Meléndez Awarded Fulbright Fellowship to Hungary

April 24, 2014

University of New Mexico American Studies Professor A. Gabriel Meléndez has been awarded a Fulbright Senior Teaching Fellowship to Eger, Hungary, where he will teach at Eszterházy Károly College for the fall 2014 semester.

Meléndez will teach, lecture and continue his research on how notions of legitimacy and illegitimacy for Latinos are transferred to general audiences through film. As part of his Fulbright proposal, "The Power of the Celluloid Curriculum," Meléndez will teach a modified version of "Race, Culture and Cinema," a seminar he routinely offers at UNM which builds critical awareness of the inclusion and exclusion of ethnic minorities in American film.

Starting with the premise that "movies teach" and in doing so provide audiences with a "celluloid curriculum" that informs uninitiated viewers, Meléndez plans to share the Latino experience with Hungarian students and faculty. He will also incorporate elements of his course, "Chicano-Latino Film" and will employ his recent book, Hidden Chicano Cinema: Film Dramas in the Borderlands(Rutgers, 2013) to address these concerns.

While in Hungary, Meléndez will visit several "American Studies" centers including those at ELBT University, Debrecen University and Pannon University. His talks to students and faculty there will provide a clear line of sight on how the cinematic representations of diverse populations in the U.S. have been braided into the history of film since the earliest days.

Meléndez is a faculty affiliate of the Latin American and Iberian Institute.