Elizabeth Drumm

Elizabeth Drumm is the John B. and Elizabeth M. Yeon Professor of Spanish and Humanities at Reed College, where she has been teaching since 1995. She specializes in 20th- and 21st-century Peninsular literature, with a focus on Spanish modernism, cultural exchange between Spain and North Africa, and the aesthetics of memory.

Dr. Drumm earned her BA with honors in the Program of Liberal Studies from the University of Notre Dame (1983), followed by an MA in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago (1985), and a PhD in Comparative Studies in Literature from the University of Chicago (1993). Her dissertation examined 'The Comedias bárbaras of Valle-Inclán: Shifting Boundaries in Early Twentieth-Century Drama.' She also studied at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in 1988.

Her research centers on memory and representation in Spanish modernism, particularly Ramón del Valle-Inclán's 'aesthetics of memory.' She is the author of Painting on Stage: Visual Art in Twentieth-Century Spanish Theater, which explores the relationship between theatrical language and visual images, and has published extensively on Valle-Inclán, Antonio Buero Vallejo, Ignacio Amestoy, and Fernando Arrabal. Her recent work includes a partial translation of Valle-Inclán's WWI chronicle, Midnight. Astral Vision of a Moment at War, published in PMLA (2021), and a forthcoming full translation and critical edition with the Modern Humanities Research Association.

Professor Drumm teaches a diverse range of courses including Spanish language, Peninsular literature ('Art after Franco,' 'Spanish Migrations'), and a specialized course on Don Quixote and narrative theory. Her courses often examine intersections between literature, visual arts, and cultural history, with particular attention to issues of memory, representation, and Spain's complex relationship with North Africa. She also teaches Reed's interdisciplinary Introduction to the Humanities.

Her scholarly work demonstrates consistent engagement with Spanish modernism's connections to broader European artistic movements, including surrealism, cubism, and symbolist aesthetics. She has made significant contributions to understanding how Valle-Inclán synthesized occult traditions like gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Spanish mysticism, kabbalah, the Hermetic tradition, and alchemy into a coherent aesthetic system that engages with early 20th-century philosophical problems.