Research
19th & 20th c. Spanish American Literature, Modern Poetry, Critical Theory and Cultural Studies. Cuban and Caribbean Culture. Interests: Post-colonial studies, gender theory, intellectual history, modern painting.
Having stepped down as Hispanic Studies DGS, Santí has renewed his research agenda. In June 09, he read a paper at the Caribbean Studies Association in Kingston, Jamaica. Two major publications appeared recently: his edition of Reinaldo Arenas´ El mundo alucinante. Una novela de aventuras (Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 2008), and Luz espejeante: Octavio Paz ante la crítica (Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 2009). The latter book, which collects 42 essays by various hands, was launched at a major event in July in Mexico City and carried by several major newspapers which interviewed Santí. An essay on classical music, “Golden Compass,” hs just appeared as a CD brochure to Aurelio de la Vega’s Orchestral Works, with North/South Recordings. In addition, two of Santí’s essays on California painter Frank Ramme, “The Passion According to Frank” and “The Way they Look,” will appear on frankramme.com, the artist’s website. Santí’s edition of Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s Tres tristes tigres, co-edited with Nivia Montenegro, will appear Fall 2009, also with Madrid’s Cátedra.
His article "La crítica de la caña y los caminos de la transculturación en el Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar," appeared in Catauro. Revista Cubana de Antropología (Havana), Vol. 10, No. 18 (2008), 147-169. Catauro is the journal of the Fundación Fernando Ortiz in Havana.
During AY 09-10, Santí will deliver keynote addresses at the MIFLC Conference at Furman University, South Carolina in October ‘09, and at the “Blanco and Octavio Paz” conference, at Stanford, in January ‘10. That same month he will also guest lecture at the Rubén Darío Conference in León, Nicaragua.
Santí will direct two graduate seminars this AY: “Spanish American Poetry,” on the 20th century canon, in Fall ’09, and “Race, Diaspora, Ghosts,” on Spectral Criticism, in the Spring.
Awards & Grants
Santí became in 2000 the first William T. Bryan Endowed Chair in Hispanic Studies, where until 2002 he served as Director of Graduate Studies. In addition to his work on Neruda, and Paz, Santí has devoted books to José Martí and Fernando Ortiz. Bienes del siglo. Sobre cultura cubana (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2002) gathers together thirty years´ worth of his essays on Cuban topics. Santí serves on editorial boards of a dozen scholarly journals, among them Hispanic Review, the flagship of the field, and on the Research Council of the Center for a Free Cuba, a Washington, D.C. think tank. In addition to a Guggenheim, Santí´s research has been supported over the years by fellowships from The Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Philosophical Society. For years he was one of the four rotating editors of the journal Cuban Studies and produced a number of issues devoted to literature and culture. In 1996, Santí was named the youngest holder of the Emilio Bacardí Moreau Visiting Professorship of Cuban Studies at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, where he taught a seminar on "Literature and Film of the Cuban Republic". In 1998 the Southern California Institute of Cuba American Culture awarded him its highest award: the "Palma Espinada" Prize for life and career achievement. Santí is also a published poet, author of Son peregrino (1995), and a frequent art critic.