Healing Terror With the Arts: CLCS Director Led Creative Writing Workshop in Lima, Peru

Dr. Erika Almenara, associate professor of Spanish in the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures, and director of the Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies Program, led a creative writing workshop with 17 male inmates at Miguel Castro Castro Peruvian prison. Almenara has experience conducting these types of workshops; in August and November of 2023, she received funds from Fulbright Peru to conduct a similar project in two Peruvian female jails.  

The workshop was part of Almenara's research trip to Peru. She spent 20 days in Lima investigating healing resources/techniques offered to males who were members of the terrorist group Shining Path by reviewing material that has been published about the impact these resources/techniques have had on the inmates in the construction of historical memory.  

The results of Almenara's research were shared in a conference paper she presented at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru along with Dr. Anouk Guiné (Université Le Havre Normandie), who has also worked with a group of female inmates of Shining Path. The information Almenara gathered will also be included in her new monograph, Literary and Cultural Representations of Social Gender Perception in Post-Conflict Peru.  

Almenara, a published author, created the course Creative Writing in Spanish in 2017. The course introduces students to basic skills and tools needed to be a creative writer in Spanish. Through her experience teaching this course, Almenara affirmed the healing power of creative writing. This year, Almenara obtained a certificate in Healing with the Arts from the University of Florida. 

For more information about Spanish creative writing courses or the CLCS program, please contact Dr. Almenara at almenara@uark.edu.