Komla Aggor, Ph.D.
Program Affiliations
Education
Ph.D., Hispanic Languages and Literatures. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
MA, Spanish. University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
BA (Hon), Spanish and Sociology. University of Ghana, Legon, Accra
Diploma de Cultura Española. Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Courses Taught
LITERATURE
Introduction to Literary Analysis
Spoken Spanish through Theater
Survey of Spanish Literature from 1700 to the 21st Century
Romanticism in Spain
Texts and Contexts of Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism
Visions of Contemporary Spain through Drama
Twentieth-Century Spanish Narrative
Twentieth-Century Spanish Poetry
Race, Identity, and Politics in Afro-Hispanic Literature
LANGUAGE
Spanish for Beginners
Intermediate Spanish
Advanced Spanish Grammar
Conversation / Oral Communication in Spanish
Composition / Writing in Spanish
SEMINARS AND FILM
Spanish Senior Seminar: Race and Identity
Africa through Film
First-Year Honors Seminar (interdisciplinary):
“Community versus the Individual”
“Equality: Equal To Whom or To What?”
FACULTY-LED STUDY ABROAD
Summer Study Abroad in Spain (Alcalá de Henares, 2019)
Summer Study Abroad in Ghana (2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014)
Areas of Focus
20th-21st Century Spanish poetry and drama
Postmodernist drama
The theater of Francisco Nieva
Afro-Hispanic literature
Gender Studies
- Books
- Aggor, Komla, ed. Francisco Nieva: Coronada y el toro. Critical Texts Series 64. Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2020. (Revised edition, 2021)
- Agawu-Kakraba, Yaw and Komla Aggor, eds. African, Lusophone, and Afro-Hispanic Cultural Dialogue. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018
- Agawu-Kakraba, Yaw and Komla Aggor, eds. Diasporic Identities within Afro-Hispanic and African Contexts. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015
- Aggor, Komla. Francisco Nieva y el teatro posmodernista. Trans. Maria Roura-Mir. Colección Arte, Serie Teoría Teatral 177. Madrid: Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático; Editorial Fundamentos, 2009
- Aggor, Komla. Francisco Nieva and Postmodernist Theatre. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006
- Aggor, F. Komla. Eros en la poesía de Miguel Hernández. York, SC: Spanish Literature Publications, 1994
- Articles & Essays
- “Francisco Nieva en la encrucijada histórica del teatro europeo: homenaje a una leyenda.” Estreno 43.1 (2017): 125-29
- “Miguel Hernández’s Aesthetics of the Double.” Studia Iberica et Americana 2 (2015): 273-303
- “Más allá de lo anecdótico: la poética posmodernista de Ciríaco Bokesa.” La recuperación de la memoria: creación cultural e identidad nacional en la literatura hispano-negroafricana. Ed. M’bare N’gom. Madrid: Universidad de Alcalá, 2004. 21-36
- “Francisco Nieva, Postmodern Playwright.” Hispanic Review 68.4 (2000): 429-52
- “Racial Prejudice, Racial Shame: Reading Francisco Arriví’s Máscara puertorriqueña.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (U of Liverpool) 74.4 (1997): 501-12
- “Derealizing the Present: Evasion and Madness in El tragaluz.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 18.2 (1994): 141-50
- “El motivo del pecado en los poemas sueltos (1933-34) de Miguel Hernández.” Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 501 (1992), Madrid: 21-31
- “La historia de la revista Estreno: Cuadernos del teatro español contemporáneo” (Panel). New Harmony International Conference on Spanish Theater: Stages of Utopia, Dystopia, and Myopia. New Harmony, Indiana (Sponsor: University of Southern Indiana), October 10-12, 2018
- “Francisco Nieva’s Postmodernist Theatre and the Literary Text.” IV Congreso Internacional Estreno: El lenguaje/los lenguajes en el teatro español contemporáneo,” Austin College, Sherman, March 31 – April 1, 2016
- “Latinoamérica: la dinámica de ‘raza’ e identidad.” 9º Foro Latinoamericano ‘Memoria e Identidad,’ Piriápolis, Uruguay, October 30 – November 2, 2015
- “Francisco Nieva in Paris,” Euro-American Conference for Academic Disciplines, FIAP Jean Monnet, Paris, France, April 8-11, 2013
- “Ciríaco Bokesa y la poética de la globalización.” XI Congreso Internacional de la Asociación Española de Semiótica, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, November 3-5, 2004
- “Hombres de maíz and the Dynamics of Myth and Nature.” Presented at XI Congreso de la Federación Internacional de Estudios sobre América Latina y el Caribe, Osaka, Japan, September 24-27, 2003
- “Erotismo y colonialismo en Vejigantes.” Presented at VIII Congreso de la SOLAR: “El Caribe, antesala del nuevo mundo,” St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago, October 7-12, 2002
- “Beyond the Anecdotal: Ciríaco Bokesa’s Postmodernist Poetics.” Presented at the 84th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 29 – August 2, 2002
- “La dinámica de la identidad y la política raciales en el drama de Francisco Arriví.” Presented at the X Congress of the International Federation of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Moscow, Russia, June 25-29, 2001
- “‘Un barroquismo de Dios’: la poesía religiosa de Miguel Hernández.” Presented at the I Congreso Internacional “Miguel Hernández,” Alicante, Spain, March 25-28, 1992
- Co-founder, Secretary/Treasurer, Ghanaian Association of Hispanists (GAH)
- Asociación Internacional de Teatro 21 (TSXXI)
- American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)
- Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas (AIH)
- Asociación de Amigos de Miguel Hernández (AAMH)
- Department Chair, Spanish and Hispanic Studies, TCU, 2008-2017
- Department Chair, Classical and Modern Languages and Cultures, John Carroll University, 2005-2008
- Associate editor, Estreno
- Co-founder and director, International Conference on Afro-Hispanic, Luso-Brazilian, and Latin American Studies (ICALLAS), University of Ghana, Accra. http://www.icallas.tcu.edu
- Director, Summer study abroad program, Ghana
- Director, Summer study abroad program, Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Last Updated: March 12, 2025