Parissa Tadrissi

Dr. Tadrissi is a Spanish Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Sonoma State University, having come from the College of Charleston in 2010. She earned a Master's Degree in Spanish (2002) and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from UC Santa Barbara (2006). Since 2019 she has served as the Director of the Master's program in Spanish. 

Professor Tadrissi teaches a wide variety of upper division courses for the major and minor in Spanish and also has contributed to the SYRCE (Second Year Creative and Research Experience) program. She teaches Hispanic literature courses for the Master’s Program in Spanish and in recent years she has focused on developing zero-cost materials and online courses for the major in Spanish. She spearheaded the development of the online option for the Spanish major--a project that, in 2019, aimed first and foremost to serve our local, place-bound and need-based students with low-cost curricular offerings in order to facilitate graduating in a timely manner. These course redesigns provided students in the Spanish program, often first-generation college students, juggling demanding work schedules and family commitments, the ability to have the same access and similar outcomes as other students at SSU. To this end, the Spanish program was granted the Online Proven Course Redesign Grant and has since developed the online option for the major in Spanish.

Dr. Tadrissi’s areas of research include contemporary Spanish literature and culture, gender studies and the use of technologies of information and communication in Spanish cultural studies—particularly literary and youth cultural movements. These research interests often translate into teaching students about analyzing literature, histories and cultures in the context of global realities and technologies of communication.

Dr. Tadrissi’s research on information and communication technology in Spanish literary and cultural studies currently focuses on the taxonomy of virtual literature and how it relates to readers, their agency and the manipulation of "text". Her record of scholarly contributions includes a variety of articles in peer-reviewed journals and anthologies, most recently:  "Rethinking STEM through Digital Spanish Literature: Women, Rupture, and Community in the Works of Remedios Zafra and Belén Gache,” in A Laboratory of Her Own: Women and Science in Spanish Culture published by Vanderbilt University Press. In addition to academic publications, Dr. Tadrissi has presented at dozens of scholarly conferences throughout the U.S. and around the world, most recently she discussed “Finding New Frontiers: The Creative and the Aesthetic in Digital Latin American Literature,” at the Southwest Council on Latin American Studies Conference (SCOLAS), San Miguel de Allende, MX. She has participated on scholarly panels, delivered workshops and guest lectures, and served as representative to the CSU World Languages Council as an academic consultant to Foster Care Studies regarding Hispanic youth in the United States.