deptnews

It is with great pleasure that the Department of Spanish and Portuguese announces the award of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship to Juan Carlos Quintero Herencia. This year the Foundation received 500 applications for the competition of Latin American and Caribbean fellowships and 33 fellows were selected.

With the Guggenheim Fellowship and his recently awarded GRB, Juan Carlos will devote twelve months to his project,”Listening Travels: Poetics and Politics in the Caribbean Archipelago.” His research examines how poetry and the act of listening are embedded in the texts of authors living in the Caribbean or passing through the archipelago. He will analyze how poetic enunciation and performance interact with political subjectivity. His project is not focused on the events of ‘real’ politics as seen in a particular poet’s point of view or political activism, but instead uncovers the performance of the poetic literary word in the Hispanic Caribbean as a means of enacting the space and logic of what has been called the politics of literature. This book-length study outlines the conditions of the literary text as a singular space and as a text that affects the beliefs of both the reader and the citizens in a Hispanic Caribbean society.

A recognized poet and literary critic, Juan Carlos Quintero Herencia has received the Premio Iberoamericano for the Best Book written in Spanish or Portuguese in Latin American Studies (2004) for his book, Fulguración del espacio. Letras e imaginario institucional de la Revolución cubana (1960-1971). His El hilo para el marisco/Cuaderno de los envíos won the Pen Club Poetry Prize in Puerto Rico in 2004. In fall of 2010, his research will also be funded by a semester award from the Graduate Research Board at the University.

Recently elected as Chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese
beginning fall 2009, Quintero Herencia previously has served as Director of Graduate Studies in the department since 2005.

Felicitaciones Juan Carlos.

More information at:

http://www.gf.org/news-events/Latin-American-and-Caribbean-Guggenheim-Fellowship-Awards-2009/

http://www.gf.org/news-events/List-of-2009-Fellows-Latin-America-and-Caribbean/

It is my pleasure to announce that both of the candidates presented by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese to the Dean’s Senior Scholars Award have been selected to receive the award for 2008.  Vineeta Singh and Dennis Stinchcomb are the recipients of this important award. Singh and Stinchcomb were unanimously selected. There were a total of six awards for all ARHU units. I quote from Dean Harris letter: “The selection committee was impressed by your extraordinary record of academic performance and strong letters of recommendation.”  Please join me in congratulating Vineeta and Dennis.
Also thanks to Prof. Demaría, Cypess, Remson and Ana Patricia Rodríguez for their support and for writing the letters of recommendations.  Felicidades.

Juan Carlos Quintero-Herencia
Professor and Acting Chair
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
University of Maryland
2215-A Jiménez Hall
College Park, MD 20742
Office: 301-405-6450
Fax: 301-314-9752
jcquinte@umd.edu

Congratulations to Rachel Linville for the defense of her dissertation : Imaginarios de la resistencia antifascista española:
memoria, literatura, cine and for her acceptance of a position as Assistant Professor of Spanish at SUNY Brockport.

In addition, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese is proud to announce the accomplishments of two of our undergraduates who have been admitted to prestigious doctoral programs in Spanish and Portuguese.

Matthew Goldmark, a Banneker-Key Scholar and Maryland Distinguished Scholar, graduated with a 4.0 GPA from UMD with a double major in Spanish Language and Literature and Art History. In the Fall 2008, he will attend the University of Pennsylvania with a five year Benjamin Franklin Fellowship (including five years of summer support). He was also admitted to Yale University with a five year University Fellowship and to the University of Texas with a College of Liberal Arts Fellowship. At the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Goldmark plans to focus on transatlantic studies and visual arts and to work with Drs. Yolanda Martínez, Barbara Fuchs, and Reinaldo Laddaga, among others.

Gladys Guzmán, a professional photographer, completed a Bachelors degree at UMD in Spanish Language and Literature with academic honors.  In the Fall 2008, she will attend the University of Virginia, where she will specialize in Latin American Literature and hold teaching assistantships. She was also admitted to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University.

Congratulations to three of our graduate students who have successfully defended their Dissertation Proposals, advancing to candidacy!

Angela De Lutis-Eichenberger
La textualización del sujeto en conflicto durante el siglo XIX:  Un estudio discursivo de la identidad de Andrés Bello
The Textualization of the Conflicted Subject during the 19th Century: A Discursive Study of the Identity of Andrés Bello
Dir: Jorge Aguilar Mora
Second Reader: Laura Demaria

María Verónica Muñoz
Ecstasy or Fall? Reading the Sublime in Nineteenth-Century Latin American Short Stories. (Instantes, disonancias y disidencias: una aproximación a lo sublime/fantástico en la literatura latinoamericana del siglo XIX).
Dir: Jorge Aguilar Mora
Second Reader: Laura Demaria

Laura Maccioni
On Fleeing: Revolutionary Utopia and Escape in Juan Jose Saer and Reinaldo Arenas. (Darse a la fuga: utopía revolucionaria y escape en Juan José Saer y Reinaldo Arenas).
Dir: Juan Carlos Quintero Herencia
Second Reader: Laura Demaria

Angie, Verónica and Laura´s proposals were brilliant and we expect great and prompt results in the defense of their PhD Dissertations.