(Posted March 5, 2002)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Henry Thurston-Griswold, professor of Spanish at Juniata College, will speak on the rise and fall in the popularity of 18th and 19th century Spanish fiction in the talk "One of 19th-Century Europe's Best Kept Secrets: The Renaissance of the Spanish Novel" as part of the Bookend Seminar lecture series at 4:30 p.m., March 14 in 202 Good Hall on the Juniata campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public. The Bookend Seminar series features afternoon lectures each month by Juniata College faculty.

Thurston-Griswold will talk about how the Spanish novel nearly disappeared in the 18th and early 19th century, until various factors and an aesthetic evolution within Spain's literary circles resulted in a rebirth of the Spanish novel in the latter part of the 19th century. Thurston-Griswold also will talk about why the renaissance of Spanish fiction was generally ignored by the rest of Western Europe at the time.

He earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish from the State University of New York at Cortland in 1981. He earned a master's degree in 1983 and a doctorate in 1989 in Spanish, both from the University of Texas at Austin.

Professor Thurston-Griswold has been an instructor and lecturer in Spanish at several U.S. universities and an English as a Foreign Language instructor and guidance counselor in Costa Rica.

His areas of expertise include Spanish and Spanish-American literature, Spanish civilization and culture, and teaching Spanish. He has participated in and led service learning trips to Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, and Honduras.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.