Dr. James Alstrum

Dr. James Alstrum, Professor of Spanish, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant for residency at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia where he will teach and conduct research, in the Colombian satirical tradition, on poetry and prose. Alstrum is known for his research in the areas of contemporary Spanish American Literature and Colombian Literature from all periods, with two books on Colombian poets or poetry: La sátira y la antipoesía de Luis Carlos López and La generación desencantada de Golpe de Dados. He recently published a book-length translation for the University of North Carolina Press about the metallurgical workers union movement in Peru during the decades of the sixties and seventies entitled, To Be a Worker: Identity & Politics in Peru.

This is not the first Fulbright for Alstrum. He was awarded travel to Colombia and secured funding from the Organization of American States to conduct his Ph.D. dissertation research. More of his work has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was an NEH Seminar Fellow at Cornell University and was a Visiting Scholar at the Latin American Center at the University of Chicago.

Alstrum is one of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to some 140 countries in the 2005-2006 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Established in 1946, under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program's purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential in their fields.

Alstrum received his graduate degrees from Vanderbilt University (M.A. 1973, Ph.D. 1977). He taught Spanish at the University of Wyoming (1977-1979) and the University of Mississippi (1979-1981). Since 1981, he has taught virtually every Spanish course in the ISU catalog ranging from beginning Spanish to graduate courses in Spanish American Literature and Culture.