Amy Williamsen (1959-2019) was a beloved teacher, scholar, colleague and mentor to those fortunate enough to have known and worked with her during her magnificent career at Occidental College (1985-1989), the University of Arizona (1989-2011), and the University of North Carolina Greensboro (2011-2019). Her impressive publication record includes the monograph Co(s)mic Chaos: Exploring Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (Juan de la Cuesta, 1994), five co-edited volumes (The University Press of the South published one of them, Engendering the Early Modern Stage) and dozens of articles. Her exemplary record of teaching and service is more difficult to quantify, but her leadership and mentorship left an indelible mark on every institution and organization for which she worked, and on every student and scholar she taught and led.

          During her career, Amy’s advocacy for underrepresented voices and her commitment to the causes of equality, diversity and inclusion constituted a unifying thread that linked her diverse intellectual, professional and social interests. From examining the social and cultural margins of Early Modern Spain in her scholarship to working with organizations to promote social justice in her community, Amy worked tirelessly to lift up the voices of all, and to show that by doing so we can better understand and appreciate our shared humanity.

          The essays collected in these volumes reflect both the substance and impact of her professional legacy. Essays are linked by their thematic resonance with Amy’s own eclectic scholarship: Living the Comedia reflects her passion for Spanish Golden Age literature as a series of complex, lived cultural experiences, while Peculiar Lives in Early Modern Spain celebrates her fascination with how studying social margins can enhance our understanding of society as a whole. By presenting the scholarship of prominent established and emerging voices in the field of Early Modern Spanish studies, both volumes demonstrate the deep appreciation of a community of scholars that continue to draw inspiration from her.  

CO-EDITORS OF VOLUME 1

JUDITH G. CABALLERO is Associate Professor of Spanish at Millsaps College in Jackson, Misissippi. She received her Ph.D. in 2011 from the University of Arizona. Her research focuses around the mother figure in Early Modern Spain, cognitive literature, sartorial relevance, and marginalized voices. Her last article, “Wearing Gender on One’s Sleeve: Cross-Dressing in Ángela de Azevedo’s El muerto disimulado,” was published in Cognitive Approaches to Early Modern Spanish Literature by Oxford University Press. She is a founding member of the trilingual graduate journal Divergencias: Revista de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios and served as the General Coordinator for one year. She is currently working on a monograph about the presence of the mother figure in the Comedia and an article on the necessity of charity in El Guzmán de Alfarache.

ROBERT E. BAYLISS is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Kansas. He received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame (1994), his M.A. in Comparative Literature from The University of Georgia (1997), and his Ph.D. in both Hispanic Literature and Comparative Literature from Indiana University (2003). He has published articles in several journals including Hispanic Review, Comparative Drama, Hispania, Bulletin of the Comediantes and Comparative Literature Studies. His first book, The Discourse of Courtly Love in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Theater, was published in 2008 by Bucknell University Press. His forthcoming book examines the ways in which the "classics" of Spain's Golden Age are adapted, appropriated and consumed in contemporary Spain. His current research focuses on contemporary uses of Golden Age Spanish narratives and cultural artifacts in postcolonial Latin America.

CO-EDITORS OF VOLUME 2

ESTHER FERNÁNDEZ is Assistant Professor at Rice University. She received her Ph.D. in 2005 from the University of California at Davis. Author of Eros en escena: Erotismo en el teatro del Siglo de Oro (Juan de la Cuesta, 2009), editor of Don Gil de las calzas verdes (Cervantes&Co., 2013), co-editor of El perro del hortelano (Cervantes&Co., 2011), in addition to co-ordinating and editing the multi-author collaboration Diálogos en las tablas: Últimas tendencias de la puesta en escena del teatro clásico español (Ediciones Reichenberger, 2014). Her journal articles have principally attended to eroticism and the Spanish Comedia; visual and material culture; and performance analysis of classical theater’s most contemporary adaptations. Her current work includes the co-edition of The Image Of Elizabeth I In Early Modern Spain (University of Nebraska Press, 2019) and the coordination of a Festschrift in honor of Adrienne L. Martín, Sex and Gender in Cervantes (Ediciones Reichenberger, 2019).

J. YURI PORRAS is Professor of Spanish at Texas State University. He received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University and holds a B.A. in Music/Voice Performance from Sonoma State University – California State System. His field of specialization is Early Modern Iberian Literatures and Cultures and his publications center on music-text interrelations, semiotics, performance, as well as social and political history in drama from the Renaissance (La Celestina, Juan del Encina, Lucas Fernández, Gil Vicente) to nineteenth-century Zarzuela. His publications focus on the function of music and musical references in, among others, Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Tirso de Molina, Agustín Moreto, as well as on the 18^th century Tonadilla escénica  (Antonio Rosales, Pablo Esteve, Fernando Ferandiere, Manuel García) and Zarzuela (El barberillo de Lavapiés and La Tempranica).