FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Luis Fernando Restrepo, professor of Spanish in the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures, has been invited to speak at the annual Norman MacColl Symposium at the University of Cambridge, Nov. 19 and 20. The symposium is named for a noted Spanish scholar and Cambridge graduate of the Victorian era.

Restrepo will be one of a dozen pioneering scholars from Europe and the Americas discussing “Poets of the New World: Literary and Cultural Transmission in Early Modern Spanish America.” This symposium is the first of its kind to address this subject.

Restrepo’s session, “Epic, Exploration and Desire” will explore Discurso del Capitán Francisco Draque’, a 16th century epic poem written by Juan de Castellanos who lived and wrote in New Granada, present day Colombia. Restrepo’s talk ‘Leviathan and Behemoth in the Caribbean’ examines the geographical imagination of the early modern Atlantic world.

The purpose of the symposium is to use Spanish American poetry from the years 1500-1700 to examine Hispanic colonial culture and the emergence of American identities.

Restrepo received his bachelor’s degree at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellin, Colombia, his masters and his doctorate at the University of Maryland. He joined the U of A faculty in 1995, specializing in colonial Latin American literature and culture. 

He also serves as assistant vice chancellor for diversity and community and director of La Oficina Latina, The Office of Latino Academic Advancement and Community Relations.