Keynote Speakers

The conference will feature two keynote speakers, each distinguished scholars in their areas of expertise, Dr. Ruben Espinosa and Dr. Maria Herrera-Sobek.

“Shakespeare on the Border: A Cruel and Loveless Country” Ruben Espinosa, Associate Professor of English at Arizona State University and Associate Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Scrutinizing the presence and uses of Shakespeare amid the military and linguistic violence on the U.S.-Mexico border, this talk challenges optimistically laden views of his value therein. Narratives that seek to define the U.S. Southwest and its borders—political, geographic, discursive—have been painfully forged over time, and as such we must resist these narratives if there is any hope of escaping the inherited boundaries that are often defined in and through Shakespeare. Indeed, we must embrace counternarratives that center the voices in la frontera that have been silenced for far too long.

Ruben Espinosa is Associate Professor of English at Arizona State University and Associate Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He is the author of Shakespeare on the Shades of Racism (2021), Masculinity and Marian Efficacy in Shakespeare’s England (2011), and co-editor of Shakespeare and Immigration (2014). He was a Trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America (2018-2021), and he serves on the Editorial Boards of Shakespeare Quarterly, Exemplaria: Medieval, Early Modern, Theory, and Palgrave’s “Early Modern Cultural Studies” series. He is currently at work on his next monograph, Shakespeare on the Border: Language, Legitimacy and La Frontera.

“Borderlands Ballads (Corridos) and Shakespeare: Resistance and Affirmation” Maria Herrera-Sobek, Professor Emerita, University of California Santa Barbara

The United States – Mexico borderlands have been a frequent site of confrontation and violence since the 1800s and peaking in the 1846 – 1848 period with the U.S. – Mexico War. This contentious geographic area also is a site of creativity and cultural production. One of these creative gifts is manifested in the musical tradition knows as the corrido or Mexican ballad. It may seem incongruous to link the corrido with the English Bard, William Shakespeare. Indeed, Shakespeare’s brilliant theatrical productions share numerous qualities with the Borderlands corrido. My presentation explores these similarities, as well as differences, found between the enormous number of corridos existing since the middle of the 1800s to the present twenty-first century and Shakespeare’s equally gigantic literary output. I am positing in my presentation that Shakespeare’s genius in writing his magnificent theatrical dramas and the genius of the Mexican and Chicana/o community in ballad production, exhibit a commonality in two areas: resistance and affirmation. I will examine such corridos as “Corrido de Hamlet,” the “Corrido de Romeo y Julieta,” and “Corrido de Ramón y Julieta” as examples of the Shakespeare – corrido connection.

María Herrera-Sobek received her Ph.D. at UCLA (1975) in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. She was Professor in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at UC Irvine from 1975 – 1996. In 1997, she joined the Chicana/o Studies Department at UC Santa Barbara as the Luis Leal Endowed Chair (1997-2009). Appointed Associated Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (2002-2019), she served until her retirement in 2019. She was Visiting Professor at Harvard and Stanford Universities. Herrera-Sobek is the author of The Mexican Corrido: A Feminist Analysis, and Northward Bound: The Mexican Immigrant Experience in Ballad and Song. She edited and/or co-edited more than twenty books including Human Rights in the Americas (2021). She has presented papers at major national and international conferences in locations such as France, Germany, Russia and Siberia, England, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Mexico and Latin America. She is the author of more than 150 articles and the recipient of several national and international awards and honors. In addition, she has published numerous poems.