Conferences, Colloquia and Speakers

Every year, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Irvine hosts the Juan Bruce-Novoa Conference on Mexican Studies. Over the course of more than twenty-five editions, the conference has established itself as a key gathering for scholars and graduate students dedicated to the study of Mexican culture. The event features a distinguished lineup of keynote speakers, which in recent years has included Natalia Toledo, Yuri Herrera, Maite Zubiaurre, Myriam Moscona, Magali Lara, Mariana Mora, Sara Poot-Herrera, and Ignacio Sánchez Prado.
 

Our Distinguished Speaker Series showcases the most prominent figures in Spanish, Latin American, and Caribbean scholarship and cultural life. Previous speakers have included renowned scholars such as Rafael Rojas (CIDE, Mexico), Juan Ramón Resina (Iberian and Latin American Cultures, Stanford), Michael Gerli (Spanish, University of Virginia), and Germán Labrador Méndez (Spanish, Princeton). This Fall 2024, we hosted Professor Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes from the University of Michigan who gave a talk on Ana Macho and Tropical Decolonial Drag.  
To learn more about the Distinguished Speaker Series, please contact our Department Chair, Horacio Legrás at (hlegras@uci.edu).

Every quarter the department invites two scholars to share their research with faculty and graduate students. Recent visitors include Robert Patrick Newcomb (UC Davis), María Lourdes Dávila (NYU), Bruno Bosteels (Cornell University), Carlos Pabón (Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras), Juan F. Egea (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Santiago Fernández Mosquera (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain), Jesús Torrecilla (UCLA), Luis Martín-Cabrera (UC-San Diego), Enrique García Santo-Tomás (University of Michigan), David Herzberger (UC-Riverside), Agnes Lugo-Ortiz (University of Chicago), Gloria Gervitz (Mexico), Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé (Fordham University), Maite Zubiarre (UCLA), Steve Hutchinson (University of Madison-Wisconsin), Elizabth B. Davis (Ohio State University), Maru Pabón (Yale University) and Pierre Folliet (Yale University).
Visits are announced via email and social media.

 A number of international scholars stay at UCI sponsored by our department. While a stay in Southern California facilitates their research, their presence at UCI is an important enrichment of our cultural life. Recent visitors include Lorena Amaro (Universidad Católica, Chile), Claudio Guerrero Valenzuela (Universidad Católica Valparaiso, Chile), Denise Leon (Conicet Argentina), Brigitte Adriaensen (Radboud University, Netherlands), and Miguel Gutiérrez Mate (Universidad Complutense, Madrid). 

The Graduate Student Colloquium provides a dynamic platform for our graduate students to present their research and work in progress. This annual event fosters intellectual exchange, offering students the opportunity to share their ideas, receive constructive feedback, and engage with peers and faculty members in a collaborative academic environment. The colloquium highlights the diverse research interests within our department and showcases the innovative work being undertaken by our emerging scholars. It serves as a crucial step in the professional development of our graduate students, preparing them for future academic and professional endeavors.