Luis E. Carcamo-Huechante, Ph.D.

The study of literature and the arts offers students an immersion into the incredible versatility of human expression, language and communication. In the playfulness of literary works or artworks, language unveils its own ambiguities and gaps in meaning; words, images or sounds cannot simply be reduced to one literal definition or a direct empirical correlation. Through classroom exercises in discussing the language of literature and the arts, I constantly seek to cultivate intellectual flexibility in my students and to foster the analytical skills necessary to grapple with multiple interpretations, viewpoints and situations, which are, to me, key dimensions in the formation of students as citizens in the contemporary world.