Speakers Bureau Speaker
Charles Tatum, Tucson
Dr. Charles Tatum is Professor of Spanish and Dean of the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona. He was born in El Paso, Texas and raised in Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico. His mother was Mexican-American. Tatum is the author of a monographic study Chicano Literature (1982)--published in translation in Mexico in 1986--and co-author of Not Just for Children: The Mexican Comic Book in the Late 1960s and 1970s (1992). He is co-founder and co-editor of the journal Studies in Latin American Popular Culture. He is editor of three volumes of New Chicana/Chicano Writing (1991-1993) for the University of Arizona Press, and co-editor of a volume of essays, Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, Vol. II. His book, Chicano Popular Culture (The University of Arizona Press, 2001), was selected as a "Best of the Best of the University Presses" book by the American Association of American Presses. Tatum’s most recent book, Chicano and Chicana Literature: Otra voz del pueblo, was published by the University of Arizona Press in 2006. Tatum has been very active in advancing diversity issues at the University of Arizona.
Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Autobiography
Chicana and Chicano literature has a long tradition of autobiographical (self-referential) writing and memoirs stretching back to the mid-19th century. During the past twenty year, the number of writers publishing in this literary genre has burgeoned. In this presentation, Tatum examines some predominant themes and trends.
The Origins and Development of Chicana and Chicano Literature
Beginning with the Cabeza de Vaca's chronicle of his arduous journey across the Southwest into Mexico, this presentation will touch on important secular and religious poetic, dramatic, and narrative forms, themes, and trends that developed over the course of the next several centuries. These forms, themes, and trends form the base of what we know today as Chicana and Chicano literature. The presentation will also focus on how the post-1960s continue many of the literary traditions that developed over the centuries.
