Diana Barnes
SENIOR TEACHING PROFESSOR OF SPANISH
Most of my growing-up years were spent in a logging and fishing village on an island
in Southeast Alaska. Until, at 15, the serenity of a rain-washed life in the Tongass
National Forest was interrupted by an unexpected re-rooting in Mexico, where my grandfather
had lived and died. I found myself with a new lens in the small port city of Guaymas,
Sonora, in a boarding school where no one spoke "my" language. The abrupt life change
revealed a world that was new to me in every way, and for survival required that I
submit to the hyper-experience of adapt or sink. I had a community of generous and kind schoolgirls my age, and their parents, who
took me in on weekends to teach me Spanish and introduced me to their lives, towns,
customs and traditions. With their guidance, my transition was fearless, and swift.
This experience grounds my teaching philosophy, which is foremost to demystify preconceptions, fears, anxieties, misconceived notions, or any other obstructions, that may get in the way of getting to the business of the work at hand, the learning work.
I came to the classroom serendipitously after an early career as a broadcast and print journalist in Alaska and Washington State. For "fun", after a decade of reporting, I took a few graduate-level Spanish literature courses at Washington State University. I was living in the Palouse, otherwise known as the lentil-growing capital of the world, writing as a regular correspondent for the Spokesman Review. The literature courses were so enthralling, and the depth of focus so indulgent, I couldn't stop. And didn't stop.
I teach Spanish literature and language, as well as a range of courses on US/Mexico borderland identity through literature and politics. I have been at Skidmore more than 20 years.