Synopsis:
(Updated on 12/04/07)
My first book, Autor/lector: Huidobro, Borges, Fuentes y Sarduy (Wayne State UP, 1991), combines reader-response with authorship theory and criticism. It analyzes the roles that readers and writers play in the writing and decoding of texts, using examples taken primarily (but not exclusively) from the works of Huidobro, Borges, Fuentes and Sarduy. It also traces the evolution of the reader and writer from classical antiquity through the twentieth century by showing how readers increase in importance and become more actively involved in textual production over time as the importance of the traditional author as visionary, inspired creator, and authority figure diminishes. In addition, it explores the concept of the writer as an absent center of meaning, taking issue with it, and of the reader as co-author.

I edited and introduced a book and a special journal issue. The book is Between the Self and the Void: Essays in Honor of Severo Sarduy (Cuban Literary Studies Series, Society of Spanish and Spanish American Studies, U of Colorado, 1998). The book offers theoretical and critical analyses of texts by the Cuban author, Sarduy. Its articles deal with such topics as identity, self-portraiture, gender, queer theory, AIDS, psychoanalytic aspects of eroticism, canonical subversion, postmodernity, the neobaroque, culture, religion, myth, reality, pictorial representation, and cosmology. The journal issue is on "Literatura y Ciencia,"La Torre: Revista de la Universidad de Puerto Rico 3.9 (1998). It is devoted exclusively to the interrelations of literature and different branches of science in 19th-20th century Spanish American and Spanish texts.

My other publications include articles on the works of such renowned Spanish American and European authors as Borges, Sarduy, Fuentes, Huidobro, Arreola, Castellanos, Campos, Elizondo, Futoransky, Mallarmé, and Gómez de la Serna from the perspective of comparative literature, mythography, science and other cultural studies, literary theory,history of ideas, gender issues, new historicism, etc.

The publication information for those papers and my other, selected publications is the following:

Book Chapters
1. Invited, "Carlos Fuentes' Evolution Towards Ecological Awareness in His Essays and Narratives." Science, Literature, and Film in the Hispanic World. Eds. Jerry Hoeg and Kevin Larsen. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. 75-85.

2. Invited, "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in Contemporary Spanish American Fiction."Science and the Creative Imagination in Latin America. Ed. Evelyn Fishburn and Eduardo Ortiz. London, UK: Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, School of Advanced Study, 2005. 129-50.

3. "Scientific and Neobaroque (In)stability in Nueva inestabilidad." Between the Self and the Void: Essays in Honor of Severo Sarduy. Ed. Alicia Rivero-Potter. Cuban Literary Studies Series. Boulder, CO: Society of Spanish and Spanish American Studies, U of Colorado, 1998. 101-19.

4. Invited, "Afinidades intertextuales entre la evocación mallarmeana y la metáfora neobarroca sarduyana: De donde son los cantantes."Le Néo-baroque cubain. América: Cahiers du CRICCAL 20. Paris: Presses de Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1998: 125-36.

5. Invited, "La opresión en la narrativa de Luisa Futoransky: Son cuentos chinos y De Pe a Pa (o de Pekín a París)." El testimonio femenino como escritura contestataria. Ed. Emma Sepúlveda Pulvirenti and Joy Logan. Santiago de Chile: Asterión, 1995. 117-45. Also invited, rev. version in Luisa Futoransky y su palabra itinerante. Ed. Ester Gimbernat González. Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones de Hermes Criollo, 2006. 133-52.

Articles in Refereed Journals
1.Invited article, "Carlos Fuentes's Dystopia: Cristóbal Nonato." Ometeca: Humanities and Science 8.1 (2004): 113-32.

2."Ecocide in Paradise: The Turn of the Century in Fuentes' 'Las dos Américas'."Latin American Literary Review 63.32 (2004): 5-23.

3."La mujer cibernética en 'Salvad vuestros ojos' de Huidobro, 'Anuncio' de Arreola y El eterno femenino' de Castellanos." Literatura y Ciencia. Ed. Alicia Rivero-Potter. Invited, special issue of La Torre: Revista de la Universidad de Puerto Rico 3.9 (1998): 579-96.

4.Invited article, "Complementariedad e incertidumbre en 'El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan' de Borges."La Torre: Revista de la Universidad de Puerto Rico 2.6 (1997): 459-74.

5.Invited article, "La ciencia como mito en Nueva inestabilidad."Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 563(1997): 45-53.

6."Columbus' Legacy in Cristóbal Nonato by Carlos Fuentes."Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 20 (1996): 305-25.

7."Ramón Gómez de la Serna y Vicente Huidobro: Intertextualidad." Hispanic Review 59 (1991): 437-50.

8."The Role of the Reader in Julieta Campos's Tiene los cabellos rojizos y se llama Sabina." Hispania 73 (1990): 633-40.

9."Autor, narrador y lector en Severo Sarduy: Cobra, Colibrí." Symposium 41 (1987): 227-39.

10."La iconografía oriental y la leyenda del futuro Buda parodiadas en Cobra y Maitreya de Severo Sarduy."Revista de la Universidad de México [UNAM] 41.425 (1986): 14-19.

11."La creación literaria en Julieta Campos: Tiene los cabellos rojizos y se llama Sabina." Revista Iberoamericana 51 (1985): 899-907.

12."Algunas metáforas somáticas--erótico-escriturales--en De donde son los cantantes y Cobra." Revista Iberoamericana[] 49 (1983): 497-507.

13."El erotismo en 'El Desencarnado' de Salvador Elizondo." Modern Language Studies 12.1 (1982): 54-67.

Articles in Selected Conference Proceedings
1."El imaginario cosmológico en Pájaros de la playa de Severo Sarduy." Escrituras del imaginario en veinte años de Archivos: Actas del Coloquio Internacional. Proc., June 1998, Centre de Recherches Latino-Américaines-Archivos, Université de Poitiers, Poitiers, France. Ed. Joaquín Manzi and Fernando Moreno. Poitiers, France: Centre de Recherches Latino-Américaines-Archivos, Université de Poitiers, 2001. 321-27.

2."La crónica de La Malinche en El eterno femenino de Rosario Castellanos." Conquista y contraconquista: La escritura del Nuevo Mundo (Actas del XXVIII Congreso del Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana). Proc., June 1990, Brown University. Ed. Julio Ortega and José Amor y Vázquez. Mexico, D. F.: El Colegio de México and Brown University, 1994. 587-96.

Assisted in Editing Book
Assistant Editor of De Cadalso a Aleixandre: estudios sobre literatura e historia intelectual españolas (Homenaje a Juan López-Morillas). Ed. José Amor y Vázquez and A. David Kossoff. Madrid: Castalia, 1982. 502 pp.

Teaching Experience
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Associate Professor of Spanish with tenure (1990-present); joint appointment in the Curriculum of Comparative Literature (2004-2005). The latter was changed to Adjunct in Comparative Literature (2006-present) temporarily for all joint appointments when the Curriculum merged with English to form the Department of English and Comparative Literature in 2006.

I currently have two book projects in progress, Reading Reality: Physics in Contemporary Spanish American Narratives and Nature in Contemporary Latin(a) American Literature: Ecology, Gender, and Race. I anticipate completing and publishing the latter one first.

My research informs and enriches my teaching. The classes I normally offer range from undergraduate majors courses such as the survey of Spanish American literature, Spanish American civilization, and honors to graduate courses. The latter have included The Novel in Spanish America II (from 1960 to the present), The Vanguard in Modern Spanish American Literature, and The Spanish American Short Story and Essay. I also teach undergraduate and graduate seminars on different topics. A sample of these have included Nature in Modern Latin(a) American Literature: Ecology, Gender, and Race, Hispanic Women's Narratives and Feminist Theory, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Contemporary Spanish American Narratives, Author and Reader in Modern Spanish American Literature, The Contemporary Spanish American Novel and Critical Theory.