Dr. Gustavo Geirola, the Summer Seminar director, and Dr.
Lola Proaño, Summer Seminar co-director, have been working together for many
years (for their résumés click on CV Dr. Gustavo Geirola / Dr. Lola Proaño Gómez).
Their interdisciplinary scholarship
allows them to approach the Seminar’s topic appropriately because they have
been researching and teaching Latin American theater for a long time at the
undergraduate and graduate level; their publications are very well-known and
respected not only in Latin America but also in the United States and Europe.
Furthermore, Dr. Proaño and Dr. Geirola’s approach to theater are perfectly
complementary: while Dr. Proaño has been oriented to explore how political
discourses of resistance to dictatorships (particularly in Argentina 1966-73
and again in Argentina 1977-83) have impacted aesthetical responses to
oppressive socio-historical circumstances, Dr. Geirola was involved in
producing and researching theater since 1981, whether student productions,
amateur or professional productions.
They were also working together and producing Latin
American plays in Los Angeles for many years at Pasadena City College and
Whittier College. The director’s and co-director’s expertise has been welcomed
at many international conferences and panels in the United States, Europe,
Latin America, and even in China. Certainly, in May and June 2010, Dr. Geirola
have lectured about “Lacanian Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Western Theatre”
to faculty in the Foreign Language Department at Tsinghua University, Beijing,
and faculty and students on students “Asian Cultures in Latin America” at
Zhongyuan University of Tecnology, Zhengzhou, China.
Dr. Gustavo
Geirola
Dr. Geirola is a Full Professor at Whittier College, got two
teaching awards: the Teaching Assistant Excellence Award in Recognition of
Outstanding Service, April 22nd, 1993, at Arizona State University and the
Nerhood Teaching Excellence Award, at Whittier College in 2004. In 2006 he
became Full Professor and in 2008 got the Hazel Cooper Jordan Chair in Arts and
Humanities given by Whittier College. In 2012 he was awarded by Sigma Delta Pi
National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society with the prestigious Orden de Don
Quijote: “The highest honor conferred by
Sigma Delta Pi, the Order of Don Quijote recognizes exceptional and meritorious
service in the fields of Hispanic scholarship, the teaching of Spanish, and the
promotion of good relations between English-speaking countries and those of
Spanish speech.” Carlos Fuentes, Elena Poniatowska, Seymour Menton,
Ernesto Cardenal are the prominent scholars who were also awarded with that
meritorious Orden.
Dr. Lola Proaño-Gómez
Dr. Proaño Gómez has participated in many Theater Conferences in
the United States, Spain, England, Germany, Ecuador, Uruguay and Argentina, as
well as taught Graduate and Doctoral Seminars at the University of the
Republic, Montevideo (Maestría de Teatro Latinoamericano, 2014), at the
National University of Buenos Aires (UBA, 2014) (Doctorado de Filosofía y
Letras), at the National University of La Plata, Buenos Aires (Maestría de
Historia y Memoria, 2012), and at the IUNA, 2011 (National University Institute
of the Arts). The main subject of her lectures has always been the impact of
politics and history on theater as well as the presence of a new staging in the
light of feminist theories. Dr. Proaño Gómez brings to the Seminar a
multidisciplinary approach since she holds a degree in Philosophy besides her
Ph.D. in theater and poetry. As she is now living in Argentina and visiting
Ecuador regularly, she is very familiar with the theater world in Buenos Aires
and Quito. Dr. Proaño, Full Professor at Pasadena City College, was
nominated for a teaching award at Pasadena City College and also got the
“Armando Discépolo Award” in 2013 for her scholarship, teaching career and
promotion of Latin American theater worldwide. This prestigious award is
annually given to scholars by the University of Buenos Aires at the
International Conference on Iberoamerican and Argentine Theater held in Buenos
Aires every August.
Undoubtedly, Dr. Geirola’s and Dr. Proaño Gómez’s scholarship
and expertise will make this Summer Seminar a true success for participants.