Associate Professor of Latin American Literature

Paul Firbas is associate professor in the Dept of Hispanic Languages and Literature and director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC) at Stony Brook University. He specializes in Spanish-American texts of the colonial period. Before coming to Stony Brook in 2007, he was assistant professor at Princeton University (2001-2007) and visiting professor at Columbia University (spring 2007).

His research deals with epic poetry, historiography and the colonial geography of transatlantic South America. In 2006 he published a study and a critical edition of Armas antárticas, epic poem written by Juan de Miramontes Zuázola (Lima: PUCP, 2006). He is also the editor of a volume of essays on Ibero-American epic texts in the colonial word Épica y colonia (Lima: Univ. de San Marcos, 2008). 

He has published several articles on epic poetry and cultural traditions in colonial Peru, on Sarmiento de Gamboa’s accounts on the Strait of Magellan, and the colonial image of Lima. He is currently working on a book on the moral geography of Strait of Magellan between 1579 and 1622; on an edition of Lima News-sheets of early 18th century; and on a series of essays on memory and excavation in the Andes.

He has also co-edited with Pedro Meira Monteiro a book on documentary film maker Andres Di Tella: Cine documental y Archivo personal.  Conversación en Princeton (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2006)