Dr. Reyes Coll-Tellechea

Professor of Latin American & Iberian Studies

University of Massachusetts Boston

Wednesday April 10th – 4pm – B.B. Comer 260

Captured in the Tower: Reflections on Fiction, Politics, and Reality.

April 10th at 3:00 PM

118 Graves Hall

Prof. Esla Drucaroff (University of Buenos Aires – Argentina) specialized in the teaching of Latin, and Contemporary Literature in Spanish, particularly working on gender and class. Some of the seminars she has taught at the University of Buenos Aires (School of Philosophy and Literature) have been Political History of the Coup D’Etat in Argentina: Grammar of the Militar Crisis, Order of Classes/Order of Gender. A Theoretical Proposal for the Ideological and Textual Analysis of Discourses, Women that Write about Themselves. Literature and Subjectivity in Argentine Narrative, Order of Class and Order of Gender in Argentine Science Fiction Narrative, among others. Prof. Drucaroff has been invited professor of the “Marta Traba Professorship” at the National University of Colombia. Her articles have been published in academic journals as well as in some of the most renowned literary and cultural journals, and newspapers of Latin America, Spain, Italy and Poland.

Her research books include essays on literary theory and critic: Mikhail Bajtin. The War of Cultures (1996), Roberto Arlt, prophet of fear (1998), Critical History of Argentine Literature – Collection directed by Noé Jitrik (2000), and the recent Captured in the Tower. Politics, Narration, and Youth in the Dictatorship Aftermath (2011). Drucaroff has also published fiction as short stories in collections in Guatemala and Argentinean journals, and the novels The Country of Women. A Story of Spies in the Salta of Güemes (1999) [La patria de las mujeres. Una historia de espías en la Salta de Güemes], Against Güemes. A Novel of Bandits, Patriots, and Traitors (2002) [Conspiración contra Güemes. Una novela de bandidos, patriotas traidores], Promised Hell. A Prostitute in the Times of the Zwi Migdal (2006) [El infierno prometido. Una prostituta en tiempos de la Zwi Migdal.], translated in 2011 to Polish, and with a forthcoming translation to Croatian, and The Last Case for Rodolfo Walsh (2010) [El último caso de Rodolfo Walsh.]. The script based on this novel has been recently awarded with the first place in the “Fictional Series for International Co-Production” [Series de ficción en coproducción internacional] from the National Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA).

Prof. Drucaroff has given invited lectures at the National University of La Plata (Argentina), Cultural Association of Spain in Montevideo (Uruguay), California State University – Los Angeles, Arizona State University, Stanford University, University of Poznan (Poland), Lodz Center for the Arts (Poland), Center for Jewish Culture Kazimierz-Krakow (Poland), Czulent, and the Jewish Assotiation in Krakow (Polonia).

Sponsored by:

Department of Modern Languages and Classics

Spanish Section

Capstone International Center

Department of English

History Department

- Dr. William Worden presented at the Desayuno Literario, within the AATSP Chapter Meeting

- Dr. Ignacio F. Rodeño organized, chaired and presented the following session: “The Spanish Convention as State-Wide Collaboration and Empowerment.”

- Dr. Ignacio F. Rodeño chaired the session entitled “La diáspora hispana hacia/desde los Estados Unidos en la literatura y en el aula,” and presented “Latinos forging their transcultural identity: some poetic voices.”

- Dr. Karina Vázquez : “From the Deep South to the Vast South: Exploring Student’s Creativity in the Spanish Writing Classroom through the Narrative of Anna-Kazumi Stahl.”

- Dani Peterson, MA: “Transnational Identities in The Guardians by Ana Castillo”

- Forrest Blackbourn, MA: “Did the Caribbean Intelligence Agency (CIA) Kill Kennedy and Trujillo?”

- Betsy Brooks, Brianne Kobeck and Ana Capanegra presented in a panel entitled “Incorporating Meaningful Reading in the Spanish Classroom”.

Also…

- Dr. Ignacio F. Rodeño was elected President of AATSP-Alabama Chapter for the 2012-2014 term. He had served as First Vice-President of the Organization during the 2009-2011 term

- Dr. Karina E. Vázquez was elected Second Vice-President of AATSP-Alabama Chapter for the 2012-2014 term.

The 2013 AATSP conference will be on April 11-13 at the Birmingham Convention Center.

On February 7th, four faculty members presented the panel titled “Acercamientos a Cuba desde el Departamento de Idiomas Modernos: Hacia una plataforma para el diálogo” at the Universidad de La Habana, and set up a dialogue with colleagues from that institution:

• Dreaming from afar: Images of Cuba in the Cuban-American Narrative of Cristina García. Dr. Ignacio F. Rodeño.

• Cartographies of Otherness: Portraits of Cuba in Spanish Films. Dr. Ana Corbalán.

• Loss and Nostalgia in Leonardo Padura’s Pasado Perfecto. Dr. Álvaro Baquero-Pecino.

• Between the Individual and the Collective: Cuban Friquis’ Narrative Revisited. Dr. Karina E. Vázquez.

Dr. William Woorden presented in the panel on History of Cuban Theater at the Instituto Superior de Arte on February 8th.

To learn more about the Alabama-Cuba Initiative click here!

118 Graves HallThis talk will be followed by the screening of Molina Foix’s film El dios de madera (2010).

Vicente Molina Foix on Birmingham in El País