Roger Zapata
Visiting Scholar 2003-2004
Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies (CILAS)
zapatar@Mail.montclair.edu

Area of Expertise: Latin American Culture and Literature. He has written extensively on Colonial Latin America Chroniclers and Contemporary writers such a Mario Vargas Llosa, Julio Cortázar, José Maria Arguedas, and Isabel Allende.

Country of Expertise: Peru

Current Research Project: Zapata's project involves a literary analysis of a novel by the Peruvian writer, Mario Bellatin, whose works have attracted attention all over Latin America and Europe. Bellatin's novels are a strong critique of Peruvian and Latin American macho culture. In particular, Zapata will look at Bellatin's 1992 novel Salon de Belleza. Salon de Belleza reflects an incisive examination of psychological and homosexual relationships and the de-stabilization of male subjectivity within the confines of a historical moment in a very precise place: the false illusion of modernity during the 90's in Lima-Peru. Zapata argues that this novel is a postmodern celebration of the 'other' and has capacity to subvert certain sexual norms. Contrary to the great magical realist works of García Márquez, Juan Rulfo, Miguel Angel Asturias, Alejo Carpentier or Joao Guimaraes Rosa, which have been attempting to carry out a celebration of the myth of the party, the community, and social institutions, here the author privileges the fragmented, the individual and his marginality as a way to survive in a cruel society.

In order to complete his research, Zapata will look at the social effects of AIDS in Peru, Bellatin's ideological position on the gay question in Latin America, and the ideological context in which much of the gay debate has been carried out in Peru.

Project Title: Mario Bellatin's Salón de Belleza: The Waning of Effects Under Neoliberal Capitalism in Peru

Academic Background: Roger A. Zapata studied at the universities of San Marcos (Peru), Pittsburgh (M.A) and the university of Minnesota where he obtained his doctorate. He is currently Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Literature at Montclair State University, New Jersey. He has been Visiting Professor at the university of California (Davis), Warsaw (Poland), and Tubingen (Germany).

Selected Publications

• Guamán Poma de Ayala : Indigenismo y estética de la dependencia (Minneapolis, 1989).
• La resistencia indígena y esclava a la conquista de América (ed) (Lima, 1990).
• Violent Representations: The New Peruvian Narrative (work in progress).
• Several of his articles have appeared in Revista Iberoamericana, Alba de America, Ideologies and Literatures, and Revista de Crítica Latinoamerica.