Dr. Cortez received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature and Cultural Studies from Georgetown University, Washington, DC. His research focus includes Colonial and Postcolonial Studies; Theories of the Archive; Intellectual History; Andean Studies; Indigenismo in Literature and Painting; Iconography of the Incas; Latin American Cinema; Latin American Poetry; New World Historiography; Transatlantic Studies; and Historical Fiction. He teaches upper-division and graduate courses in Latin American Literature.
Research Statement:
My primary area of research is focused on how discourses of nation building at the beginning of the republican period have incorporated the accounts of the Conquest and the New World. In my book, Biografía y polémica: El Inca Garcilaso y el archivo colonial andino en el siglo XIX, I examine the historiography related to Inca Garcilaso, as well as the controversy over the historical and literary value of his work. Compared to the 17th and 18th century historiography of the Incas, where Garcilaso’s work was a central source of information, during the 19th century his authority as a historian was questioned and discredited. He was no longer considered an accurate historian, but rather, because of his indigenous mind, a literary author, supposedly naïve and vulnerable to fable. In this context, the biographical account constructed by Peruvian intellectuals in the early 20th century took the form of an historical rehabilitation. The work of the Inca was once again considered as a truthful account of history, but one that also had literary merit. From a transnational point of view, this biographical research produced by the Peruvian historians José Toribio Polo, Manuel González de la Rosa, and José de la Riva-Agüero presents a discursive space of dialogue and polemic with the work of 19th century historians such as William H. Prescott and George Ticknor in the United States, and Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo in Spain.
Another line of research, I have begun recently, analyzes how the collections of accounts of the Conquests and the New World have been organized and produced from the 16th to the 19th centuries. In doing so, I am paying special attention to the most important editorial projects of the nineteenth century that return to colonial texts: the Series of Voyages of Discovery, Maritime Exploration, and Historical Travel Accounts of the Hakluyt Society, established in London, and the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, in Madrid. In this project, I explore the material conditions that made these two major European collections possible, addressing appropriations of the so-called colonial American archive into discourses of national foundation for both England and Spain.
I am also interested in carrying out further research on the dialogue between culture and historical representation as well as on the visual arts (especially painting relating to ideas of race) in modern and contemporary Latin America. Since my areas of research include the literature of not only Latin America, but also of Spain, the United States, and England, my approach is defined by a series of questions that are generally transatlantic in scope. My interest in visual arts goes further, as I am also interested in filmed representations of the colonial period as well as the portrayal of indigenous people in the recent Latin American cinema.
Refereed Publications:
Books:
- Cortez, Enrique E. Biografía y polémica: El Inca Garcilaso y el archivo colonial andino en el siglo XIX. Madrid and Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2018.
- Cortez, Enrique E. Incendiar el Presente: La narrativa peruana de la violencia política y el archivo (1984-1989). Edición, estudio y suplemento testimonial. Lima: Campo Letrado, 2018.
- Cortez, Enrique E., and Gwen Kirkpatrick, eds. Estar en el presente: Literatura y nación desde el Bicentenario. Lima and Berkeley: Latinoamericana Editores/CELACP, 2012. 513 pp.
Special Volume in Journals:
- Hispanismo y Hegemonía (Editor with Leila Gómez), Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana XLI, 82 (2015).
- 400 años de El primer nueva coronica y buen gobierno (Editor with Jorge Valenzuela Garcés), Letras: Órgano de la Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas 85.121 (2014).
Book Chapters:
- Cortez, Enrique E. “Prescott y los Incas de Garcilaso en el siglo XIX.” New Readings in Latin American and Spanish Literary and Cultural Studies. Ed. Laura M. Martins. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. 101-20.
- Cortez, Enrique E., and Gwen Kirkpatrick. “El Bicentenario, una efeméride pendiente.” Introductory chapter to Estar en el presente: Literatura y nación desde el Bicentenario. Ed. Enrique E. Cortez and Gwen Kirkpatrick. Lima and Berkeley: Latinoamericana Editores/CELACP, 2012. 13-32.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “Don Álvaro y el Inca: del mestizaje armónico al sujeto migrante.” Renacimiento Mestizo: Los 400 años de los Comentarios Reales. José Antonio Mazzotti, Ed. Madrid and Frankfurt: Iberoamericana and Vervuet, 2010. 303-25.
Articles:
- Cortez, Enrique E. “José María Arguedas, etnógrafo: Campo cultural y mestizaje.” Letras: Órgano de la Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas 87.125 (2016): 69-91.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “El Inca Garcilaso, ‘clásico de América’, en las obras de José de la Riva-Agüero y Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 82 (2015): 73-94.
- Cortez, Enrique E., and Leila Gómez. “Hispanismo y hegemonía en las Américas. Una introducción.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 82 (2015): 9-20.
- Cortez, Enrique E., and Jorge Valenzuela Garcés. “Don Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala y el Primer nueva coronica y buen gobierno 400 años después.” Letras: Órgano de la Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas 85.121 (2014): 5-11.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “Mestizaje y revolución en El cóndor pasa de Julio Baudouin.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 80 (2014): 39-56.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “Canon, hispanismo y literatura colonial: El Inca Garcilaso en el proyecto de historia literaria de Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo.” Modern Language Notes (Hispanic Issue) 128.2 (2013): 277-99.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “Cristobal Nonato: Nombre, utopía y ficción colombina.” INTI 75-76 (2012): 114-21.
- Reprinted in Carlos Fuentes en el siglo XXI. Una lectura transatlántica de su obra. Ed. Julio Ortega. Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 2015. 133-143.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “José María Arguedas y el concepto de experiencia.” Taller de Letras 51 (2012): 101-113.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “Sobre el testimonio en El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 72 (2010): 125-48.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “Writing the Mestizo: José María Arguedas as Ethnographer.” Latin American & Caribbean Ethnic Studies 4.2 (2009): 171-189.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “La ficción garcilasista: El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega en la narrativa peruana.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 68 (2008): 125-48. Print.
- Reprinted in Garcilasismo creativo y crítico: nueva antología. Eds. Eduardo González-Viaña and José Antonio Mazzotti. Eugene/New York/Lima: Axiara Editions, 2016.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “José María Arguedas y una historia literaria alternativa.” INTI 67-68 (Primavera-Otoño 2008): 245-51.
- Cortez, Enrique E. “La aventura fantástica: La representación como conflicto en Julio Ramón Ribeyro.” Revista Iberoamericana 222 (2008): 227-42.