My interests in literatures of the Spanish-speaking world are broad and comparative in nature. Mostly I teach 20th and 21st century Latin American literature within multidisciplinary contexts. My research focuses on Asian and African literature in Spanish.

My novel As Green as Paradise was favorably compared in a recent review to One Hundred Years of Solitude. So that was pretty cool. If you'd like to check out the review, the first half of it is available (in Spanish) at http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/hispania/v095/95.2.badajoz.html.

My second academic book, The Magellan Fallacy: Globalization and the Emergence of Asian and African Literature in Spanish, is now out. I'd explain what it's about but I suspect the subtitle already did.

My first academic book, Specters of Conquest: Indigenous Absence in Transatlantic Literatures, came out in 2010. It includes chapters on the diary of Columbus, a Mayan history of the world, the first African novel in Spanish, Robinson Crusoe, and Mason & Dixon. The book ends by suggesting that Frankenstein is the great American novel. And that Woody Guthrie was right.

I also teach and write about music by such singer-songwriters as Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. Needless to say, I am from New Jersey.

Courses that I have taught include modern Mexican/Mexican-American literature, indigenous/indigenista literature, literature and human rights, contemporary Latin American novels, Afro-Hispanic literature, Asian and African literature in Spanish, Caribbean literature in Spanish, Andean literature, ghosts in modern Latin American literature, surveys of modern Latin American literature, and literary theory. I'm also available anytime to give my opinion on the Philadelphia Eagles.

I work in the Program in Comparative Literature as well as the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.