Ruth El Saffar

Ruth Anthony Snodgrass El Saffar She attended Colorado College, where she obtained her BA in philosophy in 1962, and Johns Hopkins University, where she obtained her PhD in 1966, Her dissertation Distance and control in Don Quixote: a study of narrative technique was supervised by Elias Rivers.

After working at the University of Baghdad as an English instructor in 1967, she spent that year at University of Maryland, Baltimore as an assistant professor of Spanish, before moving to University of Illinois Chicago the next year. She also served as an executive council member for the Modern Language Association from 1974 to 1978, In 1987, she obtained her honorary degree from Colorado College. She also worked as a practicing Jungian analyst outside academia. Critical Essays on Cervantes (1986) Quixotic Desire (1993; co-edited with Diana de Armas Wilson) Rapture Encaged (1994)