Margarita Vargas

Associate Professor
Office: 903 Clemens Hall
Phone: (716) 645-2191 x 1180
Email: mvargas@buffalo.edu
Website: Personal site

Degrees

• B.A. from Yale University
• M.A. from the University of Kansas
• Ph.D. from the University of Kansas

Areas of Specialization

• Spanish-American Theater, Spanish-American Literature, Mexican Literature, Feminist Criticism and Theory

Publications

• Latin American women dramatists: Theater, Texts, and Theories. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, January 1999. (co-edited with Catherine Larson)
• Women Writing Women: An Anthology of Spanish-American Theater of the 1980's. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997. (co-edited and translated with Teresa C. Salas)
• The House on the Beach by Juan García Ponce. Austin: U of Texas P, 1994. (co-translated with Juan Bruce-Novoa)
• "The Origins of Identity," an essay review of Teresa McKenna's Migrant Song: Politics and Process in Contemporary Chicano literature and Show and Tell: Identity as Performance in US Latino/a Fiction by Karen Chistian. The Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe. 25.2, (May-Aug. 2000): 211-219.
• Margarita Vargas. "Mexican Romanticism." Mexican Literature: A History. Ed. David William Foster. Trans. David E. Johnson. Austin: University of Texas Press 1994. 83-112
• Beth Jorgensen and Margarita Vargas. Letras Femeninas 32.1 (summer 2006). 375pp. A special issue entitled Twenty Five Years of Feminist Scholarship by Feministas Unidas: Positions on Gender, Writing, Ethnicity, Identity, and Mother/Sisterhood.
• "Staging Identity through Art." CR: The New Centennial Review 5.3 (winter 2005): 65-82.

Invited lectures

• "La canonización como acercamiento metodológico al teatro mexicano." Coloquio Debate Internacional: El Teatro Mexicano Como Fuente de Investigación. Mexico City. February 9-11, 2005

Current Research Projects

• A book length project on the construction of feminine identity in 20th-century Spanish-American Literature

Frequently Taught Courses:

• SPA 518: 20th Century Spanish-American theater
• SPA 515: 20th Century Mexican Literature
• SPA 411: Spanish-American Novel
• SPA 311: Survey of Spanish-American Literature
• SPA 225: Spanish Language through Theater

Awards

• Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching
• Golden Key Honor Society Honorary Member

Professional activities

• Co-director of the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender to serve a three year term from June 2006 - May 2009
• President, Feministas Unidas
• Board of Directors of Antecesores (a not-for-profit organization with the mission to advance, nurture and celebrate Latino cultures, Secretary/Treasurer 2005-2008