Faculty Bio

Andrea R. Colvin

Associate Professor in the Department of World Languages & Cultures – Spanish; Department Chair

Education

• B.A., University of Delaware
• M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Irvine

About

Andrea Colvin grew up in northern Germany and moved to the United States after graduating from high school. Once in the U.S. she started studying Spanish and fell in love with the language as well as Hispanic culture and literature. She joined Ohio Wesleyan in 2009 after earning her Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of California, Irvine. She was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor in 2015. That same year she received OWU's Bishop Frances Kearns Award for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship, Service and Leadership Within the Classroom and the Community.

Dr. Colvin teaches Spanish language at all levels and specializes in courses on Latin American literature, culture and film at the advanced level. These include The Child in Contemporary Latin American Literature and Film, Latin America and the Quest for Identity and Remembering the Dirty Wars in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay.

She has traveled with students as part of the OWU Connection on many different occasions, including as director of OWU's study abroad program in Spain (2011-2013), during a Travel-Learning course on Mexican Migration (2014), as part of a Spring Break Service-Learning trip to Nicaragua (2015) and most recently on a Theory-to-Practice grant funded trip with two students to Buenos Aires, Argentina (2019). She has also taken students to present their research at the Ohio Latin Americanist Conference.

Dr. Colvin's research focuses on 20th and 21st century cultural productions from the Southern Cone, particularly on questions related to the representation of political violence and trauma and the creation of a culture of remembrance after the military dictatorships in the 1970s/80s. She has received grants that have allowed her to spend her first sabbatical in Argentina (2016) and her second in Chile (2022). While in Chile, she had the opportunity to spend time in three different Mapuche communities and to learn more about the Mapuche people, Chile's largest indigenous group.

She loves being in the classroom with students and is passionate about continuing to grow as a teacher. She has attended several Teaching & Learning conferences and participated in numerous pedagogical workshops and webinars.

From 2017-2020 she was Chair of the department, and in 2022 (January – December) she served the University as the Interim Associate Dean for Academic Performance and Advising.

In her free time, she enjoys spending time outdoors, traveling (especially to Latin America), watching movies with friends and spending time with her husband and their rescue dog, Coco.

 Areas of Interest/Expertise

• 20th and 21st Century Latin American Narrative (particularly from the Southern Cone)
• Representation of the military dictatorships in literature and film; the construction of a culture of remembrance; the post-dictatorship generation
• The intersection of gender, race, social class and identity in Latin America