Dr. Zak Montgomery

Harry and Polly Slife Professorship in Humanities

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More about Dr. Zak Montgomery

Professor of Spanish

B.A., Kalamazoo College
M.A., Ph.D., Indiana University

Dr. Montgomery earned a B.A. in Economics and Business from Kalamazoo College, an M.A. in Hispanic Literature, and a Ph.D. in Portuguese Literature with a comparative emphasis on Spanish and Portuguese literatures from Indiana University. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese, and has studied in or traveled to many Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. He regularly leads a May Term course to Costa Rica for Spanish majors/minors at Wartburg, and has led Spanish immersion courses to Wartburg West in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Montgomery also teaches a service-learning course, SP315 Latinos in the United States, where students work alongside Latinos in the local community, and he currently serves as the Harry & Polly Slife Chair in the Humanities. His research interests include U.S. Latinx identity in educational contexts and Luso-Hispanic comparative literary studies.

May Term

Teaching interests:
Spanish and Portuguese languages
Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian literatures and cultures
Languages for specific purposes
Service-learning pedagogy
Latin-American cinema

SP204 Intermediate Spanish I
SP206 Intermediate Spanish II
SP260 Hispanic Culture (abroad in Costa Rica during May Term)
SP315 Latinos in the United States (service-learning)
SP317 Cinemas of Latin America
SP320 Spanish Language and Composition
SP321 Spanish for the Professions
SP325 Spanish Translation and Interpretation
SP461 Perspectives in Hispanic Culture (capstone)
IS201 Living in a Diverse World: Race, Class and Gender in Brazil

Publications:
Montgomery, Zak K. “A New Iberian Social Critique: Clarín’s Reception of Guilherme de Azevedo’s Revolutionary crónicas.” Hispania 103.4 (2020): 593-602.

Montgomery, Zak K. “Poetic Prophecy of a nueva religión: Antero de Quental’s Reception in Nineteenth-Century Spain.” Luso-Brazilian Review 55.1 (2018): 27-50.

Montgomery, Sarah E., Zak K. Montgomery, Sarah Vander Zanden, Ashley Jorgensen, and Mirsa Rudic. “Cultivating the Collective: Exploring the American Dream with Sixth Graders.” Social Studies Research & Practice 13.1 (2018): 31-45.

Montgomery, Zak K., Sarah E. Montgomery, Elizabeth Silbernagel, Anne Epley Birtwistle, and Yvonne Ayesiga. “‘You’re not Latino, You’re American’: Heritage Learners of Spanish Navigate Issues of Cultural Identity in Higher Education.” College Student Affairs Journal 36.1 (2018): 17-31.

Montgomery, Zak K., and Serena B. O’Neil. “Writing our own América: Latino/a Middle School Students Imagine their American Dreams through Photovoice.” Reflections: Public Rhetoric, Civic Writing, and Service Learning 17.1 (2017): 36-68.

Montgomery, Zak K. “Cartas Apologéticas that Cracked the Espelho Crítico: Gertrudes Margarida de Jesus and Enlightenment Proto-Feminism in Portugal.” Romance Notes 56.2 (2016): 175-186.

Montgomery, Zak K., Serena Ugoretz, Sarah Montgomery, Sarah Vander Zanden, Ashley Jorgensen, and Mirsa Rudic. “Reconsidering the American Dream and U.S. Latino Culture in a College Spanish Service-Learning Course.” Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education 6.1 (2014): 3-16.

Montgomery, Zak K. “O fantástico como ferramenta do discurso anticolonialista em A Jangada de Pedra de José Saramago e O Desejo de Kianda de Pepetela” [The fantastic as a tool of anti-colonialist discourse in Saramago’s Stone Raft and Pepetela’s Kianda’s Desire]. Identidade! 18.1 (2013): 103-111.

Montgomery, Zak K. “The Reception of the Portuguese Generation of 1870 in Spanish Literary Criticism.” In Studies in Honor of Heitor Martins. Ed. Darlene J. Sadlier. Luso-Brazilian Literary Studies Volume 3. Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Indiana University-Bloomington, 2006.