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Luis Carlos Ayarza, Ph.D.

Luis Carlos Ayarza, is a Spanish Professor and the Spanish Program Coordinator. He has been FYS instructor since 2022. Luis’s main hobbies are reading, writing, walking and photography.

Luis Carlos Ayarza was born in Bogotá, Colombia. He earned his Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies at Texas A&M University in 2013. In 2008, he graduated from the M.F.A. program in Bilingual Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso. In 2003, he received his bachelor’s degree in Communications with a major in Audiovisual Production from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá.

His main areas of study are Latin American literature and cultures. His research interests include creative writing, art, film, and visual culture. His doctoral dissertation analyzes a number of texts that are consistently excluded from the canonical lists because of their marginal position in relation to traditional literary genres in the Latin American canon.

He is also interested in the promotion of the study of the humanities and its relationship with other disciplines.

Along with his research interests, Dr. Ayarza has a strong vocation in working to enhance diversity and inclusion in the community. In Colombia, he worked with organizations promoting the reading of literature. This involved, among other things, coordinating several projects aimed at communities with low literacy rates. He also coordinated a program seeking to enrich the reading experience of high school teachers within the city. Working as a teacher at the National University of Colombia, Dr. Ayarza taught writing communication workshops. Simultaneously, he worked for the Network of Public Libraries and the Department of Education as a literary workshop coordinator.

Quote to live by:

“My truth is the sum of what I am, not a simple summary of what I think” – Nicolás Gómez Dávila.