Robert Patrick Newcomb

PROFILE

Robert Patrick Newcomb (pronouns: he/him/his) teaches Luso-Brazilian and Hispanic/Latin American literatures at UC Davis. He is co-director of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese's undergraduate program in Portuguese. He is also founder and co-director of the UC Comparative Iberian Studies Working Group.

His research focuses on comparative approaches to Luso-Hispanic literatures, in both Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, with emphasis placed on the late 19th/early 20th centuries, the essay, and literary relations between writers operating in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds. He is active in public debates on Iberian studies, and is a translator (Portuguese to English) of literary and critical texts.

His current book project is Writing Out of Place: Dislocation and Transnational Lusophone Literature.

EDUCATION AND DEGREES

Ph.D., Luso-Brazilian Studies, Brown University
MA, Luso-Brazilian Studies, Brown University
BA, Luso-Brazilian Studies/International Relations, Brown University

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Comparative Luso-Hispanic studies
• Luso-Brazilian and Hispanic/Latin American literature and culture (primarily 19th-20th c.)
• Iberian studies and Iberianism
• Gibraltar and Gibraltarian literature
• The essay, theory, and criticism
• Poetry, poetics, and translation
• Theory and methodology of comparative literature
• Literature and philosophy

GRADUATE SEMINARS

• Spanish 274: The Return of the Caravels: Post-Colonial Literatures of the Portuguese-speaking World
• Spanish 274: A World in Motion: Travelers, Migrants, and Exiles in Luso-Afro-Brazilian Literature
• Spanish 274: Zonas de contato: Lusophone Narratives of Encounter
• Spanish 274: Theories of Iberia and Latin America
• Spanish 274: Problems of Knowledge in Luso-Hispanic Literature
• Spanish 274: Luso-Hispanic Encounters
• Spanish 224: Introduction to Iberian Studies
• Spanish 272: Culture and Resistance in Luso-Brazilian Literature

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES

• Portuguese 163: Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Literature
• Portuguese 162: Introduction to Brazilian Literature
• Portuguese 161: Luso-Brazilian Literature and Culture
• Portuguese 100: Principles of Luso-Brazilian Literature and Criticism 
• Portuguese 31G: Portuguese for Spanish-speaking Graduate Students
• Spanish 159: Brazilian Literature in English Translation
• Spanish 157: Cross-Border Fictions
• Spanish 151: Transnational Latin American Literature
• Spanish 100: Principles of Hispanic Literature and Criticism

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS

• Iberianism and Crisis: Spain and Portugal at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Toronto, 2018)
• Nossa and Nuestra América: Inter-American Dialogues (Purdue, 2011)

EDITED VOLUMES AND SPECIAL ISSUES

• Transatlantic Studies: Latin America, Iberia, and Africa (co-edited w/ Cecilia Enjuto Rangel, Sebastiaan Faber, and Pedro García-Caro, Liverpool, 2019)
• Fernandes, Ângela, Santiago Pérez Isasi, and Robert Patrick Newcomb. "‘Iberian Studies: New Spaces of Inquiry". International Journal of Iberian Studies 32 (2019)
• Beyond Tordesillas: Critical Essays in Comparative Luso-Hispanic Studies (co-edited w/ Richard A. Gordon; Ohio State, 2017)

ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS (2017-PRESENT)

• "The Double Face of Translation in Joan Maragall," Iberian and Translation Studies: Literary Contact Zones. Ed. Esther Gimeno Ugalde, Marta Pacheco Pinto, and Ângela Fernandes; Liverpool University Press, 2021
• "A Secondary Ghost: Gibraltar in La vida perra de Juanita Narboni, by Ángel Vázquez," TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, Volume 9, Issue 6, 2021
• “Figurations of the Negra in Gonçalves Crespo and Caetano da Costa Alegre,” Luso-Brazilian Review 56.2 (2019)
• “Iberianism’s Lessons for Iberian Studies,” Catalonia, Iberia and Europe. Ed. David Duarte and Giangiacomo Vale; Aracne editrice, 2019
• “Across the Waves”: The Luso-Brazilian Republic of Letters at the Fin de Siècle,”  Transatlantic Studies: Latin America, Iberia, and Africa. Ed. Cecilia Enjuto Rangel, Pedro García-Caro, Sebastiaan Faber, and Robert Patrick Newcomb; Liverpool University Press, 2019
• “João do Rio in Portugal: Counterfeit Currency and Luso-Brazilian Desleixo,” Journal of Lusophone Studies 3.2 (2018)
• “Dois Povos Irmãos: a comunidade imaginada luso-brasileira na última década do século XIX,” Letterature d’America, no. 165, anno XXXVII (2017)
• “A Ideia de Sobranceria no Ensaio Luso-Brasileiro de Interpretação Nacional.” Circulação literária e cultural. Ed. José Luís Jobim. Bern: Peter Lang, 2017
• “The Idea of Sobranceria in the Luso-Brazilian Essay of National Interpretation.” Literary and Cultural Circulation. Ed. José Luís Jobim. Bern: Peter Lang, 2017

REVIEWS, NOTES, AND MISCELLANEOUS (2017-PRESENT)                                                        

• M.G. Sanchez, Gooseman, Hispania, Volume 104, January 2021, Number 4
• Patrícia Lino, O Kit de Sobrevivência do Descobridor Português no Mundo Anticolonial, Journal of Lusophone Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2021)
• Mary L. Coffey and Margot Versteeg (eds.). Imagined Truths: Realism in Modern Spanish Literature and Culture, University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 90, no. 3, 2021.
• Gustavo San Román, A Companion to José Enrique Rodó, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Vol. 98, Issue 5 (2021)
• M.G. Sanchez, Border Control and other Autobiographical Pieces, International Journal of Iberian Studies 33.1 (2020)
• "Entrevista a Trino Cruz." TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, Fall 2019
• “Forward.” Anthology of Contemporary Gibraltar Poets. Ed. Felix Alvarez et al. Gibraltar: Independent Writers and Artists Project, 2019
• Javier Muñoz-Basols, Laura Lonsdale, and Manuel Delgado (eds.). The Routledge Companion to Iberian Studies, Hispania, Volume 101, December 2018, Number 4
• Tânia Martuscelli. (Des)Conexões entre Portugal e o Brasil. Séculos XIX e XX, Hispania, Volume 101, June 2018, Number 2
• "The Dialogue between Literature and Film in Early Twentieth Century Rio de Janeiro." Maite Conde. Consuming Visions: Cinema, Writing, and Modernity in Rio de Janeiro, Confluencia, Volume 33, Issue 2, Spring 2018
• Ori Preuss. Transnational South America: Experiences, Ideas, and Identities, 1860s-1900s, Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe, Vol. 28, No. 2 (2017)
• César Domínguez, Anxo Abuín González, and Ellen Sapega (eds.). A Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula. Volume II, International Journal of Iberian Studies, Vol.  30, No. 3, September 2017

SELECTED TRANSLATIONS

• Alfredo Bosi. "The Parábola of the Latin American Avant-Gardes." Beyond Tordesillas: New Approaches to Comparative Luso-Hispanic Studies. Ed. Robert Patrick Newcomb and Richard A. Gordon, Ohio State, 2017. 137-48.
• _____. Brazil and the Dialectic of Colonization (University of Illinois Press, 2015)
• _____. Colony, Cult and Culture (UMass Dartmouth, 2008)
• Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, "Six Crônicas on Slavery and Abolition," Portuguese Studies 33.1 (2017): 105-22.
• _____. "Reflections on Brazilian Literature at the Present Moment: The National Instinct," Brasil/Brazil vol. 26, no. 47/2013: 85-101.
• _____. "The New Generation," Journal of Lusophone Studies 1.2 (Autumn 2016): 262-308.
• Cláudia Castelo. "The Luso-Tropicalist Message of the Late Portuguese Empire." Media and the Portuguese Empire. Ed. José Luís García et al. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 217-34.

HONORS AND AWARDS

Joukowsky Outstanding Dissertation Award (Humanities), Brown University, 2008