Department of World Languages & Cultures

Eugenio Matibag, Ph.D.

Professor

Program/s

Spanish

Interests

Eugenio Matibag is Professor of Spanish at Iowa State University, where he also serves as Founding Director of the Center for American Intercultural Studies, as Founding Director of Asian American Studies, and as Advisor to the ISU Filipino Student Association and Advisor to the Sigma Delta Pi Spanish National Honorary Society. He also participates on the department's Latin American Studies Program Committee and the President's Advisory Committee on Diversity. His publications to date include two books: Afro-Cuban Religious Experience: Cultural Reflections in Narrative (U P of Florida, 1996); and Haitian-Dominican Counterpoint: Nation, State and Race on Hispaniola (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). His articles on Latin American and Philippine culture have appeared in the periodicals Revista Hispánica Moderna, Catauro, Postmodern Culture, The Journal of Caribbean Studies, The Journal of Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, Dispositio, and Hispamérica; in the anthologies L'Heritage de Calibán, Sacred Possessions: Santería, Voudou and Obeah in Caribbean Literature, and A Handbook of U.S. Latino/a Religion; and in the Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions and the Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition. In the collection Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian American Images, edited by M. Evelina Galang, he published a short piece entitled “Inquiry into the Findings Concerning a Dissociative Personality Disorder in the Case of An American Subject of Filipino Descent.” He has given numerous presentations on topics of Caribbean and Philippines literature and culture in countries that include Spain, Trinidad, Brazil, Toronto, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and the United States. In Summer 2005 he was featured on the Manila-based talk show “Only Gemma”, hosted by Gemma Cruz Araneta, the former Miss Philippines and Minister of Culture of the Philippine Government. He is currently at work on a study of responses to Spanish colonialism in the Philippines. Dr. Matibag also belongs to the Iowa Asian Alliance and the Filipino American Association of Iowa.

Professional Activity

Named Director of CAIS