Alcocer, Rudyard J.
Rudyard J. Alcocer
Rudyard Alcocer is the Forrest and Patsy Shumway Chair of Excellence in Romance Languages and Professor of Latin American literature and culture in the Department of World Languages & Cultures at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Iowa and his B.A. (Magna cum laude) in Philosophy from Emory University.
His most recent book, Interpretaciones: Experimental Criticism and the Metrics of Latin American Literature, explores reader reactions to innovative literary exercises (UNC Press 2023). He is the author (lead editor) of Celluloid Chains: Slavery in the Americas through Film (University of Tennessee Press 2018), Time Travel in the Latin American & Caribbean Imagination: Re-reading History (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), Narrative Mutations: Discourses of Heredity and Caribbean Literature (Routledge 2005), and several essays on Latin American and Caribbean literature and culture (most recently in The South Atlantic Review, Studies in American Culture, and Contemporary French & Francophone Studies. His current book-length project explores the concept of soledad/solitude in Latin American intellectual culture. Dr. Alcocer teaches courses in Latin American literature and culture, with a focus on the Caribbean. Broadly stated, he is interested in comparative, transnational, and interdisciplinary approaches to literary and narrative studies.
Additional information about Dr. Alcocer is available at http://rudyardalcocer.wordpress.com.
Publications
Books:
- Interpretaciones: Experimental Criticism and the Metrics of Latin American Literature. UNC Press, 2023.
- Celluloid Chains: Slavery in the Americas through Film. Co-edited with Kristen Block and Dawn Duke. Knoxville and NY: University of Tennessee Press, May 2018.
- Time Travel in the Latin American & Caribbean Imagination: Re-reading History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
- Narrative Mutations: Discourses of Heredity and Caribbean Literature. New York and London: Routledge, 2005.
Essays:
- “Introduction. The Broken Mirror of Memory: Reflections on the Power of Slavery Films.” Ceulluloid Chains: Slavery in the Americas through Film (University of Tennessee Press), edited by Rudyard Alcocer, Kristen Block, and Dawn Duke. May 2018.
- “Of Slavery and Humanity: Focus, Metaphor, and Truth in Werner Herzog’s Cobra Verde.” Ceulluloid Chains: Slavery in the Americas through Film (University of Tennessee Press), edited by Rudyard Alcocer, Kristen Block, and Dawn Duke. May 2018
- “Anacristina Rossi and the Uses of Literature in Costa Rica.” Critical Insights: Contemporary Latin American Fiction (Grey House Publishing), edited by Ignacio López-Calvo. December 2017, pp. 83-97.
- “Big-Screen Adaptations of Two Gabriel García Márquez Novels: A Reappraisal.” Co-authored with Haley Osborn, MFLL doctoral student. Gabriel García Márquez in Retrospect (Lexington Books), edited by Gene Bell-Villada. November 2016, pp. 213-29.
- “Consuming Slavery? Santiago de Cuba’s El Barracón Restaurant.” Caribbean Quarterly: A Journal of Caribbean Culture 62 (2), pp. 193-209. August 2016.
- “Politically Escapist … or Engaged? History and Subversion in Leonardo Padura’s La novela de mi vida.” Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World 4 (2), pp. 25-37. Spring 2015.
- “When Magical Realism Loses Its Spell: Revisiting Gabriel García Márquez’s Of Love and Other Demons.” Magical Realism (Grey House Publishing), edited by Ignacio López-Calvo. October 2014, pp. 67-83.
- “Three Burials, Two Countries, One Destiny: Borders and Visual Meaning in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.” Ometeca 18.1, March 2013; pp. 90-105.
- “From Amerindian to Slave to ‘True’ Caribbean: The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar and the End of Ethnicity in the Caribbean.” Caribbean Vistas: Critiques of Caribbean Arts and Cultures. Fall 2012; Vol. 1:1.
- “The Ghosts of La Malinche: Trees and Treason in Gioconda Belli’s La mujer habitada.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (Oxford UP). Print: Autumn 2010; Vol 17.4 pp. 735-753. Online: doi: 10.1093/isle/isq118 (November 2010); pp. 1-19. (Reprint:”The Ghosts of La Malinche)): Contemporary Literary Criticism: Criticism of the Works of Today’s Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Short-Story Writers, Scriptwriters, and Other Creative Writers. Vol 359. New York: Gale Cengage Learning, 2014; pp. 63-72.
- “Leyendo Reyita en Atlanta.” Proceedings of the XI Conferencia Internacional de Cultura Africana y Afroamericana., April 12-16, 2010. Ed. Marta Cordies-Jackson. CD-ROM. Santiago de Cuba, 2010.
- “Word vs. Image in Afro-Hispanic Pedagogy.” PALARA (Publication of the Afro-Latin/American Research Association, Dartmouth College). Fall 2009; Vol 13, pp. 63-74.
- “Going in Circles: Spanish American Identity and the Circular Motif in Nicolás Echevarría’s Cabeza de Vaca.” Literature/Film Quarterly. October 2008; Vol. 36:4, 250-58.
- “Along the Banks of the Amazon: Ethnicity and the Image in Jules Verne’s La Jangada.” AmeriQuests (Vanderbilt University) 2008; (5) 1, pp. 1-20.
- “The Ties that Bind? Rhythm, Writing, and the Question of Genetics in the Caribbean.” Music, Literature, and Cultural Unity in the Caribbean (Africa World Press), edited by Timothy J. Reiss. January 2005, pp. 91-110.
Phone: 865-974-6996
Email: ralcocer@utk.edu
Personal Website: rudyardalcocer.wordpress.com
Education
PhD, University of Iowa