Alexander Torres

Visiting Assistant Professor of Instruction in Spanish

Alexander Torres (Ph.D.) teaches Spanish at the USF Department of World Languages. His first book—Bastardos de la modernidad: el Bildungsroman roquero en América Latina (Peter Lang, 2020)—deals with six contemporary rock ’n’ roll coming-of-age novels from Latin America (Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina) that serve as a critique of the ontological impact of modernity. He also gave an interview concerning the content of his book (in Spanish) with El Intertexto podcast.

In addition to specializing in the Bildungsroman (novel of formation) and rock culture in the Latin American context, Torres’s research focuses on the current literary production of different regions in Latin America, often with young characters who are faced with a disenchanted and hostile world.

At present he is interested in analyzing various formations of the sacred in contemporary Latin American literature. Dr. Torres is at this time a guest editor for the special Bolivian Studies Journal issue Geopoéticas del abigarramiento en narrativas bolivianas actuales (Motley Geopoetics in Contemporary Bolivian Narratives), which centers on “a critical view of the dialogical relationship produced between the motley and the mobility of affect, determining features of Bolivian cultural manifestations of the last decades inscribed in diverse geopoetics.” He has also contributed book chapters for different volumes concerning current Latin American fiction.

Dr. Torres has been teaching all undergraduate levels of Spanish for many years at the university level. The courses he presently teaches at the University of South Florida are SPN 1120: Beginning Spanish I, SPN 1121: Beginning Spanish II, SPN 2201: Spanish IV, and SPN 3391: Latin American Cinema. His goal is to awaken a genuine interest in the Spanish language in his students and to inspire enthusiasm for the multiple cultures that exist in the Spanish-speaking world.

He is the advisor for the Club de Español (Spanish Club), whose “primary purpose . . . is to create a community in which students feel comfortable learning the Spanish language and expanding their knowledge about Spanish-speaking cultures.” Please reach out to Dr. Torres if you are interested in joining this exciting organization!