Biographies

Keynote Speaker, George Yúdice

George Yúdice is Professor of American Studies and of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University, and also serves as director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He directs the Privatization of Culture Project for Research on Cultural Policy and the Inter-American Cultural Studies Network, whose purpose is to engage scholars, intellectuals, activists and artists in North-South dialogue on the role of cultural work in furthering citizen participation in aesthetic, political, social, and economic matters.

His research interests include cultural policy; globalization and transnational processes; the organization of civil society; the role of intellectuals, artists and activists in national and transnational institutions; comparison of diverse national constructions of race and ethnicity.

He is the author of Vicente Huidobro y la motivación del lenguaje poético (Buenos Aires, 1977); Cultural Policy, co-authored with Toby Miller (Sage Publications, 2002); Política Cultural (Barcelona: Gedisa, 2004); El recurso de la cultura (Barcelona: Gedisa, 2003), and The Expediency of Culture (Duke UP, 2004). He has in progress a reader to be published by Blackwell, entitled “Culture and Value: Essays on Latin American Literature and Culture and Theories of the Americas.” He is also co-editor (with Jean Franco and Juan Flores) of On Edge: The Crisis of Contemporary Latin American Culture (1992), and is co-editor of the Cultural Studies of the Americas book series with the University of Minnesota Press.

He has written widely on literature, art, and culture in the U.S. and in Latin America. For the past decade, he has been conducting research on cultural policy, i.e., systems of support for art and culture in the US, Latin American countries, Europe, and international institutions. He has been editor of the journal Social Text, and is currently an advisory editor for Cultural Studies, Found Object, and Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies.

Featured Writers and Filmmakers

Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro

Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro is a Brazilian author with a degree in naval engineering. As both critic and author of science fiction, he has a special interest in the subgenre of alternate histories. His first novellas were published in the Brazilian version of the Issac Asimov Magazine, and his 1996 O vampiro de Nova Holanda ("The Vampire of New Holland") won the Brazilian Nova Award for Best Novella. O vampiro de Nova Holanda was reprinted by the Portuguese publisher Caminho in 1998, which had also published his collection Outras histórias (Other stories/histories) in 1997. In Brazil, he has edited three thematic anthologies of short stories: Outras copas outros mundos (Other World Cups, Other Worlds) (1998), a collection based on Brazil's national pastime, soccer; Brasiliana Phantastica (2000), in conjunction with Brazil's 500th Anniversary of Discovery; and Como era gostosa a minha alienígena (How Tasty was my Alien) (2002), a collection centered on erotic themes. He has served as president of the Brazilian Club of Science Fiction (Clube de Leitores de Ficção Científica) for two terms, 1999-2001 and 2001-2003, and is founder of the Argos Prize, which gives annual awards for the best science fiction published in Brazil. He was recently hired by Hoplon to create the online game "Taikodom," based on the scenario of one of his hard science fiction stories. This multiplayer game will allow participants from all over the world to play in real time via a wide band internet connection.

Alberto Fuguet

Alberto Fuguet is a Chilean author and filmmaker. He has been a film critic, police reporter and radio show host. Among his movie credits are Las hormigas asesinas (The Killer Ants), a short film in black and white, and the feature Se arrienda (For Rent), which will premiere this September in Chile. Fuguet is best known as an author of contemporary fiction. Among his novels are Mala onda (Bad Vibes) from 1991, Por favor, Rebobinar (Please Rewind) (1994), and Tinta Roja (Red Ink) (1996), which was adapted to the screen by Peruvian filmmaker Francisco Lombardi. In 1996, he co-edited an anthology of short stories called McOndo, whose title is a play on García-Márquez's Macondo, referring to the reality of McDonald's, Macintosh and condos of Latin America's younger generation. His new novel, Las películas de mi vida (The Movies of My Life, 2003) will soon appear in paperback in the US through HarperCollins, which will also release, in both Spanish and English, his new book of short stories: Cortos (Shorts). Fuguet is currently working on the screenplay of Perdido, based on El empampado Riquelme, a non-fiction book by Chilean author Francisco Moaut. More information

Gustavo Mosquera

Gustavo Mosquera is an Argentinean professor at the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires. His two films in the science fiction mode include Lo que vendrá (1988) and Moebius (1996). Soon after its release, Moebius went on to win awards at the International Film Festival of Puerto Rico, the Huelva International Film Festival, La Havana International Film Festival, the Viennale, and the First Bangkok International Film Festival. The film was also selected to appear in the Sundance Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival and is now part of the Smithsonian Hirsch Horn Museum collection in Washington D.C. Mosquera was also chosen to participate in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art's series on New Directors, New Films.
More information on MOEBIUS

Edmundo Paz-Soldán

Edmundo Paz-Soldán is a Bolivian author and Associate Professor of Hispanic Literatures at Cornell University. He was the winner of the Bolivian National Book Award for 2003 for his novel El delirio de Turing, which will appear in English translation in the fall of 2005, published by HarperCollins. He also won the Juan Rulfo Prize for best short story in 1997 and was a finalist for the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 1999. Among his novels are Río fugitivo (Fugitive River) (1998), Sueños digitales (Digital Dreams) (2000), and La materia del deseo (2001), which appeared in English under the title The Matter of Desire (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). In one of his recent essays, "Between Tradition and Innovation: The New Latin American Narrative," which appeared in World Literature Today (September-December 2004), he articulates his views on the sensibility of the writer in today's globalized world. More information (PDF document)

Invited Speakers

Andrea Bell

Professor of Spanish at Hamline University in St. Paul.

Andrea Bell holds a Ph. D. from Stanford University, and is currently chair of the Department of Foreign Languages. She is the co-editor/translator with Yolanda Molina-Gavilán, of Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain (2003). She has also published articles on Latin American literature in Science Fiction Studies, Studies in Short Fiction, and Chasqui, and wrote entries for the Latin American Science Fiction an A-Z Guide, ed. Darrell Lockhart (2004). She served as International Division Chair 2000-2004 for the "International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts," the largest annual professional meeting devoted to scholarship on fantastic literature and the arts.

Pablo Brescia

Assistant Professor of Latin America Literature at the University of South Florida.

Pablo Brescia, a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from The University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1993, he won First Prize in the Essay Contest "Miguel de Cervantes," sponsored by the Spanish Consulate in Los Angeles. He is co-author and co-editor of the following books: El cuento mexicano: Homenaje a Luis Leal (1996), Sor Juana y Vieira, trescientos años después (1998), and Borges múltiple: cuentos y ensayos de cuentistas (1999). He is currently finishing a manuscript on the history and theory of the Latin American short story. His main areas of teaching and research are the theory and history of Latin American short fiction, the narrative of twentieth-century Mexico and the Southern Cone, and the literature of Colonial Mexico.

J. Andrew Brown

Assistant Professor of Spanish at Washington University in St. Louis.

J. Andrew Brown, who has a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, is assistant professor of Spanish at Washington University in St. Louis.  He is the author of Test Tube Envy: Science and Power in Argentine Narrative (2005, Bucknell University Press) as well as various articles on science, technology, and posthuman identity in Latin American literature.  He is currently editing a special volume of Revista Iberoamericana on technology and literature in Latin America.

Luis Cano

Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Luis Cano holds a Ph. D. from Penn State University. His teaching interests include Spanish American literature and culture of the 19th and 20th centuries, popular literary genres, popular culture, literary theory, and Spanish language and composition. He is a 2005 recipient of the Chancellor's Award for Teaching at the University of Tennessee, where he has taught since 2001. His recent article in Hispania, "Gorodischer y Borges" Hispania 87:3 (2004) explores the relationship between the Argentinean master and science fiction and fantasy author Angélica Gorodischer. Among his research interests are the relationship of Spanish American science fiction to the works of the Hispanic literary canon and the role of science fiction in Spanish American modernismo.

Andrew Gordon

Associate Professor of English at the University of Florida

Andrew Gordon received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and his publications include An American Dreamer: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Fiction of Norman Mailer (1980), an anthology co-edited with Peter Rudnytsky, Psychoanalyses/Feminisms (2000), and a book co-authored with UF sociologist Hernan Vera, Screen Saviors: Hollywood Fictions of Whiteness (2003). In addition, he has 50 essays and 25 reviews in journals including Modern Fiction Studies, Literature and Psychology, and Saul Bellow Journal, on Jewish-American writers and other contemporary writers such as Barth and Pynchon, and on contemporary American science fiction and SF films. He is currently working on a book on the science fiction and fantasy films of Steven Spielberg. He is an editorial consultant to the journal Science Fiction Studies and to the e-journal PSYART. He directs the Institute for the Psychological Study of the Arts (IPSA), and, with Norman Holland, organizes the annual International Conference on Literature and Psychology.

Rachel Haywood Ferreira

Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Iowa State

Rachel Haywood Ferreira is an assistant professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Iowa State University. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Modern Language Association Discussion Group on Science Fiction, Utopian, and Fantastic Literature, and some of her current research interests include the early science fiction of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico; the canonical and the occult sciences in Latin American cultural production; and Latin American fiction and science in periodicals.

Yolanda Molina-Gavilán

Associate Professor at Eckerd College

Yolanda Molina-Gavilán was born and raised in Madrid, Spain and holds a Ph.D in Spanish literature from Arizona State University. Her research centers on science fiction literature in the Spanish-speaking world and on contemporary Spanish cinema. She is an associate professor of Spanish at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. Her latest book is Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain.

Fernando O. Reati

Associate Professor of Spanish at Georgia State University

Fernando Reati, who has a Ph.D. from Washington University, is the author of Nombrar lo inombrable: Violencia política y novela argentina (1975-1985) (1992), co-editor of Memoria colectiva y políticas de olvido (1997), and co-editor of De centos y periferias en la literatura de Córdoba (2001).

Organizer

M. Elizabeth Ginway is Associate Professor of Portuguese at the University of Florida, and author of Brazilian Science Fiction: Cultural Myths and Nationhood in the Land of the Future (2004), which has been recently translated as Ficção científica brasileira: Mitos culturais e nacionalidade no país do futuro (2005). The book was placed on the Recommended Reading List for Non-Fiction by Locus: Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy World, 529 Feb. 2005. and nominated for MLA Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize by Bucknell University Press, 2005.

Organizing Committee

Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Florida

• Andrés O. Avellaneda, Professor of Spanish, Latin American Literature and literary theory.
• Álvaro Felix Bolaños, Associate Professor of Spanish, Colonial Latin American Literature
• Reynaldo Jiménez, Committee Chair, Associate Professor of Spanish, Latin American Narrative
• Mary Watt, Assistant Professor of Italian Studies, Dante and Italian Film Studies.

Department of Romance Languages moderators

• Efraín Barradas, Professor of Latin American Studies and Spanish, Hispanic Caribbean and its diaspora; Cultural Studies
• Martín Sorbille, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Nineteenth-Century Spanish American Literature, Spanish American Film Studies.

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