Ana Maria Laguna, Ph.D., associate professor of Spanish at Rutgers University–Camden, will present Beyond Words: On Cervantes’ Neobaroque on Wednesday, April 23 at the Cervantes Lecture. Laguna is the author of Cervantes and the Pictorial Imagination (2009) and numerous academic articles.
The talk focuses on how Cervantes’ Don Quixote reflects three preeminent elements of his world and how they are related to a visual culture. Laguna will highlight how Don Quixote reflects the conflicting ideas of beauty of the Cinquecento, the propagandistic usages of art by the Habsburgs, and the theological implications of the iconoclastic crises of the 1500s.
Laguna’s specific research targets the literature and culture of the 16th and 17th centuries in Spain. Her work was recognized with fellowships given by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Program for Cultural Cooperation between the Ministry of Culture of Spain and United States Universities, and the Rutgers Research Council. In 2008, Laguna was the recipient of the Rutgers Chancellor Award for Distinguished Teaching.
The Renaissance Quarterly described Cervantes and the Pictorial Imagination as, “a worthy contribution to a growing subfield within Cervantes studies that focuses on the author’s engagement with the visual arts … Laguna is to be commended for shedding new light on the complexities of Cervantes’ reflections on visual and verbal representation.”
The Cervantes Lecture will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the Alumni Room of the Mary Alice and Tom O’Malley Library. The event is free and is open to the public, and is sponsored by the Modern Languages and Literatures and the Visual and Performing Arts departments.
For more information, please contact Joan Cammarata, professor of modern languages and literatures, at joan.cammarata@manhattan.edu or at 718-862-7348.