published Mayock’s co-authored (with Professor Mary Ann Dellinger and Professor Beatriz Trigo) textbook, Indagaciones. Introducción a los Estudios Culturales hispanos.
Author of The ‘Strange Girl’ in Twentieth-Century Spanish Novels Written by Women (2004) and Gender Shrapnel in the Academic Workplace (2016), Mayock focuses her research on workplace fairness, Title IX, gender-based violence, and historical memory. She is co-editor of three volumes of essays: Feminist Activism in Academia (2010 with Professor Domnica Radulescu); Toward a Multicultural Configuration of Spain: Local Cities, Global Spaces (2014; with Professor Ana Corbalán); and Forging a Rewarding Career in the Humanities: Advice for Academics (2014, with Professor Karla Zepeda).
Mayock tries her hand at writing poetry and creative nonfiction in both English and Spanish. Her work has appeared in such venues as Ámbitos Feministas, Letras Femeninas, Rise Up Review, Raising Lilly Leadbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workplace, Fronteras de lo imposible, Public Books, CTXT, and El Salto. Her essay, “Amistad íntima, amistad cívica” appeared in Professor Palmar Álvarez-Blanco’s Pequeño tratado de amistad (La Vorágine, 2023). She is currently working on a memoir titled Small Town Feminist, on a translation project of the works of Spanish great Carmen Laforet, and on a co-edited volume (with Professor Debra Ochoa) on the lesser-studied genres of Spanish writer Carmen Martín Gaite.
Ellen Mayock 