Academic Affairs

José R. Vilahomat, Ph.D.

Vilahomat, Jose-9

José R. Vilahomat, Ph.D.

Professor of Spanish

He/Him/His vilahomat@hendrix.edu Fausett Hall Office 1, second floor (501) 450-45 94

Biography

José Ramón Vilahomat González was born in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba. His family settled in a Havana suburb in 1962, where he lived until he was 27 years old. In 1978, Vilahomat began a physics degree at the University of Havana, where he later worked for eight years as a planar technician, building silicon solar cells and in charge of scientific literature in a laboratory of the Solid State Department. Vilahomat combined his years in the lab with a new career in philology that was more in line with his love of poetry and creative writing. During his college years, he was an accomplished swimmer.

Vilahomat graduated in 1992 in philology with a specialization in Cuban literature and a thesis on the Cuban writer Ezequiel Vieta. After defecting from Cuba in 1994, he completed a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. in Spanish, both at Florida International University, with a dissertation on aesthetic issues in Borges and Lezama. Some of Vilahomat's work experience includes being a librarian at the cultural institution "Casa de las Americas" in Havana, a high school science teacher with the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, a professional printer, a translator, an editor, and a photojournalist.

Dr. Vilahomat teaches courses on modernism and vanguardism, the Latin American boom, and seminars on Borges and Lezama. He specializes in new trends in current literature. Among his publications are a book on aesthetic issues in Borges and Lezama, a study of genre in new trends, and four poetry books.

Scholarly Publications

Academic Background

  • B.A., Universidad de la Habana, '92
  • M.A., Florida International University, '97
  • Ph.D., Florida International University, '03