530 Sixth Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103
Education:
Wesleyan University, College of Letters
and Mathematics
B.A., Magna Cum Laude, Honors, June
1978
Princeton University, Department of
Anthropology
M.A., June 1982; Ph.D., June 1989
Published Translations from Spanish (prose):
Almudena Solana, The Curriculum Vitae of Aurora Ortiz, London: Harvill Press, January 2005. Translation of El currículum de Aurora Ortiz (Madrid: Suma de Letras, 2002).
José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, The Mangy Parrot (El Periquillo Sarniento), originally published in 1816 and considered the first Latin American novel. Translation supported by a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, 2001. Translated with a Translator’s Note and over 400 footnotes by David Frye. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2004 (also forthcoming in an abridged version for classroom use in Fall 2005).
Abilio Estévez, Distant Palaces (novel), New York: Arcade Publishing, January 2004. Translation of Los palacios distantes (Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 2002).
Personal essays in María de los Angeles Torres, ed., By Heart / De Memoria: Cuban Women's Journeys In and Out of Exile (Temple University Press, 2003):
Abilio Estévez, Thine Is the Kingdom (novel, 327 pp.), New York: Arcade Publishing, 1999. Translation of Tuyo es el reino, Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 1997.
José Veigas Zamora, Cristina Vives Gutiérrez, Adolfo V. Nodal, Valia Garzón, and Dannys Montes de Oca, Memoria: Cuban Art of the Twentieth Century (essays and biographical sketches, 520 pages). St. Leonards, Australia: Craftsman House / California International Arts Foundation, 2002.
In Ruth Behar, ed., Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba, University of Michigan Press, 1996 (reprinted from Michigan Quarterly Review, 33 (3-4), Summer and Fall 1994):
Published Translations from Spanish (poetry):
14 poems by Nancy Morejón, to be published in With Eyes and Soul / Con buenos ojos: Images of Cuba, translated by David Frye and Pamela Carmell, forthcoming from White Pine Press.
31 poems by Nancy Morejón, in Looking Within / Mirar adentro: Selected Poems / Poemas escogidos, 1954-2000, edited by Juanamaría Cordones-Cook, Wayne State University Press, 2003.
In Michigan Quarterly Review, 36, no. 4, Fall 1997, pp. 543-546:
In La Revista del Vigía (Matanzas, Cuba), año 7, no. 2, December 1996, pp. 31-35:
Publications:
Indians into Mexicans: History and Identity in a Mexican Town. An ethnographic and historical study of politics, racial ideology, and the construction of social identity in the town of Mexquitic, San Luis Potosí. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
"Pame." In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, John Chance, volume editor. Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
"The Native Americans of Northeastern Mexico, from the Conquest to the Present." In The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, volume on Mesoamerica edited by Murdo J. MacLeod. Cambridge University Press, Spring 2000).
"The Joy of Translation," The Journal of the International Institute (University of Michigan), Winter 2000, pp. 20-21.
"Staging Revolution: Ritual, Myth, and Memory in Mexico," The Journal of the International Institute (University of Michigan), Fall 1996, pp. 1, 12-13.
"The Gendered Senate: National Politics and Gender Imagery after the Thomas Hearings." In Paul Siegel, ed., Outsiders Looking In: A Communication Perspective on the Hill/Thomas Hearings, Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1996, pp. 3-15.
"Speaking of the Ejido: Three Modes of Discourse about the Salinas Reforms." Urban Anthropology/Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, vol. 23, nos. 2-3 (1994), pp. 307-330.
"Telling Histories: A Late-Colonial Encounter of 'Spanish' and 'Indian' in Rural Mexico and in the Archives," Colonial Latin American Review, vol. 3, nos. 1-2 (1994), pp. 115-138.
Experience in Spanish-speaking countries:
I have learned Spanish in three very different linguistic and literary sites – Spain, Mexico, and Cuba. This experience has given me an invaluable facility in the nuances and regional variations of the language.
I first learned Spanish in northern Spain, while doing anthropological research in the village of Santa María del Monte (León) in the summers of 1978 and 1979, undertaken as part of a team project on regionalism in northern Spain (Princeton University and Universidad Complutense of Madrid). I returned to live in Spain from June 1980 to September 1981. Spending part of my time in historical archives (Simancas, Madrid, Valladolid, Seville), part traveling around the peninsula, and part living in the small village of Santa María, I became familiar with a variety of current and historical forms of Spanish.
In late 1982 I went to Mexico for doctoral research in cultural anthropology in the town of Mexquitic, San Luis Potosí (November 1982-August 1985). During this time I traveled extensively around Mexico and spent several weeks in Mexico City, Morelia, and San Luis Potosí, where I undertook archival and library research. Over the years I have continued to return to Mexico for continuing research, for periods of three weeks to two months during the summers of 1987 through 1990, 1993, and 1994, and for one week in 1997.
In the summer of 1992 I spent three weeks in Istanbul, Turkey, where I spoke with members of the Sephardic community – descendants of Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and who continue to speak Spanish 500 years later. I then spent three weeks in Spain, visiting key sites of former Jewish life there.
In late December 1991, I traveled to Cuba for one week to explore the possibility of a historical study of Cuban independence in the provinces of Matanzas and Havana. I have returned to Cuba for follow-up research in 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1999, for periods of one to three weeks. Over the course of these visits I have become increasingly interested in the literary life of Havana and Matanzas.
Other relevant experience:
I have taught courses on Latin American society, culture, and history for the Departments of Anthropology of History of the University of Michigan since 1991 as Visiting Assistant Professor (1991-1998) and Adjunct Assistant Professor (1998-present). Over this period I have supervised 29 senior theses on Latin American society and culture, have served on preliminary examination committees and dissertation committees for seven graduate students in History and Anthropology, and have served on Fulbright interview committees annually since 1996. I taught a course on the History of Mexico at Wayne State University in Winter 1995.
Languages:
I am fluent in written and spoken Spanish, have studied beginning Portuguese and Quechua, and have varying degrees of reading facility in Italian, French, and Russian.