http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Hispanic_Studies/

Brown University, Department of Hispanic Studies, Rochambeau House, 84 Prospect Street, Providence, RI (2026)

05/28/2026

At Hispanic Studies we celebrate our newly minted PhD grads Alba Lara Granero, David Lal Parsard and Ben Easton (Carmen Urbita joined from afar). Felicitaciones! We also celebrate the Kossoff Prize given to Jamila Medina Ríos and Giovanna Gobbi (posthumously).

04/30/2026

Join us for the Hispanic Studies Capstone Colloquium!
📆 Tuesday, May 5
🕰️ 3:00 - 5:30 PM
📍Music Room, 84 Prospect St.

Come celebrate the incredible work of our graduating seniors in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures as they present highlights from their academic journeys and share the projects that have defined their time as HISP students!

04/08/2026

Celebrate Sant Jordi: Book Swap & Floral Games!

To celebrate this Diada de Sant Jordi, we would like to invite you to participate in a version of the traditional Jocs Florals (Floral Games) with a microfiction contest.

Rules for the Contest:

- Anyone is eligible to participate.
- Please submit an original microfiction creation of 300 words max.
- Submissions can be in English or any Romance language (i.e. Catalan, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian).
- Please submit through the QR link by Friday, April 17, 2026.

Winners will have their works publishes on the Hispanic Studies instagram account and receive a book prizes!

On the Day of Sant Jordi, we invite you to bring a book (in any language) that you would like to swap during our lunchtime event at Rochambeau House (84 Prospect St.) on April 23 from 12 - 1pm.

04/06/2026

Please join us for “Reinaldo Arenas, the Impure: A Conversation with René Cifuentes” presented by René Cifuentes on Thursday, April 16 at 4pm in the Library at 84 Prospect St.

René Cifuentes was born in Cuba in 1953 and arrived in the United States in 1980. In 1983, together with Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas and other exiled writers, he founded the magazine Mariel (1983–1985) in New York, which served as an aesthetic and political platform for artists and writers who had suffered persecution on the island. As a member himself of the “Mariel Generation”, Cifuentes amassed a collection of memorabilia from years of friendship with Reinaldo Arenas, a personal archive that includes photographs, handwritten notes, personal objects and telephone message recordings, among others. His articles and works of fiction appeared in Mariel as well as several others across the United States and Latin America. For eighteen years, he worked at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Drawing from a catauro (trove) of friendship experiences in New York—from their arrival in the city to the day of Arenas death by suicide—Cifuentes’ talk proposes an affective and artifact-based approach to the figure and complex personality of the man behind Before Night Falls. Offering a canonization based more on the body than on the body of work, this talk/conversation traces Reinaldo Arenas’ life’s journey—from his departure from Cuba, through the shifting realities of 1980s gay New York amid the AIDS crisis, to the founding of Mariel, more than a literary magazine, an essential chapter in the history of Cuban exile fight against political repression and homophobia institutionalized by the state.

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René Cifuentes nació en Cuba en 1953 y llegó a Estados Unidos en 1980. En 1983, junto a Reinaldo Arenas y otros escritores exiliados fundó la revista Mariel (1983-1985) en Nueva York, que sirvió de plataforma estética y política a artistas y escritores que habían sufrido persecución en la isla. Miembro de la llamada Generación del Mariel, atesora una colección memorabílica resultante de los años de amistad con Reinaldo Arenas: fotografías, dedicatorias manuscritas de sus libros, objetos personales, registros de llamadas telefónicos y mensajes de voz. Sus artículos y ficciones aparecieron en Mariel y otras revistas de Estados Unidos y América Latina. Durante dieciocho años trabajó en el Museo de Arte Moderno (MoMA).

Partiendo de un catauro de experiencias compartidas en el Nueva York del exilio––desde la llegada a esa ciudad hasta el día de la muerte por suicidio de Arenas–, Cifuentes ofrece un acercamiento afectivo y memorabílico a la figura y compleja personalidad del hombre detrás de Antes que anochezca. Con una propuesta de canonización más por el cuerpo que por la obra, esta charla/conversatorio sigue los trazos de Reinaldo Arenas a lo largo de un periplo que va desde su salida de Cuba, las peripecias en el Nueva York gay y del sida de los 80, y la fundación de Mariel––más que una revista literaria, un capítulo esencial en la historia de la lucha del exilio cubano contra la homofobia y la represión política institucionalizadas por el Estado.

THIS EVENT WILL BE IN SPANISH

03/18/2026

Please join us for "Twists of a Royal Wedding Plot: King João II's Spanish Match of 1490 and the Making of the Black Atlantic" presented by Elizabeth R. Wright on Monday, April 6 at 5:30pm in the Music Room at 84 Prospect St.

Looking back on the momentous reign of Portugal’s King João II (r. 1481–95), the chronicler García de Resende (1470–1536) predicted this ruler’s meticulous preparations for the marriage of his eldest son and heir in 1490 would confer lasting glory. My lecture delves into this Spanish match recounted in minute detail within Resende’s Vida e feitos del rey Dom João II (composed circa 1536, published 1545). King João envisioned a world-shaping marriage alliance, as his son and heir wed the eldest daughter of Spain’s “Catholic Monarchs,” Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabela I of Castile. Processions, banquets, and theatrical entertainments aired visions of a new Atlantic empire, with celebratory events designed to bring beloved adventure stories to life. But the incongruent twists and turns of the marriage plot draw our attention to the men and women behind the curtain of chivalric rhetoric. There, a different plot invites scrutiny: the enslavement of Africans kidnapped in raids on the coast of West Africa. I consider the rhetoric of concealment that obscures the moral and spiritual pitfalls of human trafficking. This issue, in turn, invites reflection on the broader stakes for historiographies of the Black Atlantic, given that the first, resolutely Iberian phase, underway after 1444, has often been neglected or stylized, with profound cultural and intellectual consequences.

Elizabeth Wright is a Distinguished Research Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Georgia and editor of the Bulletin of the Comediantes. Her research areas include her collaboration with the Prolope team on the critical edition of Lope de Vega's Los ramilletes de Madrid (2012, with a newly issued version for the Biblioteca Digital Prolope); her study of the Black diaspora in Spain developed in The Epic of Juan Latino (2016); and her ongoing project on Iberia’s Atlantic Households, focused on literary representations of the African diaspora.

03/16/2026

Please join us for “Grietas de la luz as Poetic Reconstruction of Memory. A poetry reading (in Spanish). presented by Federico Díaz Granados on Tuesday, March 31 at 12:30pm in the Music Room at 84 Prospect St.

Born in Bogotá in 1974, Díaz-Granados is a Poet, essayist, and cultural manager. He is director of the Los Fundadores Library of the Gimnasio Moderno, one of the most recognized cultural centers in Bogotá. As a journalist, he received the National Simón Bolívar Award in 2021, the most prestigious in the country. He has published, among others, the poetry books: Las voces del fuego (1995); La casa del viento (2000), Hospedaje de paso (Visor, 2003), Las prisas del instante (Visor, 2015) and Grietas de la luz (FCE 2024). He prepared the anthologies of new Colombian poetry Oscuro es el canto de la Lluvia (1997) and Inventario a contraluz (2001) and compiled and wrote the prologues for the volumes Resistencia en la tierra (Anthology of social and political poetry by new poets from Spain and America) and Cien años de poesía hispanoamericana. He has compiled and prologued for Seix Barral J.A Silva Poesía Reunida and Preludio de primavera by Rafael Pombo. In 2021 he was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Spanish at the University of Virginia. He is a regular contributor to Colombia oldest newspapers, El Tiempo and *El Espectador. He is also a columnist for Revista Cambio and El País América.

In Grietas de la luz, Federico Díaz Granados explores the loss of memory through the intimate experience of Alzheimer’s endured by both his grandmothers. In the book he proposes fragility as a form of resistance and poetry as an act of recovery and ancestral listening. The cracks symbolize the fissures of forgetting, and the light the flashes of revelation that still persist amid collapse. In this way, the book turns vulnerability into an ethical and aesthetic stance, where remembering is resisting and naming the unutterable restores dignity to the voices that are fading. This talk reflects on how poetry can transform forgetfulness into shared memory, pain into language, and loss into a possibility of meaning.

The reading will be in Spanish.

03/02/2026

Are you interested in the Hispanic Studies Concentration? Have you thought about studying abroad in Latin America or Spain? Do you like Encanto and Empanadas?

Join the Hispanic Studies Department Undergraduate Group (DUG) on Friday, March 6th, at 5:00 PM in the Rockefeller Library Room 206 for a movie night and exploration of the Hispanic Studies concentration, including information on language, culture, studying abroad, and career paths!

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to any of the Hispanic Studies DUG leaders. Looking forward to seeing you there!

02/26/2026

Please join us for “The Elipsis as a Tactical Figure in Afro-Puerto Rican and Afro-Hispanic Letters” presented by Eleuterio Santiago-Díaz on Monday, March 16 at 5pm in the Music Room at 84 Prospect St.

In this lecture, Dr. Santiago-Díaz will expound his theory of the elipsis as a tactical figure in Afro-Puerto Rican and Afro-Hispanic writing. The theory establishes a relationship between the imperial model of Spanish grammar imposed in colonial Hispanic America and the suppression of Afrodescendant’s discourse on race and identity in the national literatures of the region. Such signs of suppression, it will be argued, are also a locus where a performance is enacted to signify the history of suppression and silencing of black voices. The presenter will complement theoretical elaboration with analysis of literary passages. In dialogue with the audience, Dr. Santiago-Díaz will also discuss the links between his creative writing and his academic research, talk about future projects, and share his experiences as a graduate student at Brown University.

Eleuterio Santiago-Díaz is a professor at The University of New Mexico, literary critic, and poet. His research centers the study of Hispanic Caribbean and Afro-Hispanic literature and culture in light of theories of race, writing, and modernity. He is the author of the book Escritura afropuertorriqueña y modernidad (IILI/University of Pittsburgh, 2007) and articles, chapters, and essays. His creative work includes the poetry books Árbol de plaza talado en su novena edad (Publicaciones Gaviota, 2023) and Breaths (University of New Mexico Press, 2012). Unpublished, he has two collections of poems, a collection of short stories, and other writings such as letters and memoirs. Dr. Santiago-Díaz has a PhD in Hispanic Studies from Brown University, a master’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

02/25/2026

**TIME CHANGE**

Please join us for The Film Screening of Vieques: A Living Archive followed by a Q&A with Director, Juan Carlos Rodríguez on Thursday, March 5 at 6pm in the Joukowsky Forum.

In a gripping and unpredictable 20-year quest, Juan Carlos Rodríguez showcases the poignant story of Vieques, through intimate recollections, community voices and archival footage, the film exposes the profound hardships endures by Viquenses before and after the US Navy’s departure in 2003. It unveils Vieques’ dire health situation throughout the years.

Juan Carlos Rodríguez is Associate Professor of Spanish and the director of Vieques: A Living Archive. His research and teaching focus on Latin American documentaries.

02/20/2026

Please join us for "Sensorial Teaching: A Workshop" presented by Bob Davidson on March 2 at 2pm in the Music Room at 84 Prospect St.

In this interactive workshop, we will go over strategies for integrating sensory experience in the language and culture classroom. Topics will include: communicating sensory experience in the target language; exercises for independent reflection; evaluation techniques; how to relinquish authority in a sensory class; synesthesia as a critical methodology.

Bob Davidson is Professor of Spanish and Catalan at the University of Toronto, where he is also Mary Rowell Jackman Professor of Humanities at Victoria College and affiliated faculty with the Culinaria Research Centre. He specializes in Modern Peninsular Literature and Culture with an emphasis on cultural theories of food and hospitality. He is the author of Jazz Age Barcelona (U of Toronto Press, 2009; shortlisted for the Canada Prize in the Humanities) and The Hotel: Occupied Space (U of Toronto Press, 2018). His latest project, The Scent of Spain: Fragrance, Odour and Culture, considers key fragrances and smells that were part of Spain’s modern experience. Prof. Davidson currently serves as Director of the Northrop Frye Centre at Victoria College and as Chair of the Manuscript Review Committee of University of Toronto Press. In 2022, he was awarded the ###IV Premi Josep M. Batista i Roca – Memorial Enric Garriga Trullols for the promotion of Catalan culture abroad. He takes his martini with a little extra vermouth and an olive.

Brown University, Department of Hispanic Studies

05/28/2026

04/30/2026

04/08/2026

04/06/2026

03/18/2026

03/16/2026

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02/25/2026

02/20/2026

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