Susan Polansky

	Rank:		Head, Modern Languages & Teaching Professor of Hispanic Studies
	Ph.D.		Boston College
	Department Member Since: 1986

Personal Statement
During my time here at Carnegie Mellon, I have taught courses at all levels of the Hispanic Studies program. Most recently and regularly I have taught a variety of topics courses focusing on Peninsular Studies and I have served as faculty liaison for the Department's Tutoring for Community Outreach course. The integration of foreign language learning with service-learning has continued as a growing trend through the 1990's into the Twenty-first century. I have given presentations and published work to share the activities of the tutoring course, a flexible curriculum-based model. This course involving collaboration between an institution of higher learning and local schools allows undergraduate students with diverse languages and competencies and a wide variety of academic and career interests to work with pupils from grades one through twelve.


Two important parts of my professional life that connect with and support my teaching activities are my research in Peninsular Spanish literature and the development of curricular materials. My most recent book is The Poet as Hero: Pedro Salinas and His Theater (Juan de la Cuesta—Hispanic Monographs, 2005. (See http://www.juandelacuesta.com/) It is a study of the achievements of the senior member of the Spanish Generation of 1927 and his turn to writing plays in exile from Spain. Pedro Salinas (1891-1951) wrote fourteen plays during the last fifteen years of his life, and all but one of these plays he composed in exile. His dramatic works continue the themes of his poetry, yet his exile forcefully focuses on him and his own separation from Spain and the widespread social disruption caused by the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Dramatic works permit him to introduce poet protagonists seeking to overcome the social estrangement that Salinas finds all around him.

My most recent article on the Spanish Poetic Generation of 1927 is a study of Así que pasen cinco años, by Federico García Lorca and La familia interrumpida by Luis Cernuda. Both plays deal with the concept of time as a devouring force. In these legends, in order to emphasize the importance of carpe diem, the authors have created characters that assume archetypal roles rooted in the tradition of the commedia dell'arte and also the mythology associated with Cronos and Ocnos. While Lorca shows the anguish and disentegration of the individual who confronts the fugacity of time, Cernuda chooses a lighter tone to portray the breakdown of the family and consequences of attempting to transcend the rigidity of time. This exploration of the actions, characters, symbolism, and themes of the two legends of time shows that Cernuda's play can be viewed as an evolution in farse form of what Lorca had dramatized before him.

I have published two high intermediate level textbooks with coauthor Gene S. Kupferschmid (Houghton Mifflin, 2001): Eso es, with activities for grammar review through independent study and group work, and Exploraciones: Campos y culturas profesionales, designed to offer students a vehicle for learning about a variety of fields and career paths via their study of Spanish. (See http://college.hmco.com).

Recent Work

Courses taught

For More Information
Susan Polansky
Department of Modern Languages
Carnegie Mellon University
Baker Hall 160
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Office: BH 168
Phone: (412) 268-2868
Fax: (412) 268-1328