Frederick A. De Armas

Frederick A. De Armas is a critic, short story writer and novelist. As fiction writer he focuses on Cuba during the 1950's and 1960's. As critic he writes on Renaissance and early modern literature and art. While often focusing of Spanish authors (Cervantes, Calderón, Lope de Vega), he does so from a comparative perspective. His interests include the politics of astrology; magic and the Hermetic tradition; ekphrasis; the relations between Renaissance Italian art and Spanish literary texts; and the interconnections between myth and empire during the rule of the Habsburgs. He has a PhD from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and has taught at Duke University, Louisiana State University and Pennsylvania State University. He has served as President of the Cervantes Society of America and President of the AISO (Asociacion Internacional Siglo de Oro). He is currently "Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor" at the University of Chicago where he teaches in the Departments of Comparative Literature and Romance Languages and Literatures. His book "Don Quixote among the Saracens: A Clash of Civilizations and Literary Genres" (University of Toronto Press, 2011)received the American Publishers' Association PROSE Award in Literature, Honourable Mention for 2011.