International Conference Celebrates Don Quixotes Fourth Centenary

The University of Wyoming will join people throughout the Hispanic world and beyond to commemorate the fourth centenary of the publication of Cervantes’ literary masterpiece, “Don Quixote, Part 11.”

The UW event, featuring talks by nationally-recognized distinguished scholars, is scheduled Saturday and Sunday, April 25-26, in Room 57 of the College of Business Building. It continues an international conference, “Cervantes in the American West,” that starts April 23 at the University of Colorado, Denver.

Three renowned scholars, along with several professors and students, will present and participate in the free public events at UW.

The three keynote talks at UW:

Saturday, April 25, 9 a.m. -- Mercedes Alcala Galan, University of Wisconsin-Madison, ”Episodios Ekfrasticos en el Quijote II.” She is a specialist in early modern Spanish literature whose research is oriented primarily toward topics in poetics and gender studies with special emphasis on visual studies. She has published 40 articles on early modern literature as well as contemporary Spanish literature.

Saturday, April  25, 5 p.m. -- Steven Hutchinson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Narrating the Return Journey.” Hutchinson’s first book, “Cervantine Journeys,” investigates the relations between writing and travel, while his second book, “Economía Ética en Cervantes,” proposes a rethinking of ethics in literary studies. He has written more than 50 articles on topics including utopian thought, poetics, rhetoric, emotion, eroticism, geography, race, and cultural and religious otherness. He is vice president of the Cervantes Society of America.

Sunday, April 26, 10:45 a.m. -- Edwin Williamson, University of Oxford, “Authority and Power in Don Quixote Part II.” His teaching and publications reflect his interest in both Latin America and early-modern Spain. His books include “The Half-way House of Fiction: Don Quixote and Arthurian Romance”; “Cervantes and the Modernists” and “Autoridad y poder en el Siglo de Oro (2009).” He also wrote the “The Penguin History of Latin America.” His works have been translated into seven languages.

The conference is sponsored by the UW Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Wyoming Humanities Council, Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research and the Goode Family Excellence Fund.  For more information, email conference organizer Conxita Domenech at cdomenec@uwyo.edu.