Lena Burgos-Lafuente Wins Harvard University’s Wilbur Martin Visiting Scholar Fellowship

Professor Lena Burgos-Lafuente has received the highly prestigious Wilbur Martin Visiting Scholar Fellowship of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) at Harvard University for Fall 2019 to perform archival research for her project, “A la izquierda de las izquierda: Cosmopolitan Communism in the Early to Mid-Twentieth Century Caribbean (1920-1959).” This fellowship is made available to scholars focusing on Puerto Rico or the Caribbean, with preference given to researchers working on issues related to medicine, public health, the environment, education and strengthening philanthropy.

An associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature, Professor Burgos-Lafuente specializes in poetry, Latin American essay writing, sound studies, and transatlantic literary crossings in the first half of the 20th century. She received her PhD from New York University in 2011 and was named a recipient of the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for 2014-2015. She is the author of A la escucha del destiempo: poéticas de la posguerra en el Caribe transatlántico (Iberoamericana Vervuert), editor of Untendered Eyes: Literary Politics of Julia de Burgos (CENTRO Journal, 2014), and co-editor of María Zambrano in Dialogue (Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 2015) and Cartas a Consuelo (Folium, 2014), Julia de Burgos’s unpublished correspondence to her sister. She is also co-editor of The Puerto Rico Reader: History, Culture, Politics, under contract to Duke University Press.

The DRCLAS works to increase knowledge of the cultures, economies, histories, environment and contemporary affairs of Latin America; to foster cooperation and understanding among the peoples of the Americas; and to contribute to democracy, social progress and sustainable development throughout the hemisphere.