Dr. Beatriz Cortez is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Central American Studies Program at California State University, Northridge.
In this capacity, she is responsible for the strategic planning, academic excellence, curriculum development, part-time faculty training, and general administration of the program. Dr. Cortez has been a pioneer in her field through her participation in the development of the emergent discipline of Central American studies, as well as through her leadership role in the design, approval and implementation of the first Bachelor of Arts in Central American Studies. Dr. Cortez began developing this program in collaboration with her colleagues in 2004, achieved the goal of obtaining approval for this program in February, 2007, and reached the historic moment when this interdisciplinary degree program was inaugurated at California State University, Northridge in August, 2007.
Prior to her arrival at California State University, Northridge in August, 2000, Dr. Cortez was Assistant Professor of Central American Literature at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Born in El Salvador, Dr. Cortez migrated to the United States in November, 1989. She obtained a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature from Arizona State University (1999). She specialized in contemporary Central American literatures and cultures from the perspective of gender, identity, and cultural studies. She is the author of a number of articles on postwar Central American literature and culture, exile, the construction of identity and gender. She has also translated a number of literary and academic texts from Spanish into English. She is currently revising the final manuscript of her book-length study, Aesthetics of Cynicism: Post-War Central American Fiction, for publication both in English and Spanish.
Dr. Cortez is an active member of the Central American community, both in the Isthmus and in the United States. At California State University, Northridge she serves as the advisor for the Central American United Student Association (CAUSA). In Southern California she holds close ties to the Salvadoran American Leadership and Educational Fund (SALEF), where she has served as member of the scholarship selection committee; the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), where she has been a member of the Arts and Culture committee; and the Hometown Association COPROCE, where she has been in charge for outreach. She also has been an active contributor to national and international academic efforts to further develop the discipline of Central American Studies while serving as elected Co-Chair of the Central American Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and as organizer of innovative transnational forums for the exchange of academic work such as the I International Congress on Central American Literature (Tempe, Arizona, 1999); the II International Congress on Central American Literature (Northridge, California, 2001); the I Central American Film Festival (Northridge, California, 2004); the III International Congress on Central American Literature and Culture (Northridge, California, 2004), and the I Congress on Central American Cultural Studies (San Salvador, El Salvador, October, 2007).
She believes in the transformation of a community through education and daily work with the students. At the same time, she is convinced that education does not only take place in the classroom but also outside the university. She advocates for service learning projects and community applied learning.