Enrique García
Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies

- Office
- Painter House 208
- Tel
- (802) 443-5272
- egarcia@middlebury.edu
- Office Hours
- On leave (AY 2024/2025)
Enrique García is Professor of Hispanic Visual Culture. He holds a B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (2007). His research focuses on international Hispanic/Latinx genre cinema and comic books.
In addition to a wide variety of language and culture classes, Enrique has been teaching a class on Hispanic/Latinx superhero parodies at Middlebury, possibly the only course of its kind in the U.S. He also teaches classes about Hispanic Athletes, Hispanic Horror Films, Hispanic Musicals, and Caribbean Music Genres.
Enrique is currently preparing his book on Puerto Rico and the Superhero Genre for publication. His future plans include co-writing with Nikolina Dobreva a book on Postmodern Hispanic Musicals and another on orientalist comic book adventures published in the Americas.
Courses Taught
IGST 0703
Current
Upcoming
LAS Senior Thesis
Course Description
Latin American Studies Senior Thesis
(Approval Required)
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
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 0315
Upcoming
Hispanic Film
Course Description
Hispanic Film
The cinema is a space of social interaction, of entertainment, of bodily (dis)pleasure, of cultural critique, of commerce, of many things. In this course we will study, with a focus on comparative analysis, the text and context of films produced throughout the Hispanic world. Through examining the work of filmmakers from diverse backgrounds, we will closely analyze film form and engage key debates in film theory such as authorship, genre (comedy, documentary, melodrama, etc.), and (trans)national cinema, as well as explore the ways in which class, culture, disability, history, politics, race, and sexuality are represented cinematically. Critical, scholarly, and theoretical readings will supplement film viewings. (SPAN 0220 or placement) 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0329
Superhero Parodies
Course Description
Superhero Parodies
In this class we will discuss how the superhero/adventure genre in comic books was initially constructed as a mouthpiece of traditionalist nationalist values in the United States and Spain. Through the study of theories of intertextuality and postcolonial theory, students will analyze how Hispanic/Latin comic book creators from Europe and the Americas have parodied the hegemonic values that have influenced our views of economics, gender, and race with the goals of bringing diversity and inclusion in this particular graphic narrative genre. (SPAN 0220 or placement) 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0348
Afro-Caribbean Music Genres
Course Description
Afro-Caribbean Music Genres
In this course we will study Afro-Caribbean music genres (eg, reggae, mambo, salsa, merengue, reggaeton, and calypso) and their impact within the region and on the global stage. Our main goal will be to compare the contested theoretical concept of cultural hybridity among the larger Caribbean nations (Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Dominican Republic) and their diasporas. We will also explore how Caribbean musicians and superstars work within the global infrastructure of the music/dance industry, while occasionally managing to counter the hegemonic erasure of the legacy of Black rebellion, worker revolution, nationalism, and racial/gender politics. (SPAN 0220 or 300 level Spanish course) 3 hrs. lect
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0349
Hispanic Athletes
Course Description
Hispanic Athletes: Sports, Nationalist Culture, and the Global Media
In this course, we will study sports as an essential part in the construction of nationalist pride and perceptions of race, class, and gender in several Hispanic nation-states and subcultures in Europe and the Americas. We will analyze fictional narrative content such as literature and films (Pepe el Toro, Sugar, Black Diamonds, and many others). In addition, we will also explore how media outlets such as newspapers, magazines, videogames, documentaries, and the internet affect our perceptions of sporting events and their superstars to create controversies, support hegemonic nationalist ideas, and further the commercial ambitions of corporations. (SPAN 0220 or placement) 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0361
Hispanic Musical Films
Course Description
Hispanic Musical Films
In this course we will study Hispanic musical films (including fiction and documentaries) from Spain, Latin America, and the United States. Our main goal will be to understand how Hispanic countries use this cinematic genre to establish nationalist constructions and ideologies, and how this has consequently affected the development of Hispanic musical narratives in the United States. Analyses will focus on how different ethnic aspects are defined as 'Other' in musical genres such as Flamenco, Tango, Rancheras, Tex-Mex, Salsa, Reggaeton, Merengue, and Spanish Rock. We will explore why Hispanic musicals are perceived as exotic in relation to their Anglophone counterparts while studying films such as Buena Vista Social Club, Allá en el rancho grande, Selena, and El día que me quieras. (At least two Spanish courses at the 0300 level or above, or by waiver) 3 hrs. lect./screening
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0386
ExploringOrientalistAdventures
Course Description
Exploring Orientalist Adventures in the Americas
In this class we will study 20th and 21st century adventure narratives from the Americas to explore how artists have struggled to represent Asian or Middle East cultures within or against Western imperialist ideologies. We will use Edward Said’s seminal work Orientalism as a theoretical framework and study how racist narratives are predominant within our industrial mass media (radio, serials, films, comic books, social media, and streaming services). Furthermore, we will explore how new gender and race paradigms have provided space for adventure narratives that attempt to dismantle the biases against Asian citizens in the Americas. This class will cover from Martial Arts narratives in the United States to Mexican Geisha comic books to Argentinean adventures in the Middle East.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0497
Hispanic Musical Films
Course Description
Hispanic Musical Films
In this course we will study Hispanic musical films (including fiction and documentaries) from Spain, Latin America, and the United States. Our main goal will be to understand how Hispanic countries use this cinematic genre to establish nationalist constructions and ideologies, and how this has consequently affected the development of Hispanic musical narratives in the United States. Analyses will focus on how different ethnic aspects are defined as 'Other' in musical genres such as Flamenco, Tango, Rancheras, Tex-Mex, Salsa, Reggaeton, Merengue, and Spanish Rock. We will explore why Hispanic musicals are perceived as exotic in relation to their Anglophone counterparts while studying films such as Buena Vista Social Club, Allá en el rancho grande, Selena, and El día que me quieras. (At least two Spanish courses at the 0300 level or above, or by waiver) 3 hrs. lect./screening (formerly SPAN 0361)
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0500
Current
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
Current
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
Books
Garcia, Enrique. The Hernandez Brothers: Love, Rockets, and Alternative Comics. U of Pittsburgh P, 2017.
Garcia, Enrique. Cuban Cinema After the Cold War: A Critical Analysis of Selected Films. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.
Articles
“Latino and Stripper Miscegenation: Family Apocalypse and Mestizaje/Miscegenation Parody in Robert Rodríguez’ Planet Terror.” Post Script. 33:3 (Summer 2014). 59-72.
Honorable mention for the NECLAS (New England Council of Latin American Studies) 2015 Joseph T. Criscenti Best Article Prize. Awarded for the article “Latino and Stripper Miscegenation: Family Apocalypse and Mestizaje/Miscegenation Parody in Robert Rodríguez’ Planet Terror.” November, 2015.
“Coon Imagery in Will Eisner’s The Spirit and Yolanda Vargas Dulché’s Memín Pinguín and Its Legacy in the Contemporary United States and Mexican Comic Book Industry.” International Journal of Comic Art. 12:2-3 (Fall 2010): 112-124.
“The Use of Haiti’s Henri Christophe in the Work of Derek Walcott, Aimé Césaire, and Alejo Carpentier and His Visual Representation in the Melodramatic Mexican Comic Book Fuego.” Jean-François Chassay and Bertrand Gervais, eds. Paroles, textes et images: Formes et pouvoirs de l’imaginaire. Université du Québec à Montréal/Figura, Centre de recherche sur le texte et l’imaginaire, coll. “Figura” 19:1 (2008): 179-91.
“Turey el Taíno and La Borinqueña: Puerto Rican Nationalist and Ethnic Resistance in Puerto Rican Comics Dealing with Taíno Cultural Heritage.” Graphic Indigeneity: Comics in the Americas and Australasia. Edited by Frederick Luis Aldama. University Press of Mississippi. Forthcoming in June 2020.
“Salsa on Film: (Corporate) Stars, Local Communities, and Global Audiences: From Our Latin Thing to El Cantante.” Co-written with Nikolina Dobreva. Forthcoming from the U of Arizona Press in Latinx Ciné in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Frederick Aldama. 2019.
“Chapter 11: The Latina Superheroine: Protecting the Reader from the Comic Book Industry’s Racial, Gender, Ethnic, and Nationalist Biases.” Ed. Frederick Aldama. Comics Studies Here and Now. New York: Routledge, 2018.
“Chapter 8: The Industry and Aesthetics of Latino Comic Books.” The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Popular Culture. Ed. Frederick Luis Aldama. New York and London: Routledge, 2016. 101-109.
“Planet Terror Redux: Miscegenation and Family Apocalypse.” Critical Approaches to the Films of Robert Rodríguez. Ed. Frederick Aldama. Austin: U of Texas P, 2015. 141-156.
“La représentation de l’impérialisme américain et des superhéros du troisième monde dans les aventures des personnages de bande dessinée: le Cubain Elpidio Valdés et le Portoricain Turey el Taíno [The Representation of American Imperialism and Third-World Superheroes in the Comic Book Adventures of Cuba’s Elpidio Valdés and Puerto Rico’s Turey el Taíno.].” Texte, Image, Imaginaire. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007. Ed. Jean-Louis Tilleuil and Myriam Watthee-Delmotte. 425-37.
Encyclopedia Entries
“Arroyo, Carlos (1979-).” (~1000 words). Lives from History: Latinos. Eds. Carmen Tafolla and Martha Cotera. Ipswich, Mass: Salem Press, 2012. 88-90.
“Olmos, Edward James (1947-).” (~1500 words). Lives from History: Latinos. Eds. Carmen Tafolla and Martha Cotera. Ipswich, Mass: Salem Press, 2012. 677-78.
“Trejo, Danny (1944-).” (~1000 words). Lives from History: Latinos. Eds. Carmen Tafolla and Martha Cotera. Ipswich, Mass: Salem Press, 2012. 900-01.