BETHESDA, MD, September 05, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to name Barbara Louise Mujica, PhD, a Lifetime Achiever. An accomplished listee, Dr. Mujica celebrates many years' experience in her professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes she has accrued in her field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
As an accomplished educator and a noted novelist, Dr. Mujica draws inspiration from the Spanish language and culture. In addition, Dr. Mujica is a veterans advocate who was instrumental in creating a Veterans Office at Georgetown University. In 2010, she helped establish the Georgetown University Student Veterans Association and served as its faculty advisor until her retirement, in July 2017. She was also co-chair of the Veterans Support Team. Dr. Mujica was motivated by her son, who completed two tours of duty in Iraq. Dr. Mujica is proud to leave behind a program at the university to support veterans.
Born to Louis and Carol Kaminar, Dr. Mujica studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she briefly taught French, and went on to the Middlebury Graduate Program in France for a Master's degree. After moving to New York, she married Mauro E. Mujica-Parodi in 1966. Dr. Mujica joined the publishing firm of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich as an associate editor of modern languages and received her PhD from New York University in 1974.
Dr. Mujica briefly taught at the City University of New York in 1973. She was welcomed by Georgetown University in Washington as a professor of Spanish in 1974.
Through the '60s and '70s, Dr. Mujica contributed to numerous Spanish educational texts and academic journals. She wrote a series of textbooks, including ALM Spanish, Levels I-IV (with Guillermo Segreda), Pasaporte (with Richard Woehr and Fausto Vergara), Entrevista, and El Proximo Paso. She also edited several anthologies of Spanish and Latin American Literature, among them Antologia de la literatura Espanola (Vol. 1: Edad media; Vol. 2: Renacimiento y siglo de oro; Vol. 3: Siglos XVIII-XIX), Texto y vida (Vol. 1: Espana; Vol 2: Latinoamerica), and Milenio.
In the '80s, she began to publish prolifically in the field of Spanish literature and penned numerous books and articles. Her first scholarly book was Calderón's Characters: An Existential Point of View, followed by Iberian Pastoral Characters, Et in Arcadia Ego (with Bruno Damiani), Women Writers of Early Modern Spain, Teresa de Avila, Lettered Woman, and several edited collections of essays on Spanish theater. Her most recent books are Shakespeare and the Spanish Comedia (2013) and A New Anthology of Early Modern Spanish Theater: Play and Playtext. She is currently completing a book on the disciples of Teresa de Avila.
Dr. Mujica has also had an active journalistic career. Her articles have appeared in many newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Dallas Morning Star, Americas, Commonweal, and the Huffington Post. In 1990, the New York Times named her essay "Bilingualism's Goal" one of the Best 50 Op-Eds of the Decade, and she has continued to pen pieces for hundreds of publications.
Dr. Mujica has been especially active in the area of Spanish theater. She is a former president of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater, a long-time member of the AHCT board, and founder and editor-in-chief of Comedia Performance, the AHCT journal. As director of El Retablo Theater Group at Georgetown University, she has directed scores of plays by Spanish and Latin American authors. Dr. Mujica is also a member of the Board of GALA, the Washington DC Spanish-language theater. In 2017, AHCT honored her with the Donald T. Dietz Distinguished Service Award.
In 1990, Dr. Mujica released The Deaths of Don Bernardo, the first of numerous novels and short story collections. Her novel, Frida (2001), based on the life and times of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was an international bestseller and appeared in eighteen languages. Sister Teresa (2007), inspired by the life of Teresa de Avila, was adapted for the stage at The Actor's Studio in Hollywood, and the play premiered in 2013. I Am Venus (2013), inspired by the Spanish painter Diego Velazquez, was a Maryland Writers' Association fiction winner and established her as a prolific author. She has published two collections of short fiction, Sanchez across the Street and Far from My Mother's Home. Dr. Mujica has been celebrated for her reimagining of beloved historical figures, and numerous testimonials attest to her rich, gritty style. Mujica's short stories have been featured in magazines such as 0-Dark-Thirty, The Literary Review, and Reed Magazine.
Dr. Mujica has received much recognition for her work. She was named a Penfield Fellow in 1971 and in 1976 won the Florence Howe Essay Award. She has received grants from the government of Spain, Washington Women in the Arts, and Georgetown University. Dr Mujica was presented with a grant from Poets and Writers of New York in 1987 and received recognition for her fiction by becoming the winner of the 1992 E. L. Doctorow International Fiction Competition, the first of many prizes to come. She is the recipient of the 2004 Trailblazers Award from Dialogue on Diversity, the 2002 Theodore Hoepner Award for Fiction, the 1999 Pangolin Prize for Best Short Story, and a two-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize for Fiction. Dr. Mujica has received five awards from the Maryland Writers Association, two for historical novels: I Am Venus (2012) and Lola in Paradise (2016), and three for short stories: Jason's Cap (2015, first prize); Ox (2016, second prize); Imagining Iraq (2012, third prize).
In 2015, Georgetown University awarded Dr. Mujica a Presidential Medal. In 2016, she received the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics Distinguished Service Medal, and in 2017, the Dean's Medal for Excellence in Teaching. In addition, the Academic Council named her one of Georgetown's most influential professors six years in a row.
For her achievements in literature and an incredible body of published work, Dr. Mujica was welcomed for inclusion in numerous volumes of Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Education, Who's Who in the East, Who's Who in the World, and Who's Who of American Women. She has three children, Lillian Louise, Mariana Ximena, and Mauro Eduardo Ignacio. To explore Dr. Mujica's historical fiction and her roles as author, academic, and advocate, please visit http://www.barbaramujica.com.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to her profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Dr. Mujica has been featured on the Marquis Who's Who Lifetime Achievers website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
About Marquis Who's Who :
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America , Marquis Who's Who has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who's Who website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.
# # #