Iani Moreno, PhD

Program Director, Spanish

Biography

Professor Moreno holds a B.A. in Economics and International Studies from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from the University of Kansas. Before coming to Suffolk she taught a variety of courses in Spanish language, culture, and literature at the University of Denver and Salve Regina University. Her interests include contemporary Latin American theater, Brazilian language, literature, and culture, US-Mexico Border Studies, Spanish and Portuguese language and literature, and contemporary Latin American cinema and music. She teaches courses in Spanish and Portuguese, including The United States-Mexico Periphery: Border Theater in the New Millennium, Art and Social Change in Contemporary Latin America, Hispanic Culture II: Latin America, Business Spanish, and Elementary Spanish and Portuguese. Her publications discuss contemporary Latin American theater and U.S.-Mexico Border dramaturgy with emphasis on the theater done by Teatro del Norte and especially internationally recognized dramatist Hugo Salcedo of Tijuana, Mexico. She has attended numerous conferences both at the national and international level in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. Some of her publications include “Hugo Salcedo.” Latin American Dramatists in Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 305 (Farmington Hill, Mississippi: Thomson Gale, 2005); “Vivir en Nepantla: Teatro fronterizo en el nuevo milenio” in Teatro y literatura dramática: Frontera Norte/South Border (Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, México: Fondo Regional para la Cultura y las Artes del Noreste, 2001) and also reprinted in Yubai 10.38 (April-June 2002): 54-64; “El exilio fronterizo” in Extraños en dos patrias: teatro latinoamericano del exilio (Frankfurt/Main, Germany: Vervuert, 2002); and “La cultura ‘pulp’ en dos obras: Krisis de Sabina Berman y Pulp Fiction de Quentin Tarantino” in Gestos 13.26 (Nov. 1998): 67-82. Professor Moreno has directed University productions of contemporary Latin American plays and looks forward to working with Suffolk students in the near future. She has also traveled extensively in Latin America and lived abroad in Brazil and in 2005 she was selected by Rotary International to be Ambassador of Goodwill and Understanding in Brazil.