Contact Information

Office: 3190B JFSB

Phone: 422-3807

Email: david_laraway@byu.edu

Commonly Taught Courses Spanish 339 (Introduction to Spanish Literature)
Spanish 355 (Spanish American Culture)
Spanish 451 (Survey of Spanish American Literature)
Spanish 455R/655R (Seminar in Spanish American Poetry)
Spanish 459R/650R (Borges)

Semester Schedule: Winter 2012 Office Hours:
TTh 10-11 or by appointment

Vita: Link to Vita

Biography: I joined the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at BYU after receiving my PhD in Romance Studies from Cornell University in 1998, with a focus on Hispanic literature. The courses I regularly teach include Spanish American Culture, Introduction to Hispanic Literature, and Survey of Spanish American Literature, as well as specialized courses and graduate seminars on various topics including Spanish American poetry, Borges, critical theory, and philosophical issues in literature. In addition to Árbol de imágenes: nueva historia de la poesía latinoamericana, (University of Mississippi Press, 2007) and a handful of articles on poetry, I have published a number of articles on Borges and other writers who have shown up on my radar screen for one reason or another, from the well known (Mariano Azuela, Martín Luis Guzmán, Benito Pérez Galdós, José Asunción Silva) to the more obscure (contemporary Mexican writer Luis Arturo Ramos, Chilean writer Jaime Collyer, and Costa Rican poet Eunice Odio). I take an active interest in philosophy in general and have been an occasional part-time PhD student in philosophy at the University of Utah. I am looking forward to participating in a special summer-only doctoral program in critical theory and media studies at the European Graduate School in Switzerland beginning in 2012.

I should finally mention the personal, and increasingly professional, interest that I take in Basque literature and culture. My own family history is connected to the wave of immigration from the Gernika region of Euskal Herria to the Boise area in the early 20th century and I have recently begun to lay the groundwork for future teaching and research along these lines. I have published a number of articles on contemporary Basque writer Ramon Saizarbitoria and am planning to teach courses on Basque and Basque-American literature and culture.

Degrees: BA, Brigham Young U. (1992)
MA, Brigham Young U. (1994)
PhD, Cornell U. (1998)

Interests: Spanish American literature and culture (poetry, Borges)
Basque and Basque-American literature and culture
Philosophy
Media Studies