Literature and Art Coincide in Books Edited by Spanish Professor

Isabel Alvarez-Borland might not be teaching any classes at Holy Cross this semester, but no one could confuse her sabbatical with a vacation.

Alvarez-Borland, a professor in the Spanish section of the department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the College, directed the Latin American Studies concentration through 2008. Last November, she was awarded the Monsignor Edward G. Murray Professorship in the Humanities at Holy Cross, a position which she will assume in July.

Until then, Alvarez-Borland says she’s making the most of her time away from the College. She is helping appraise the modern language program at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and is a reviewer for the American Council of Learned Societies.

Alvarez-Borland is also writing a book on images of migration in Cuban exilic art, her first since Cuban-American Literature of Exile: From Person to Persona (University of Virginia Press, 1998).

This forthcoming book is the latest in a string of publications for Alvarez-Borland. Most notably are two recent book anthologies, Identity, Memory, and Diaspora (2008) and Negotiating Identities in Cuban-American Art and Literature (2009). The first is a collection of interviews with writers and artists, the second volume is an anthology of scholarly articles. Both were co-edited by Alvarez-Borland.

The two projects germinated in a similar manner. In 2006, Alvarez-Borland served as a co-director for a National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar at the University of Buffalo. The NEH seminar, which focused on Cuban-American literature, art, and philosophy, was attended by 15 college professors working in connected fields, and it was here that Alvarez-Borland and her co-directors decided to organize and publish these volumes together.

“At the seminar, we decided that we really wanted to use this experience, and we wanted to create two books which would capture the essence of what we were trying to teach at the seminar,” she says.

That experience has translated well into both of Alvarez-Borland’s new volumes, which aim to show, she says, “the amazing dialogue between art and literature,” which was the cross-disciplinary thrust of her NEH seminar.

For the most current book, Negotiating Identities in Cuban-American Art and Literature — published as a part of the State University of New York series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture — Alvarez-Borland and her co-director Lynette Bosch, professor of art history at SUNY Geneseo, each drew on noteworthy writers in their specialized field.

Alvarez-Borland brought in works on literature and Cuban-American theory, and Bosch added pieces focusing on art and imagery within the community. The works of several Cuban-American artists were acquired from artists and collectors and exhibited at the University of Buffalo. Professor Alvarez-Borland enabled these works to also be exhibited at Holy Cross’ Cantor Art Gallery in winter of 2007.

The essay volume has contributions from 11 well-known academics who are engaged in diverse scholarship — from “studying art and culture in Miami, to teaching Cuban literature in some of the best schools in the country,” says Alvarez-Borland. Through the lens of each particular author, the text seeks to investigate the issues of identity and biculturalism which are important not only to Cuban-Americans, but to any and all immigrant groups.

Talking about the frenetic pace of turning out two academic collections in two years, Alvarez-Borland laughs, “we’ve been working hard. But I think that these books were important to do, for the angle that they take in exploring the issues of the diaspora experience.”

Ultimately, Alvarez-Borland hopes to continue to use the research that has gone into her publications when she returns to teach in the Montserrat program at Holy Cross next year.

“When I do my seminars next year, I really want to bring the books into class,” she says. “The students are great readers, and I think we’ll be able to discuss the essays and the visuals, and really be able to figure some important things out.”

By Ross Weisman ’09