13th International Conference on Chicanx Literature and Latino Studies

Manuel M. Martín Rodríguez - University of California, Merced

Manuel M. Martín Rodríguez is a Distinguished Professor of literature and founding faculty member at the University of California, Merced. He has published the books P. Galindo: Obras (in)completas de José Díaz (2016), The Textual Outlaw: Reading John Rechy in the 21st Century (2015), Cantas a Marte y das batalla a Apolo: Cinco estudios sobre Gaspar de Villagrá (2014), With a Book in Their Hands: Chicano/a Readers and Readerships Across the Centuries (2014), a scholarly edition of Gaspar de Villagrá’s Historia de la nveva Mexico (2010), Gaspar de Villagrá: Legista, soldado y poeta (2009), Life in Search of Readers: Reading (in) Chicano/a Literature (2003), La voz urgente: Antología de literatura chicana en español (1995), and Rolando Hinojosa y su "cronicón" chicano: Una novela del lector (1993). His essays have appeared in multiple edited books and journals, including PMLA, Modern Language Quarterly, The Bilingual Review, The Americas Review, Hispania, Revista Iberoamericana, Aztlán, New Mexico Historical Review, and Early American Literature, among others. Martín-Rodríguez is Académico Numerario (Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española), and Académico Correspondiente (Real Academia Española). He has created the digital project A Visual History of Chicano/a/x Literature, as well as the digital press alternaCtive publicaCtions.

Manuel M. Martín Rodríguez will be a plenary speaker on Wednesday, June 12th, at 12:30 p.m., in the inaugural conference of the 13th International Conference on Chicano Literature and Latino Studies, which will take place in Santiago de Compostela in June 12th-14th, 2024.

Ron Arias - Author

Author of the celebrated novel The Road To Tamazunchale, Ron Arias was born in Los Angeles, a second-generation Mexican American whose grandparents came from the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. A graduate of UCLA with stints at UC Berkeley and universities in Barcelona and Buenos Aires, as a young man he worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru and a journalist in Argentina and Venezuela. He also wed Joan Zonderman (now deceased), a Spanish literature scholar, and the couple had two sons. While teaching college English classes in his early 30s, Arias began writing fiction, eventually returning to journalism as a People magazine writer for 22 years. At the same time he published several non-fiction books, a memoir and a collection of short stories. His most recent novel, Gardens of Plenty, was published in March of this year. An avid potter, he now resides in Ventura, California with his partner, artist Karen de la Peña.

Ron Arias will be a plenary speaker on Thursday, June 13th, at 12:45 p.m., at the 13th International Conference on Chicano Literature and Latino Studies, which will take place in Santiago de Compostela in June 12th-14th, 2024.

Esther Álvarez López - Universidad de Oviedo

Esther Álvarez López is Associate Professor at the University of Oviedo, where she teaches American Literature and Gender Studies. Her research interests include the intersectionality of race, gender, and ethnicity in American literature, performance poetry, and cultural studies. She has recently co-edited Cosmopolitan Strangers in US Latino Literature and Culture. Building Bridges, Not Walls (Routledge 2023); she is also the editor of Geographies of Identity: Mapping, Crossing, and Transgressing Urban and Human Boundaries (2016), a volume that came out of the 9th International Conference on Chicano and Latino Studies that took place at the University of Oviedo (2014).

Her most recent publications are Riding the Beast: Of Borders, Aliens, and Hospitality in Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive and Tell Me How It Ends (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2023); Strangers, Persisters, and Killjoys: Confronting Gender Inequality through Performance Poetry (Routledge 2022); and Identity, De-Colonization, and Cosmopolitanism in (Afro)Latina Artists’ Spoken Word Performances (Brill/Rodopi 2021). 

Esther Álvarez López  will be a plenary speaker on Friday, June 14th, at 12:45 p.m., at the 13th International Conference on Chicano Literature and Latino Studies, which will take place in Santiago de Compostela in June 12th-14th, 2024.