Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayagüez
15-17 de febrero de 2024, program.
The 2024 Biennial Conference convened at the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez February 15–17 2024. The Biennial focused on Williams’s indebtedness to the traditions of Puerto Rican, Peninsular and Colonial Spanish literatures, as well as issues of borders and translation in the broadest sense—linguistic, geographic, cultural—as well as Williams and the medical humanities, health, and culture.
The keynote speakers were Marta Aponte Alsina, author of La muerte feliz de William Carlos Williams, and Julio Marzán, author of The Spanish American Roots of William Carlos Williams. The conference, free and open to the public, included participation from local artists and writers, poetry readings in Spanish and English, as well as a tour of the city of Mayagüez—the birthplace of Williams’s mother, Raquel Héléna Rose Hoheb Williams, and the site of his uncle and namesake Carlos Hoheb’s medical practice.
The conference included discussions, readings, and roundtable sessions designed for scholars to present their work, each in one-hour sessions, across two days of presentations. The format facilitated questions from the audience and fellow presenters and to explore potential resources and avenues for the study of Williams’s life and work.
The Biennial was hosted by the UPRM Department of English and the Department of Humanities, with support from the Mellon Foundation.
