Brown University, Department of Hispanic Studies

At Hispanic Studies we celebrate our newly minted PhD grads Alba Lara Granero, David Lal Parsard and Ben Easton (Carmen Urbita joined from afar). Felicitaciones! We also celebrate the Kossoff Prize given to Jamila Medina Ríos and Giovanna Gobbi (posthumously).

Join us for the Hispanic Studies Capstone Colloquium!
📆 Tuesday, May 5
🕰️ 3:00 - 5:30 PM
📍Music Room, 84 Prospect St.

Come celebrate the incredible work of our graduating seniors in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures as they present highlights from their academic journeys and share the projects that have defined their time as HISP students!

Celebrate Sant Jordi: Book Swap & Floral Games!

To celebrate this Diada de Sant Jordi, we would like to invite you to participate in a version of the traditional Jocs Florals (Floral Games) with a microfiction contest.

Rules for the Contest:

- Anyone is eligible to participate.
- Please submit an original microfiction creation of 300 words max.
- Submissions can be in English or any Romance language (i.e. Catalan, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian).
- Please submit through the QR link by Friday, April 17, 2026.

Winners will have their works publishes on the Hispanic Studies instagram account and receive a book prizes!

On the Day of Sant Jordi, we invite you to bring a book (in any language) that you would like to swap during our lunchtime event at Rochambeau House (84 Prospect St.) on April 23 from 12 - 1pm.

Please join us for “Reinaldo Arenas, the Impure: A Conversation with René Cifuentes” presented by René Cifuentes on Thursday, April 16 at 4pm in the Library at 84 Prospect St.

René Cifuentes was born in Cuba in 1953 and arrived in the United States in 1980. In 1983, together with Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas and other exiled writers, he founded the magazine Mariel (1983–1985) in New York, which served as an aesthetic and political platform for artists and writers who had suffered persecution on the island. As a member himself of the “Mariel Generation”, Cifuentes amassed a collection of memorabilia from years of friendship with Reinaldo Arenas, a personal archive that includes photographs, handwritten notes, personal objects and telephone message recordings, among others. His articles and works of fiction appeared in Mariel as well as several others across the United States and Latin America. For eighteen years, he worked at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Drawing from a catauro (trove) of friendship experiences in New York—from their arrival in the city to the day of Arenas death by suicide—Cifuentes’ talk proposes an affective and artifact-based approach to the figure and complex personality of the man behind Before Night Falls. Offering a canonization based more on the body than on the body of work, this talk/conversation traces Reinaldo Arenas’ life’s journey—from his departure from Cuba, through the shifting realities of 1980s gay New York amid the AIDS crisis, to the founding of Mariel, more than a literary magazine, an essential chapter in the history of Cuban exile fight against political repression and homophobia institutionalized by the state.

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René Cifuentes nació en Cuba en 1953 y llegó a Estados Unidos en 1980. En 1983, junto a Reinaldo Arenas y otros escritores exiliados fundó la revista Mariel (1983-1985) en Nueva York, que sirvió de plataforma estética y política a artistas y escritores que habían sufrido persecución en la isla. Miembro de la llamada Generación del Mariel, atesora una colección memorabílica resultante de los años de amistad con Reinaldo Arenas: fotografías, dedicatorias manuscritas de sus libros, objetos personales, registros de llamadas telefónicos y mensajes de voz. Sus artículos y ficciones aparecieron en Mariel y otras revistas de Estados Unidos y América Latina. Durante dieciocho años trabajó en el Museo de Arte Moderno (MoMA).

Partiendo de un catauro de experiencias compartidas en el Nueva York del exilio––desde la llegada a esa ciudad hasta el día de la muerte por suicidio de Arenas–, Cifuentes ofrece un acercamiento afectivo y memorabílico a la figura y compleja personalidad del hombre detrás de Antes que anochezca. Con una propuesta de canonización más por el cuerpo que por la obra, esta charla/conversatorio sigue los trazos de Reinaldo Arenas a lo largo de un periplo que va desde su salida de Cuba, las peripecias en el Nueva York gay y del sida de los 80, y la fundación de Mariel––más que una revista literaria, un capítulo esencial en la historia de la lucha del exilio cubano contra la homofobia y la represión política institucionalizadas por el Estado.

THIS EVENT WILL BE IN SPANISH