Biography

Dr. Mario A. Ortiz is Member Correspondent of the North American Academy of Spanish Language (ANLE). He received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature from Indiana University, where he also completed all the doctoral coursework in musicology. He has a Master's degree in music history from the University of Houston, and a B.A. in music and sociology from Grinnell College. He also completed undergraduate studies in the University of Costa Rica, his native country, as a piano major.

His research focuses primarily on Latin American colonial and transatlantic studies, and the relationship between literature and music. Other major areas of research and teaching interest are postcolonial studies; Mexican, Central American and Latino literatures and cultures; and popular music of the Hispanic world. His undergraduate courses include: Spanish for Heritage Speakers; US Latino/a Literature, Film and Music; Performing US Latino/a Identity; Globalization, Multiculturalism and Immigration; and Latin/o American Popular Song: Socio-Political Movements. Some of his graduate courses are: Early Modern Female Conventual Culture; The Mexican Conquest: European and Indigenous Accounts; Aesthetics of the Encounter: Exploration and Conquest of Latin America; Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Mexican Colonial Baroque; Colonial Women: From Early Modern to Postmodern Icons; and Central American Testimonial Tradition.