Westin Smith

Research and Teaching Interests

Early Modern and Contemporary Spain

Biography

When I began learning Spanish in school at age 15, I realized that Shakespeare and the English-speaking authors I had been taught to revere could not be the only ones worth reading. Even though I was raised in San Clemente, California, whose slogan boasts of being a “Spanish Village by the Sea,” it was only when I lived in Mexico that I became exposed to Spanish-speaking authors. There I cultivated a love for Spanish-speaking cultures and extended my passion for literature beyond the English canon. Writers like Cervantes, Paz, Allende, Borges, García Márquez, García Lorca, Figuera Aymerich, and many others opened a new world of thought and expression for me. I knew that I needed to not only dive into Spanish-language work but also share what I had learned. My adoptive parents did not attend college but did instill the importance of education in me. As a first-generation student, I have cultivated a desire for learning that only an outsider could achieve. My undergraduate career is evidence of me working to both satisfy my appetite for learning and widen my scope of literary study. At Utah State I double-majored in Spanish and in English literary studies. I minored in French because I enjoyed reading Hispanic texts in their original language and I wanted to experience the same with French literature. Now, as I apply to PhD programs in Hispanic studies, my aspiration is to interpret, teach, and spotlight Spanish-speaking cultures.