Margarita Pintado Burgos, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Spanish

Margarita Pintado Burgos was born and raised in a small rural town from Puerto Rico. After finishing a bachelor’s degree in communications at the University of Puerto Rico, she started her graduate studies at Emory University, Atlanta, where she obtained her Ph.D. in Spanish. Pintado's work and teaching combines her interests of language, poetry, creative writing, exile, and feminism. After teaching for 6 years at Ouachita Baptist University, a liberal arts college in a small town from Arkansas, Margarita joined the LJWL faculty at Point Loma Nazarene University in 2017. She lives in San Diego with her husband, Eric Morelli, a Plato’s scholar and a philosophy teacher at PLNU. They have two children: Milo (4) and Nina (almost 2). 

Margarita is the author of two books of poetry: Ficción de Venado (2012) and Una muchacha que se parece a mí (2016), winner of the Poetry Prize awarded by the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture. Her third book, Sobreanimal, is forthcoming in 2021. 

Education

  • Ph.D., Spanish, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
  • M.A., Spanish, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
  • B.A., Communications, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras

Courses Taught

  • Elementary Spanish I - SPA 1001
  • Literature and Culture - LIT 2000
  • Existentialism in Latin American and Caribbean Poetry - SPA 3080
  • Latin American Literature Since 1910 - SPA 4039
  • Post-Colonial Classics and Theory - LIT4048

Previously Taught

  • Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry (Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Nostalgia, Resistance, Assimilation: Latinx Experiences in the US (Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Caribbeans In Their Own Words: Literature, Film & Performance (Ouachita Baptist University)   
  • Narrating the Nation: The Latin American Short Story (Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Latin American Culture and Civilization (Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Introduction to Creative Writing: Fiction (English Department) (Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction (English Department) (Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Disobedient Narratives: Poetics & Politics in Latin American Literature (Emory University)
  • Modern Hispanic Literatures and Cultures (Emory University)
  • Hispanic Cultures & Spanish Language II (Emory University, Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Reading in Spanish: Texts and Contexts (Emory University, Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Conversation & Composition (Emory University, Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Advanced Spanish Grammar (Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Advanced Conversation (Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Intermediate Spanish I, II (Emory University, Ouachita Baptist University)
  • Elementary Spanish I, II (Emory University and Ouachita Baptist University)    
  • Spanish Reading Comprehension for Graduate Students (Emory University)

Experience in Field

  • Assistant Professor of Spanish, Department of Language and Literature, Ouachita Baptist University, 2012-2018
  • Assistant Instructor of Spanish, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Emory University, 2006-2011    

Professional and Community Involvement

  • Member of the Enrollment Management Committee, PLNU 2019-2020.
  • Member, Honors Council at Ouachita Baptist University, Fall 2017.
  • Member, Search Committee for the position of Spanish Lecturer in the Language and Literature Department at Ouachita Baptist University, Spring 2017.
  • Judge, Committee for the Premio de poesía del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 2016.
  • Chair, Faculty Development Committee at Ouachita Baptist University, Fall 2014-Spring 2016.
  • Chair, Discussion Group: Puerto Rican Literature and Culture, MLA, 2015.
  • Member, Faculty Development Committee at Ouachita Baptist University, Fall 2013.
  • Member, Search Committee for the position of Assistant Professor in the Language and Literature Department at Ouachita Baptist University, Spring 2013.

Awards and Honors

  • 2022 - Letras Boricuas Fellow, Poetry
  • 2016 - Recipient of the 2015 Poetry Award given by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña.
  • 2013 - Library Endowment Competition Grant, Ouachita Baptist University.
  • 2009 - Graduate School Funds for International Research, Emory University. Researched correspondence between avant-garde painter Xul Solar and Argentinean writer Macedonio Fernández at Casa Museo Xul Solar, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
  • 2008 - Ph.D. Comprehensive Exams Passed with highest honors, Emory University.
  • 2007 - International Graduate Research Award, Emory University. Research on the sustainability aesthetics of Eloísa Cartonera, and their recycled publications made with reclaimed cardboard.
  • 2006 - Archival Training Grant, University of Salamanca, Spain. Paleography and archival research training program.

Dissertations, Presentations, and Publications

Dissertation

  • "Lorenzo García Vega, poeta sin paisaje"

Books in Progress

  • Retrato de un escritor no-escritor: Lorenzo García Vega y la gramática del fracaso
  • Ping-Pong Zuihitsu, Novela epistolar a dos manos con Lorenzo García Vega
  • A Girl Who Looks Like Me, an English translation of Una muchacha que se parece a mí,
  • Luz Animal/ Animal Light

Published Books

  • Simultánea, la marea. Richmond, VA: Editorial Casa Vacía, 2022.
  • Palabras que repito. Antología poética de Lorenzo García Vega. Sao Paulo, Brazil: Lumme, 2017.
  • Projeto inacabado da ruína. Sao Paulo, Brazil: Lumme, 2017.
  • Una muchacha que se parece a mí. San Juan, PR: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 2016.
  • Ficción de Venado. San Juan, PR: La Secta de los Perros, 2012.

Selected Articles

  • "Cinco poemas," "Sobre Ping- Pong Zuihitsu de Margarita Pintado y Lorenzo García Vega." Chiricú Journal Latina/o Literatures, Arts and Cultures. Vol.4. #1, Fall 2019. 
  • “Metafísica de un escritor no-escritor,” La Patria Albina: Exilio, Escritura y Conversaciones con Lorenzo García Vega. Edited by Carlos Aguilera. Ediciones InCUBAadora, 2015.
  • “Mañana será otro día: Homenaje a Lorenzo García Vega”. Miami Herald, June 6, 2013.
  • “Lorenzo García Vega: Poetizar la vida, humanizar la literatura,” Revista Laboratorio, No.5 (December 2011).
  • “Lorenzo García Vega: Un paisaje imposible,” Diario de Cuba, April 9, 2011: www.diariodecuba.com.
  • “El Otro Orígenes: Negación y Reverso en las poéticas de Virgilio Piñera y Lorenzo García Vega,” La Habana Elegante: Revista Semestral de Literatura y cultura cubana, Caribeña y latinoamericana, y de estética, No. 47 (Spring-Summer 2010): www.habanaelegante.com.
  • “La palabra que amarra: el presagio en La Celestina,” Cuaderno Internacional de Estudios Humanísticos y Literatura. Vols. 3-4, (2003-2004): 133-136.

Presentations

  • Podcast: "A la escucha: Poetry in times of Covid19, " a conversation with Juan Carlos Quintero-Herencia. Saturday, April 11, www.bonitaradio.net. 
  • “Finding God (and Poetry) in All Things,” Festival of Faith and Writing, Grand Rapids, Michigan (April 12-15, 2018).
  • “From Minor to Master: Demarginalizing Minor Literature,” ACLA, UCLA (March 29-April 1, 2018).
  • “60 poems later… A Girl Who Looks Like Me,” Faculty Colloquium, Ouachita Baptist University (March 1, 2017).
  • “The Question of Authenticity in Manuel Ramos Otero’s la novelabingo,” Modern Language Association, Vancouver, Canada (January 8-11, 2015). 
  • “Touched by Death: The afterlife of the poem,” American Comparative Literature Association, New York University, New York (March 20-24, 2014).
  • “Reinvención y radicalización del ser insular en la novelabingo, de Manuel Ramos Otero,” Radical Caribbeans Conference, Tulane University, New Orleans (October 2-5, 2013).
  • “Un gigante al que hay que mirar con lupa. Homenaje a Lorenzo García Vega,” Invited Talk, Miami International Book Fair (November 11-18, 2012).
  • “La otra vanguardia: José María Lima y Lorenzo García Vega,” Boricuas and Other Border Crossers: Of Diasporas and Latinidades, 10th Biannual Conference, SUNY Albany (October 24-28, 2012).
  • “Searching for the Poetic Within and Beyond the Classroom,” Faculty Colloquium, Ouachita Baptist University (October 18, 2012).
  • “Escrituras en fuga en la más reciente producción literaria del Caribe,” The Languages of Resistance, First Annual Texas A&M Department of Hispanic Studies Graduate Students Symposium (Fall 2010).
  • “Lorenzo García Vega: Desvíos y desvaríos de un escritor no-escritor,” Merging Textualities, Emerging Paradigms in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Linguistics, Conference at University of Austin, Texas (Fall 2009).
  • “Almost There: The Empty Space of Memory in Marta Minujín’s Ephemeral Art,” Latin American Studies Association, Río de Janeiro, Brazil (June 2009).
  • “Maquinaciones maquia-bélicas en la poética de Roberto Arlt,” Monsters: Between Anomaly and Dissidence, First Graduate Student Conference, Emory University (Fall 2008).
  • “The Frozen Hostage: Aesthetics of Loss in Pizza, Birra, Faso and La Ciénaga,” Transnational Cinema in Globalizing Societies—Asia and Latin America, Universidad Iberoamericana of Puebla, México (Fall 2008).
  • “F(r)icciones Políticas: El simulacro y la estrategia populista en Borges y Cortázar,” Latin American Studies Association, Montreal, Canada (September 2007).
  • “Consejos para sobrevivir el Caribe urbano en La estrategia de Chochueca, de Rita Indiana Hernández,” Letrópolis, Graduate Student Conference, Stony Brook, New York (October 14, 2006).
  • “Obsceno Caribe: La Habana de Pedro Juan Gutiérrez,” Kentucky’s 59th Annual Foreign Language Conference (April 20-22, 2006).