Spanish: Poetry through the Ages, Spanish and Latin American Literary and Cultural Criticism, Relationship among the Arts, The Creative Process.
Born and raised in the Dominican Republic, Rei Berroa spent his formative years in his home country, went to Puerto Rico for his undergraduate studies, and taught Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry in the Dominican Republic. In 1973, he spent a year studying at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala. At the end of that year, he returned to his original country to teach History and Geography at Instituto San Juan Bautista in Santo Domingo. That summer he went to Spain and in the fall returned to Puerto Rico to teach at Colegio San Antonio Abad in Humacao.
In summer 1976 he went to Middlebury College in Vermont and moved to Spain. Besides studying at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and Middlebury College in Madrid, he spent three years in Spain writing poetry, researching all aspects of Spanish poetry, life, and culture and traveling from town to town with Eulalia, his guitar. In 1979, he went to Pittsburgh, PA, to complete his doctoral studies. Originally interested in the cultural myths of the Native Americans, he completed a dissertation on ideology and rhetoric in the writings of Spanish poet Miguel Hernández. Before arriving at George Mason University in the summer of 1984, he taught at Humboldt State University in California (1982-83) and at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois (1983-84).
His teaching and scholarly interests are mainly in the areas of contemporary Spanish and Latin American literature, culture, and literary theory (especially poetics). He has published more than 50 books of poetry, literary criticism, anthologies and translations in Argentina, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, India, Italy, Mexico, Romania, Spain, the United States, and Venezuela. His poetry has been partially translated into more than 40 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Romanian, Tamil, and Turkish.
Having finished and co-edited a volume on motherhood and poetics (published by Universidad de Nuevo León in Monterrey, México), Professor Berroa's research is now focused toward another new topic that has interested him for many years: the "poetics of heresy" ("poéticas heréticas" in Spanish), a research that combines literary and political theory with the historiography of dissent. That on top of his constant research on poetic expressions of all kind. At this moment there are three branches of research for his creative endeavors: the lullaby, what he calls the "bifid" expression of the dual language in which we live as bilingual individuals, and the world of aphorisms.
El cuerpo hendido: Poéticas de la m/p/aternidad. Co-edited with María Ángeles Pérez López, from the University of Salamanca (Essays, published November 2020 at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León, Monterrey, Mexico). https://tiendacasadellibro.uanl.mx/producto/el-cuerpo-hendido/
De quites y querencias: antojología de poemas y poéticas (1974-2014). Santo Domingo, D.R.: Publicaciones del Ministerio de Cultura, 2014. (A 557-page anthology of his poetry and his thoughts about the creative process and preactice.)
Eufemistica per vivere tranquilli [poetry anthology]. Translated into Italian by Gaetano Longo and Daria Potok. Trieste, Italy: Franco Puzzo Editore, 2011. Premio Internazionale Trieste Poesia 2011.
Aproximaciones a la literatura dominicana. Two Volumes. Santo Domingo, RD: Ediciones del Banco Central, 2008 (Volume I) & 2009 (Volume II).
With the support of our Korean colleagues in the Department, Professor Berroa was able to secure a grant from the Korea Foundation to fund 70% of a Korean professorship at GMU for the first five years of the position.
With the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain, Professor Berroa secured the presence in the department of an annual lecturer that would spend her/his time teaching in the department. The first lecturer, Ana Ruiz Alonso-Bartol, completed her tenure (August 2017-2020) and a new lecturer is on campus for the 2021-22 academic year, Dr. Carlos Javier Avilés López.
With Professor Lisa Gring-Pemble, at that time at New Century College, who directed the program in the summer 2011, Prof. Berroa directed the State Department Study of the United States Institute for Student Leaders [SUSI], Winter 2012. The program, titled: “E pluribus Unum—Out of Many, One: Contemporary United States’ Society in Context”, offered 21 students from underrepresented segments of the Bolivian, Paraguayan, and Peruvian societies the unforgettable opportunity to learn and experience the history, politics, life, and culture of the United States from January 6 to February 11, 2012.
SPAN 390, 001 / CRN 76615
INTRODUCTION TO THE ANALYSIS OF LITERARY & CULTURAL TEXT
Professor Rei Berroa
Meets Tuesday & Thursday 16:30 to 17:45 -5008 Horizon Hall
BRIEF COURSE DESCRIPTION
Spanish 390 is an introductory course that explores how the reading or performance of literary and cultural texts (poetry, short stories, one-act plays, cartoons, film clips) function when they reach our senses (mainly ears and eyes) and help us organize our ideals and beliefs, the world we live in and the world we want to shape with the social, political, and aesthetical realities of the community to which we belong. The course helps students to be better human beings by using as tools of transformation these acts of imagination that language has given us. Taught in Spanish, this class is an excellent opportunity to enrich your critical, analytical, and expressive skills in Spanish and to take them to levels you didn’t even think you were capable of reaching.
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SPAN 510: Methods of Literary and Cultural Studies / SPAN 685: Seminar in Literature and Ideas Wednesday, 4:30-7:10 pm (in-person)
Aquia Building 346
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE
This course is a graduate-level introduction to the theory of literary and cultural studies in Spanish. Although our main textbook and many of the other texts we will be reading are in English, the course is conducted in Spanish and is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates with the permission of the instructor. Students will be led to study the historical developments of key trends in literary and cultural studies, from classical poetics to formalism, structuralism/post-structuralism, postmodernity, and colonial, racial, gender and identity studies, among others. But, following our textbook, instead of reviewing these schools of theory and criticism, we will try to figure out what readers can do with theoretical concepts as tools for living, not just for writing research papers.
Rei Berroa completed his undergraduate work in Philosophy at the Catholic University of Puerto Rico (Ponce, 1970) and began his graduate work at Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Spain (Málaga,1974; Madrid, 1976). He completed MAs in Spanish Literature at Middlebury College (1977) and the University of Pittsburgh (1979), and his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh (1983).
"The Earth Belongs to Each and All of Us." Lecture delivered on February 2, 2022 at the annual Convocation of the Eastern Mennonite University.
“Performativity: New Waves to Experience Literary and Cultural Discourse.” Friday, March 22, 2019 University of Bergamo, Italy.
“Walt Whitman at 200: Poetry for the Common Man” delivered for faculty and all doctoral students at the University of Bergamo, Italy, on March 15, 2019.
Rei Berroa was invited to conduct research and lecture at the Università degli Studi di Bergamo March 11-25. Friday, March 15, his lecture
"Risa, vuelo y cebolla: tres versiones sin llanto de la ternura." IV Congreso Internacional Miguel Hernández. Alicante, Orihuela, Elche (España).15-18 de noviembre, 2017.
"Miguel Hernández and Elvio Romero." VIII Symposium on the Humanities, Universidad del Norte, Asunción, Paraguay. August 7-11, 2017.
On March 21, 2022, with poet Fernando Cabrera of the Dominican Republic and a technical team from Mason, Teatro de la Luna, the Catholic University of Santiago, Dominican Republic, and Festival Arte Vivo, also from Santiago, I organized a global poetic feast unlike any other: 24 hours of uninterrupted poetry readings to celebrate World Poetry Day. More than 400 voices and 1000 poems read from March 21, 00:00 hours to March 22, 00:00 hours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRPh-NL5c9U&t=371s or our Modern and Classical Languages channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HwrBeyfI9c
Lecture given at Eastern Mennonite University's annual Convocation. 2/2/2022. https://www.facebook.com/EasternMennonite/videos/497621111724326/
Presentation of the book El cuerpo hendido: poéticas de la m/p/aternidad. At Casa de la Cultura El Salvador. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FybUIs5_I1Q
Bilingual poetry reading at Eastern Mennonite University [2/1/2022], part of their annual "Writers Read" Series. https://www.facebook.com/EasternMennonite/videos/1938999186308659/
Interview at the GMU Institute for Immigration Research: iir.gmu.edu/immigrant-stories/dominican-republic/dominican-republic-summary-of-interview-with-dr-rei-berroa
Brief interview for GMU's Fourth Estate by Nayomi Santos: http://gmufourthestate.com/2019/09/16/faces-of-mason-36/
Reading his poem "Monte serrado" ["Mount Serrated" = Montserrat, in Catalunya], not "cerrado" as published in YouTube, in Granada, Nicaragua: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chf22yq00wA
The VIII International Dominican Book Fair of New York was dedicated to his work. Here is his brief speech accepting this honor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEJt_0e_yoU
A 1987 recording of his poetry requested by the Library of Congress was finally digitized in 2016 and made available for Internet users. https://www.loc.gov/item/93842275/
Performing "After the War" his translation of the poem "Después de la guerra" by Colombian poet Jotamario Arbeláez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rit7pNmo0TA
Lecturing on Odysseas Elytis's centennary celebration at the Library of Congress with Mexican poet Pedro Serrano, the Head of the Hispanic Division Georgette Dorn, the Greek Ambassador to the United States Vassilis Kaskarelis, and the Head of the European Division Harold Leich. His talk goes from 0:33 to 1:26. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKb8yx3ZGEc
Reading his poem "Con respecto a cierta actividad de las palomas" in Mexico City, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qDa5tnYABo
Reading his poem "Los atuendos" at the closing of the XX International Poetry Festival of Medellín in Colombia. July 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-LbYH5UgOY