Hector Calderón

Professor
Department: César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies
hcaldero@ucla.edu
Website
Keywords: Mexico

Professor Héctor Calderón is a specialist in Chicana/o, Mexican, and Latin American literature and cultures. He began his career in Latin American literature and early modern Spain. His Conciencia y lenguaje en “El Quijote” y “El obsceno pájaro de la noche” (Pliegos 1987) examines two classic novels within their respective modern and postmodern contexts. However, Calderón is most widely known for his contributions to Chicana/o literary studies. He is one of the field’s leading figures. His co-edited anthology with José David Saldívar, Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture, and Ideology (Duke 1991) is considered one of the founding works in the field. In 2021, the anthology was celebrated with a special round table discussion at the MLA Convention, “Criticism in the Borderlands at Thirty Years.” Panelists discussed the history and impact of the anthology informed by feminist, cultural studies, and Marxist theories as well as a catalyst for later scholarship in the field. His Narratives of Greater Mexico: Essays on Chicano Literary History, Genre, and Borders (Texas 2005) is a hemispheric study of Chicana/o literature. His recent The “Aztlán” Mexican Studies Reader, 1974-2016 (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press 2018), which highlights the contributions of Chicana/o Studies to the study of Mexico, received three international book awards, two for Academic Themed Book at the 21st Annual International Latino Book Awards and Bronze Award at the Independent Publishers Book Awards–Book Series. His numerous articles, book chapters, and interviews have concentrated on border studies and the Mexican cultural diaspora of North America. In 2022, he contributed essays to The Many Voices of the Los Angeles Novel and the five-volume Brazilian Temas para uma História da Literatura Hispanoamericana. His current research projects include Mexican literature, film, and rock, and Mexican American fiction of Los Angeles. He has a completed book manuscript, América Mexicana: Essays on the Mexican Cultural Diaspora of North America.