Amauri Gutiérrez Coto was promoted this month to Full Professor at Lafayette College. As an alumnus of our Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Prof. Gutiérrez-Coto received the PhD in Spanish with a concentration in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Arizona in 2015. He joined the Languages & Literary Studies faculty in August 2015. His teaching and research interests are primarily focused on Caribbean studies, poetry, LGBTQ+ studies, material culture, and visual studies. His affiliated faculty prove his commitment to interdisciplinary studies in the programs: Africana Studies (Fall 2017-Present), Latin American & Caribbean Studies (Spring 2016-Present), Medieval, Renaissance, & Early-Modern Studies (Fall 2017-Present) Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies (Spring 2020-Present), and International Affairs (Spring 2020-Present).
In 2008, he won the National Prize for Essay “José María Heredia,” awarded by the Cuban Union of Writers and Artists. Among this and other distinctions, he has received two publishing grants from the government of Spain’s Ministry of Culture (2010, 2015).
He also has authored four scholarly monographs, including a literary history – Canon, historia y archive: La segunda promoción de escritores afrodescendientes en el siglo XIX cubano. Volume 1, (2023) –, and eleven edited volumes, including his last two critical editions – Canon, historia y archivo: Obras reunidas de Ambrosio Echmendía y Manuel Roblejo, Volume 2, (2023), and Canon, historia y archivo: Obras reunidas de Antonio Medina y Céspedes, Volume 3, (2023). As previously mentioned, the trilogy – entitled Canon, historia y archive – included one monography and two edited volumes. These three volumes are the first academic study devoted to the second promotion of Afro-descendant writers in the 19th century in Cuba. Ágrafa pira (2023) is the most recent of Prof. Gutiérrez-Coto’s four books of poetry.
His scholarly articles appear in several journals, including Cuban Studies, Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba, Camino Real: Revista de estudios norteamericanos, and Celestinesca.
From 2015-2018, Dr. Gutiérrez-Coto served as editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal Caribe, revista de cultura y literatura (Founded at the University of Hawaii in 1976). He was also an editorial board member of Chasqui, revista de literatura latinoamericana (Arizona State University) and Transatlántica: Poetry and Scholarship (Case Western Reserve University).
