Enric Bou
Chair and Professor of Hispanic Studies:
Hispanic Studies
Phone: +1 401 863 9205
Phone 2: +1 401 863 2405
Enric_Bou@Brown.EDU
The teaching and research interests of Enric Bou cover a broad range of topics in twentieth-century Spanish Peninsular and Catalan literature, particularly involving poetry, autobiography, the city and literature, and Spanish film.
Biography
Professor Bou, a native of Barcelona, joined Brown's Department of Hispanic Studies in the fall of 1996 after teaching at Wellesley College for seven years, as well as at several universities in Spain and France. He is the recipient of numerous professional awards and grants, including three Ford Foundation Grants and the "Josep Vallverdú" Prize for Literary Essay (1992). The latter was awarded for his book, Papers privats. Assaig sobre les formes literàries autobiogràfiques (1993). Professor Bou is also the author of La poesia de Guerau de Liost: Natura, Amor, Humor (1985), Poesia i Sistema. La revolució simbolista a Catalunya (1989), and Voces en el Museo: Arte y literatura en la modernidad (1997), which was awarded the 1996 "Premio Letras de Oro", as well as critical editions of the work of Joan Salvat-Papasseit, Joan Maragall and Guerau de Liost. His latest publications include Pintura en el aire. Arte y literatura en la modernidad hispánica (2001), two editions of letters by Pedro Salinas, Cartas de viaje (1996) and Cartas a Katherine Whitmore. (1932-1947) (2002). He was the editor of the Nou Diccionari 62 de la Literatura Catalana (2000) and has recently published a general anthology of visual poetry, La crisi de la paraula . La Poesia Visual: un discurs poètic alternatiu (2003). His latests books are Daliccionario. Objetos, mitos y símbolos de Salvador Dalí (Tusquets, 2004) edition of Pedro Salinas' Obras Completas (3 vols, 2007). His teaching and research interests cover a broad range of twentieth-century Spanish Peninsular and Catalan literature but particularly involving poetry, autobiography, city and literature and Spanish film.
Interests
Research Description/Clinical Interests
Enric Bou
My research interests cover a broad range of topics in both twentieth-century Spanish Peninsular and Catalan literature, particularly involving poetry, autobiography, the relationship between the city and literature, art and literature, and Spanish film. These efforts have produced several articles, books, and critical editions. My first book, La poesia de Guerau de Liost: Natura, Amor, Humor (Edicions 62, 1985), was devoted to a Catalan poet from the early twentieth-century who was also the subject of my dissertation. I have continued to edit works by Guerau de Liost and other authors from the same period. These include Joan Maragall's Visions & Cants, Guerau de Liost's Somnis and Antologia poètica and Joan Salvat-Papasseit's Antologia poètica. I have also written analyses of poetic texts from the same period in Spain, as well as the later avant-garde movements. From 1984 to 1987 I was a member of the authorial team responsible for the final five volumes of The History of Catalan Literature and of Editorial Ariel, the first reference book of its kind, a history, which had not been written previously due to long-standing political repression of Catalan language and culture. This strenuous work of synthesis, which contained information about a wide range of writers in a few pages, inspired the topic for my second book, Poesia i sistema: La revolució simbolista a Catalunya (Ed. Empúries, 1989), a comparative analysis of French and Catalan Symbolist poetry. The first chapter is a theoretical proposal for the analysis of multi-lingual culture, inspired by models of Dutch and Israeli scholars.
I also joined a team of Spanish university professors working in a long-term project funded by Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica of the Spanish ministry of Science and Education. My essay "El discurso autobiográfico en España (1900-1939). (1990-93), from which derived my edition of Pedro Salina's letters as well as my third book, Papers privats: Assaig sobre les formes literàries autobiogràfiques (Edicions 62, 1993), proposes new parameters for types of autobiographical writings (epistolary, diaries, memoirs, and travelogues), illuminated by examples from Catalan authors of the first half of the twentieth century. It was awarded the 1992 Josep Vallverdú Prize for Literary Essay. Recently I was the general editor of a major project: Nou Diccionari 62 de la Literatura Catalana (Edicions 62, 2000) with 3100 articles and 100 contributors).
My projects in Catalan studies have had an impact in my studies of Spanish literature, which have focused on writers from the same period, namely the Generation of 1927. Over the years, I have been working on two major projects in this area: an edition of the letters of Pedro Salinas, and a book about the relationship between plastic art and literature in early twentieth-century Spanish culture. I have prepared five collections of letters by Salinas which have appeared in the Revista de Occidente, the Catálogo de la Exposición Pedro Salinas, the Boletín de la Fundación Federico García Lorca, Cartas de viaje, (Editorial Pre-Textos 1996), and Cartas a Katherine Whitmore. (1932-1947) (Editorial Tusquets, 2002). Because of my expertise on Salinas, I was asked by the Spanish Committee organizing Pedro Salinas' centennial to be their United States representative. In that capacity, I participated in the planning and execution of the exhibit on Pedro Salinas at the Biblioteca National (National Library) in Madrid, June 1992, and its second presentation in Puerto Rico during November of 1993. In the same capacity, I organized and ran a symposium on Salinas at Wellesley College, which took place in the fall of 1992 and attracted scholars from around the United States as well as Europe. Proceedings of that symposium were published in 1994, Signo y memoria: ensayos sobre Pedro Salinas (Editorial Pliegos).
Because of my interest in the relationship between art and literature, I wrote Pintura en el aire: Arte y literatura en la modernidad, which has been awarded the 1996 "Letras de Oro" Literary Essay prize, (PreTextos 2001). It is a study of the correlation between Spain's emergence into modernity in the early twentieth-century and the development of cross-media representational schemes, specifically crosses between poetry and painting. Special attention is devoted to the notion of the museum as a secular shrine for artistic devotion. La crisi de la paraula. La Poesia Visual: un discurs poètic alternatiu (Edicions 62, 2003) is an anthology of visual poetry, edited in collaboration with one of Spain's foremost critics of contemporary Catalan culture, Joaquim Molas. On the occasion of Dalí's centennial I published Daliccionario: Objetos, mitos y símbolos de Salvador Dalí (Editorial Tusquets, 2004).
My interest in comparative literature is present in my approach to the study of literature. More specifically I have written an introduction to Literatura comparada, (with Laura Borràs) (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 2003), and I have been a contributor to A Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula (Amsterdam, 2007). I currently have the following projects underway: the preparation of anthology of Catalan literature in English translation, a project sponsored by Institut Ramon Llull; I am the general editor of Pedro Salinas' complete works to be published in three volumes by Cátedra. I am the general editor (20 contributors) for a volume on the twentieth-century Catalan literature in the series Història crítica de la literatura catalana to be published by Editorial Vicens Vives. I am also planning a study of contemporary Spanish culture to consider the means by which post-modernism introduced subversive culture into the Spain of Franco. I have been preparing this material over recent years by publishing articles on related materials, and by editing a monographic issue of Anthropos dedicated to Pere Gimferrer, in which Juan Goytisolo and Octavio Paz collaborated.
Degrees
Doctor en Filosofía y Letras (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona)
Awards
Honors and Awards
Premio de Ensayo Letras de Oro, University of Miami - Spanish Ministry of Culture for Voces en el Museo, 1996.
"Josep Vallverdú" Prize for Literary Essay for Papers Privats: Assaig sobre les formes literàries autobiogràfiques, Lleida 1992.
Ayuda a la creación literaria, modalidad ensayo. Spanish Ministry of Culture. "Poesía y pintura: un episodio de la Modernidad," 1990
Fellowship, Centro de Estudios de Historia Contemporánea, 1979-80
Affiliations
President North American Catalan Society October 2007-2010
North American Catalan Society
Modern Language Association
Associació Internacional Llengua i Literatura Catalana
Founding Member Sociedad Geográfica Española
Funded Research
"Incentivi a favore della mobilità di ricercatori italiani e stranieri impegnati all'estero". Università di Venezia Ca' Foscari. 2004-2006.
Brown University. Salomon Grant. "Invention of Space. City, Travel and Literature". 2002-03
Grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States' Universities, University of Minnesota. Edition of Letters by Pedro Salinas to Katherine Whitmore, July 2001.
Grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States' Universities, University of Minnesota. Organization of North American Catalan Society (NACS) Xth Colloquium, Brown University, May 2001.
Grant from the Comissionat per a Universitats i Recerca, Generalitat de Catalunya to support sabbatical leave. Project: "Culture between Dictatorship and Democracy in Spain". 1999.
Brown University. Salomon Grant. "Farewell to all that: Spanish Culture between Dictatorship and Democracy." 1998-99.
Premio de Ensayo Letras de Oro, University of Miami - Spanish Ministry of Culture for Voces en el Museo, 1996.
Lecture Policy Committee, Wellesley College. Exhibition by Spanish artist Joma April 1996.
Faculty Seminar: "History of the Book." Wellesley College, June 1995.
Grant from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, "año sabático" to support early leave, Project: "Art and Literature in Spain". 1993-94.
"Josep Vallverdú" Prize for Literary Essay for Papers Privats. Assaig sobre les formes literàries autobiogràfiques, Lleida 1992.
Ford Foundation Grant, 1992-93. Topic: "Edition of Pedro Salinas' letters."
Grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States' Universities, University of Minnesota. Organization of Pedro Salinas' Symposium at Wellesley College, October 1992.
Universidad de Barcelona. Director Seminar on "Comparative Literature and the New Paradigm." Professor: Douwe W. Fokkema, University of Utrecht, 1990.
"Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica," Spanish ministry of Science and Education. El discurso autobiográfico en España (1900-1939), 1990-93.
Grant from the Comissió Interdepartamental de Recerca i Investigació Tecnològica de la Generalitat de Cataluña "Cartes d'intel.lectuals en els arxius de la Houghton Library," Harvard University, 1990. ($2,000)
Ayuda a la creación literaria, modalidad ensayo. Spanish Ministry of Culture. "Poesía y pintura: un episodio de la Modernidad," 1990.
Universidad de Barcelona. Director: Seminar on "La literatura comparada." Professor: Claudio Guillén, 1989.
Ford Foundation Grant. Topic: "Spanish Autobiographical Writings," Summer 1989.
Research grant Committee on Faculty Awards. Wellesley College. Topic: Eugeni d'Ors, 1989.
American Philosophical Society. Research Grant. Topic: Symbolism in Spain, 1988.
Research grant. Committee on Faculty Awards. Wellesley College. Topic: Pere Gimferrer.
Post-doctoral Research Grant, US-Spanish Cultural Joint Committee. Topic: French influence in Spanish Poetry of the Post-symbolist Period, Yale University, 1986-87.
Universidad de Barcelona. Director: Seminar on Critical Perspectives of Reading. Funded by the "Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación", Barcelona. Participants: Christopher Norris (WIST, Cardiff Wales), Paolo Fabbri (Universitá di Bologna & Paris), Terry Eagleton (Oxford University), Hans Ulricht Gumbrecht (Universitaet Siegen, Germany), Barry Jordan (University of Birmingham), 1985-86.
Research Grant, Universidad de Barcelona. Topic: French Symbolism and Parnassianism, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1983-84.
Fellowship, Centro de Estudios de Historia Contemporánea, 1979-80.
