Party of One

 I think I was the only US Hispanist to oppose the poetry of experience.  Several reasons: there weren't many of use even studying contemporary Spanish poetry. The idea of being against something, of really doing criticism in the evaluation mode, is not part of this part of the academic world. Usually, you choose what you want to write on (something you like or are interested in) and you don't argue for its value: that is assumed in the fact that you have chosen it. 

Friends, and students, would sometime have one chapter on Luis García Montero in a dissertation, but he wasn't the focus of the work of any really good scholar. It was a woman from Argentina, Laura Scarano (who had been a student of ours at Ohio State many years ago, and who would always send me her books over the years), who became the big García Montero scholar, mostly just echoing his own positions and being close friends with him and Almudena. Scarano is smart, but I simply disagree with her in this case. I don't believe in hagiography. Even when I write on Valente I am implicitly critical of certain aspects of his work. 

I was instrumental in another dissertation on LGM, written in Spain, but from a perspective critical of him.  The student came for a semester to work with me, and then I flew to Spain to be on her Doctoral Defense in Santiago. 

But anyway, the number of books in which I am the only US Hispanist cited is quite large. Since I write in English, mostly, I cannot aspire to be more of a part of the conversation, but Laura will never cite me, I fear.