Enrique Cortez

Enrique Cortez received his B.A. in Literature from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru (2001) and holds his M.A. in Hispanic Literature from Temple University, Philadelphia (2007). His research focus includes colonial and postcolonial studies, intellectual history and Latin American fiction. At present he is a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Literature and Cultural Studies at Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

In my dissertation I want to examine various aspects of the construction of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's biography: his ideological symbolism as historiographic discourse and as a central figure in the Latin American Literature canon. Similarly, I will pay special attention to the visual narrative generated in the wake of the invention of an image for the Inca Garcilaso, as it constitutes one of the essential pillars in the construction of his biography. Behind such an image, which can be interpreted as an element of verisimilitude congruent with the objective character found in biographies, there is a profound necessity to vinculate image and corporality, countenance, subjectivity and historical truth. In short, it is impossible to restrict the portrayal of the Inca Garcilaso as mestizo or as the first Peruvian strictly to the tools of historiography or verbal account; rather, the representation of the Inca Garcilaso as an idea necessitates an expression in visual terms.