In 2014, The University of Texas at El Paso will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1914 as the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy. Our Centennial offers not only an occasion to celebrate our distinguished history, but also a window through which we can begin contemplating our bright future as the first national research university with a 21st century student demographic. The Centennial Lecture Series invites noteworthy speakers to the UTEP campus to share their perspectives on a broad range of contemporary issues that are likely to impact our society, culture, and lives in the years ahead. We invite you to join us in exploring important and timely topics and in expanding our thinking about how they may help shape UTEP’s next 100 years.

President Diana Natalicio
and
El Congreso de Literatura Mexicana Contemporánea
cordially invite you to attend a
UTEP Centennial Lecture
“Carlos Fuentes Entre Fronteras: México, EEUU y
España en el Mapa Literario del Siglo XXI”
Julio Ortega
Director of the Department of Hispanic Studies
and the Center for Latin American Studies,
Brown University

Friday, March 8, 2013
5 p.m.
Undergraduate Learning Center, Room 106,
UTEP Campus
Reception to follow presentation
This lecture will be in Spanish, simultaneous translation will be available


Después de estudiar Literatura en la Universidad Católica, en Lima, y publicar su primer libro, La contemplación y la fiesta (1968), dedicado al “boom” de la novela latinoamericana, emigró a Estados Unidos invitado por las Universidades de Pittsburgh y Yale. Vivió en Barcelona (1971-73) como traductor y editor. Volvió de profesor a la Universidad de Texas, Austin, donde en 1978 fue nombrado Professor de literatura latinoamericana. Desde 1989 lo es en la Universidad de Brown, donde ha sido director del Departamento de Estudios Hispánicos y actualmente es director del Proyecto Transatlántico. Ha dictado cursos en Harvard, NYU, U de Granada, U de Las Palmas, Puerto Rico, U. Central de Venezuela, y ocupó la Chair Simón Bolívar de la Universidad de Cambridge, UK. Es miembro de las academias de la lengua de Perú, Venezuela, Puerto Rico y Nicaragua. Ha recibido la condecoración Andrés Bello del gobierno de Venezuela en 1998, la Orden del mérito en Perú y la del Aguila Azteca en Mexico en 2011. Es doctor honorario por las universidades del Santa y Los Angeles, Perú, y la Universidad Americana de Nicaragua. Sus últimos libros son La imaginación crítica, Prácticas innovación en la narrativa contemporánea (2010), El sujeto dialógico, Negociaciones de la modernidad conflictiva (2010) y Trabajo crítico (2012). Es editor de las Obras de Carlos Fuentes en el Fondo de Cultura de México. De su crítica ha dicho Octavio Paz: “Ortega practica el mejor rigor crítico: el rigor generoso.”

A native of Perú, Professor Ortega is an accomplished scholar, poet, playwright, and novelist, with 15 books as well as several critical editions to his credit. After six years of teaching at the University of Texas at Austin, and two years as professor and chairperson at Brandeis University, Professor Ortega joined Brown’s Department of Hispanic Studies in 1989. He has also been a visiting professor at numerous universities both in the United States and abroad, including recent terms as Simon Bolivar Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge (1995-96) and Cátedra de Estudios Avanzados at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (Summer 1995). Professor Ortega’s commitment to literature goes beyond his own writing and teaching to include his involvement in several international publishing houses - as Director of the Serie Futura of the Biblioteca Ayacucho (Caracas), Coordinator of the Editorial Council, Archives Collection (Paris), and Co-editor of the series Archives (University of Pittsburgh) - and on the advisory committees of a number of academic journals. His teaching and research interests include twentieth-century Spanish American literature and culture, and literary theory. Professor Ortega’s recent publications include (i) literary criticism: Retrato de Carlos Fuentes (1995), Arte de innovar (1994), El discurso de la abundancia (1992), Una poetica del cambio (1992), Reapropriaciones: Cultura y literatura en Puerto Rico (1991); (ii) fiction: La mesa del padre (1995), Ayacucho, Good Bye (1994), Canto de hablar materno (1992); (iii) editions: The Picador Book of Latin American Short Stories, edited with Carlos Fuentes (1998), La Cervantiada (1995), Venezuela: fin de siglo (1994), and Rayuela de Julio Cortazar (1993).