Luis Hernán Castañeda
Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies
- Office
- Voter Hall 209
- Tel
- (802) 443-5981
- lcastaneda@middlebury.edu
- Office Hours
- Monday 2:00-4:00 PM; Wednesday 2:00-4:00 PM
Luis Hernán Castañeda (Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian writer and academic, the author of several works of literary fiction including La fiesta del humo (2016), El imperio de las mareas (2019), Un escritor rural (2021), Expedición a Inca Dormido (2023), and Vocación (2024). His work explores themes of identity, memory, spirituality, and mysticism, examining the blurred boundaries between reality and invention, often blending intimate confession with formal experimentation. Castañeda holds a B.A. in Hispanic literature from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and a Ph.D. in Spanish literature from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He teaches Spanish language, contemporary Latin American literature, Peruvian culture and history, and creative writing.
Courses Taught
CMLT 0700
Upcoming
Senior Thesis
Course Description
Senior Thesis
A senior thesis is normally completed over two semesters. During Fall and Winter terms, or Winter and Spring terms, students will write a 35-page (article length) comparative essay, firmly situated in literary analysis. Students are responsible for identifying and arranging to work with their primary language and secondary language readers, and consulting with the program director before completing the CMLT Thesis Declaration form. (Approval required.)
Terms Taught
IGST 0703
Upcoming
LAS Senior Thesis
Course Description
Latin American Studies Senior Thesis
(Approval Required)
Terms Taught
SPAN 0101
Beginning Spanish I
Course Description
Beginning Spanish I
This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of grammar and focuses on the development of four skills in Spanish: comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. Emphasis will be placed on active communication aimed at the development of oral and comprehension skills. This course is for students who have not previously studied Spanish. Students are expected to continue with SPAN 0104 after successful completion of SPAN 0101. 5 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
SPAN 0104
Beginning Spanish II
Course Description
Beginning Spanish II
This course is a continuation of SPAN 0101. Intensive reading, writing, and oral activities will advance students’ proficiency in Spanish in an academic setting. (SPAN 0101 or placement exam) 6 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
SPAN 0201
Intermediate Spanish
Course Description
Intermediate Spanish
This accelerated course is designed to review, reinforce, and consolidate the linguistic structures that students need in order to reach the intermediate level of proficiency in Spanish. A grammar review will accompany intensive language acquisition, vocabulary expansion, readings, discussions, and compositions. (SPAN 0103 or SPAN 0105 or SPAN 0104 or placement tests) 3 hrs. lect., 1 hr. drill.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0220
Upcoming
Intermediate Spanish II
Course Description
Intermediate Spanish II
A course for students seeking to perfect their academic writing skills in Spanish. The course is also an introduction to literary analysis and critical writing and will include reading and oral discussion of literary texts. The course will also include a thorough review of grammar at a fairly advanced level. This course may be used to fulfill the foreign languages distribution requirement. (SPAN 0201, SPAN 0210, or placement) 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0323
Creative Reading & Writing
Course Description
Creative Reading & Writing
In this course we will read and write short stories in Spanish. After Borges, Latin American writers understand their task as the creative reading and rewriting of literary tradition. The first module of the course is devoted to developing students’ awareness of how reading and writing are intertwined through intertextuality. The second module offers a workshop in which students will produce their own fiction and comment on their classmates’ work. Through creative reading and writing, students will hone their skills in Spanish. (SPAN 0220 or placement) 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0339
Peru:History Culture Ethnicity
Course Description
Peru: Identity, Ethnicity, History
In this course we will study Peru’s diverse cultures, races, and ethnicities. Our discussion of Peruvian identity(-ies) will be connected to an exploration of selected topics of history and politics, with an emphasis on contemporary Peru: the Internal Conflict, Fujimori's dictatorship, and the return to democracy (1980-the present). We will read literary works and historical accounts, watch films and documentaries, and look at art and photography in order to extract their key themes and better understand the construction of Peru as a complex, multilingual nation, considering its past, present, and future. Relations with the United States and Latin America will be addressed. (SPAN 0220 or placement) 3 hrs. lect/disc. This course is part of the Axinn Center for the Humanities’ Public Humanities Lab Initiative.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0357
The Luso-Hispanic Writer
Course Description
The Luso Hispanic Fiction Writer
In this course we will study the representation of the writer of fiction in Luso-Hispanic contemporary narrative. As Julio Premat argues, writers often understand their task not only as the creation of literary works, but also as the fashioning of an authorial self within fiction and through essays, interviews, photographs. We will study how and why such images are crafted, and how they reflect ideas about the aesthetic and political role of the writer, the “truth” of fiction, the interplay between literature and reality, and the relationship between authorship and gender. Portuguese-language texts will be read in Spanish translation. (Two Spanish courses at the 0300-level or above, or waiver) 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0365
Catholicism in Latin America
Course Description
Catholicism in Latin America
In this course we will study cultural representations of the long history and deep influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Latin America. Beginning with the colonization of the Americas in the 15th century, Catholicism has vastly contributed to shape the continent in every respect and is currently the major religion of nearly every Latin American country, with more than 425 million Catholics: almost 40% of the world's total Catholic population. It is impossible to understand Latin America without studying the impact of this world religion. Students will learn about colonial evangelization, new local forms of Catholicism, anticlericalism, liberation theology, the growth of Evangelicals, the papacy of Pope Francis, as well as the artistic footprint of Catholicism through the analysis of historical, cultural, filmic, and literary texts.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0421
Latin American 'novela total'
Course Description
The Latin American ‘novela total’
In this seminar we will read Latin American ‘total novels’: long and complex fictional artifacts that purport to map the whole of reality in all its perspectives. We will analyze the structure of landmark ‘total novels,’ explore the intersection of modernist aesthetics and Cold War politics that made them possible, and probe their current relevance. Texts may include Cien años de soledad (1967) by García Márquez and Conversación en La Catedral (1969) by Vargas Llosa, as well as more recent novels that attempt to renew this tradition. (Two Spanish courses at the 300-level or above, or by waiver.) 3 hrs. sem.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0478
Upcoming
Cien años de soledad
Course Description
Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad
Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez is one of the most significant authors of 20th century literature, and Cien años de soledad is often considered the most important Latin American novel ever written. In this course we will delve into this masterpiece from different perspectives. Through close-reading we will focus on its literary aspects - form, style, metaphor - while making connections with García Márquez’s life, Colombian history, Cold War politics, the Latin American Boom, metafiction, magical realism, and issues of race and gender. (Two Spanish courses at the 0300-level or above, or waiver) (formerly SPAN 0378) 3 hrs. lect./disc
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0500
Upcoming
Independent Study
Course Description
Independent Study
The department will consider requests by qualified juniors and senior majors to engage in independent work. (Approval only)
Terms Taught
SPAN 0705
Upcoming
Senior Honors Thesis
Course Description
Senior Honors Thesis
The department will award honors, high honors, or highest honors on the basis of a student's work in the department and performance in SPAN 0705. (Approval only)
Terms Taught
Publications
Fiction:
1. Vocación (novel). Lima: Peisa, 2024.
2. Expedición a Inca dormido (novel). Lima: Peisa, 2023.
3. Un escritor rural (novel). Lima: Peisa, 2021.
4. El imperio de las mareas (novel). Lima: Alfaguara, 2019.
5. Cuadernos de Obrajillo (fictional artifact). Co-written with Paul Baudry and Félix Terrones. Lima: Peisa, 2019.
6. Mi madre soñaba en francés (novel). Lima: Alfaguara, 2018.
7. La fiesta del humo (novel). Lima: Peisa, 2016.
8. Viaje al norte del verano (novel for young readers). Lima: Alfaguara, 2012.
9. La noche americana (novel). Lima: Peisa, 2011.
10. El futuro de mi cuerpo (novel). Lima: Estruendomudo editores, 2010.
*Second Edition: Miami: Suburbano, 2020.
11. El chamán y la sacerdotisa (novel for young readers). Lima: Peisa, 2007.
12. Fotografías de sala (book of short stories). Lima: Alfaguara, 2007.
13. Hotel Europa (novel). Lima: Peisa, 2005.
14. Casa de Islandia (novel). Lima: Estruendomudo editores, 2004 and 2014.
Academic Books:
1. Comunidades efímeras. Grupos de vanguardia y neovanguardia en la novela hispanoamericana del siglo XX. New York: Peter Lang, 2015. Print.
Comunidades efímeras studies a theme present in a corpus of canonical 20th century Spanish American novels from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, and Chile (1929-1998): the avant-garde or neo-avant-garde group of subversive artists and intellectuals who assemble to transform life into art, conspire against official institutions, and experiment with social-life models. The book offers a critical reading of the fictional representation of such groups in novels by Roberto Arlt, Leopoldo Marechal, Julio Cortázar, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Fernando del Paso, and Roberto Bolaño. The communities that protagonize these works can be described as ephemeral circles of aesthetes engaged in the pursuit of radical collective experiences. Comunidades efímeras argues that the ethos of the historical avant-gardes, and of its neo-avant-garde iterations, is transfigured in the Spanish American context by groups that engage in the aesthetization of communal life and in the production of alternative cultural fields. In these spaces of shared alterity, marginal subjects create their own order while challenging hegemonic discourses of art, culture, politics, and national belonging. The enduring legacy of the avant-garde and its centrality to Spanish American literature is palpable in the texts analyzed here, which range from the 1920s to the 1990s and beyond.
2. Han cambiado de agua tus ojos. Alfonso Cisneros Cox. Poética, poesía, persona. In memoriam. Edited by Luis H. Castañeda, César Lengua, and Patricia Saldarriaga. Lima: Sur, 2016. Print.
3. Alternative Communities in Latin American and Iberian Literature. Edited by Luis H. Castañeda and Javier González. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2016. Print.
4. Un asombro renovado. Vanguardias contemporáneas en América Latina. Edited by Matthew Bush and Luis H. Castañeda. Frankfurt-Madrid: Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2017. Print.
Articles and Chapters:
“Toxic Masculinity in the Contemporary Latin American Literary Sphere: A Reading of Mona (2019) by Pola Oloixarac.” Hispanic Journal 44.2 (Fall 2023): 15-33.
“Fenomenología de la blanquitud en Animales luminosos de Jeremías Gamboa.” Confluencia: Revista Hispánica de Cultura y Literatura 38.2 (Spring 2023): 133-143.
“La huella de Mario Levrero en Días laborables (2018) de Diego Otero.” América sin nombre 27 (2022): 42-53.
“La postmemoria de la izquierda latinoamericana en Nuevos juguetes de la Guerra Fría de Juan Manuel Robles.” Romance notes 58.1 (2018): 157-166. Print.
Bush, Matthew and Castañeda, Luis H. “Procedimientos de la nostalgia: Bolaño y Aira frente a la vanguardia.” Co-authored book chapter in Un asombro renovado. Vanguardias contemporáneas en América Latina. Edited by Matthew Bush and Luis H. Castañeda. Madrid and Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2017. 221-243. Print.
“Cambiar de piel: migración, literatura mundial y ciudadanía posnacional en El síndrome de Ulises de Santiago Gamboa.” Finisterre: en el último lugar del mundo. Migraciones en la cultura y literatura hispanoamericanas. Edited by Wladimir Chávez Vaca and Leonor Taiano. Mexico City: Editorial Grupo Destiempos, 2017. 36-56. Print.
“Two Peruvian Circles of Artists: Artistic Communities and Globalization in the Novels of Iván Thays and Rodrigo Núñez Carvallo.” Alternative Communities in Latin American and Iberian Literature. Edited by Luis H. Castañeda and Javier González. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2016. 215-235. Print.
“Vanguardia y violencia en el Cono Sur: Bolaño relee a Arlt.” Cuadernos de literatura 29.39 (2016): 312- 337. Published by Pontificia Universidad Javierana de Bogotá, Colombia. Print.
Castañeda, Luis H. and Marambio, Victoria ‘14.5 (Middlebury graduate).”Batallas cotidianas en Sueños bárbaros de Rodrigo Núñez Carvallo: cine independiente, performance comunitaria y resistencia ¿democrática? en el Perú de Sendero y Fujimori.” Chasqui. Revista de literatura latinoamericana XLIV.2 (Nov. 2015): 33-49. Print.
“Zonas de penumbra, fisuras profundas, oquedades abismales: escritura autobiográfica, reflexión ensayística y definición de la experiencia en El arte de la fuga de Sergio Pitol.” Revista iberoamericana 250 (Enero-Marzo 2015): 183-200. Print.
“Los signos y las armas en Historia de Mayta de Mario Vargas Llosa. La revolución post-utópica del autor latinoamericano en las décadas finales del siglo XX.” Confluencia. Revista hispánica de cultura y literatura 30.2 (Spring 2015): 25-39. Print.