Frederick A. de Armas (2007-2008)

Frederick A. de Armas is the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities, Spanish Literature, and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago. He is a literary scholar, critic and novelist whose scholarly work focuses on the literature of the Spanish Golden Age. His interests include the politics of astrology, magic and the Hermetic tradition, and the interconnections between myth and empire during the Habsburg Empire. He is the author of several books including The Invisible Mistress: Aspects of Feminism and Fantasy in the Golden Age (1976) and Don Quixote Among the Saracens: A Clash of Civilizations and Literary Genres (2011), which received an honorable mention for the American Publishers’ Association PROSE Award in Literature. He also writes fiction. His first novel, El abra del Yumuri (2016) deals with Cuba before Castro. His second novel Sinfonia Salvaje (2019) explores Cuba in 1959. He has also co-edited a collection of short-stories, Doce cuentos ejemplares y otros documentos cervantinos (2016). He is the co-editor of the Iberica series at University of Toronto Press, and has taught at Louisiana State University, the University of Missouri, Duke University, and Pennsylvania State University.