What: 19th Conference on Contemporary Mexican Literature (XIX Congreso de Literatura Mexicana Contemporánea)
When: 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. daily, Thursday, March 6 to Saturday, March 8
Where: Union Building East, 3rd floor; keynote at El Paso Natural Gas Conference Center on Wiggins Road
UTEP presents the 19th Conference on Contemporary Mexican Literature (XIX Congreso de Literatura Mexicana Contemporánea) beginning Friday, March 7. All events are free and open to the public.
Keynote speaker Debra A. Castillo, Ph.D., will give a lecture titled “Tiny Terrorists,” about the violence of organized crime as it impacts children recruited as hit men. Castillo is a professor at Cornell University and leader in the analysis of contemporary Spanish fiction, gender studies and cultural theory.
Castillo’s lecture is part of UTEP’s Centennial Celebration and will take place at 5 p.m. Friday, March 7 in the El Paso Natural Gas Conference Center on the UTEP campus.
This year’s conference will have a special focus on the works of Octavio Paz, Efraín Huerta and José Revueltas, as 2014 celebrates the 100th birthday of each of these major Mexican authors.
Among the conference’s nearly 200 participants will be many more leaders in contemporary Mexican literature including Sergio Mondragón, Federico Patán, Evodio Escalante, Martín Camps, Eloy Urroz and Rafael Lemus.
Attendees will have the opportunity to buy works by many of the attending authors, who will be available to sign copies of their books. Also on sale will be the recently published 60th edition of UTEP-based literary journal Revista de Literatura Mexicana Contemporánea (http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?alias=academics.utep.edu%2Frlmc).
Find more information about the conference at http://ia.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=73210 or https://www.facebook.com/congreso.mexicana. Media inquiries can be directed to Daniel Centeno Maldonado, Ph.D., conference coordinator, at 915-747-7043.