UWSP associate professor attends international writer’s colony

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Professor Valentina Peguero recently served as a writer-in-residence at Ledig House International Writers’ Colony in Ghent, N.Y.

While in residence from April 1 to June 15, Peguero, a professor of Latin American history and Dominican scholar, presented a study on the works of Julia Alvarez. She is currently researching the author and her works, which include the best-selling novels "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent" and "In the Time of Butterflies."

The residency gives writers from around the world from a variety of disciplines a chance to share ideas, Peguero said. Participants included writers from Brazil, Chechnya, Croatia, Germany, India, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Switzerland and the United States. The writers were scholars of social science and humanities, translators, filmmakers, novelists, poets and journalists.

"The daily conversations and formal presentations not only expanded the frontiers of knowledge," said Peguero, "but promoted an understanding that transcended political and cultural boundaries."

Topics of discussion included Jews in Germany today, the political situation in the former Yugoslavia, the conflict in Chiapas and the social and political conditions in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s.

The residency has also affected her teaching method, Peguero added, as it enhanced her understanding of the interaction between history and literature.

Peguero is using the novel, "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent," as required reading in her fall class of Race and Ethnicity in Latin America, and is currently completing a manuscript entitled "Women, Society and Politics in the Writing of Julia Alvarez."

Peguero, who came to UWSP in 1990, earned a bachelor’s degree at Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra in Santiago, Dominican Republic, a master’s degree at Ball State University and a Ph.D. and Ph.M. at Columbia University.

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