Founded in 1984 by the Department of Linguistics and Literature (Faculty of Humanities) and the Institute of Advanced Studies (IDEA-USACH), the Master’s in Latin American and Chilean Literature was created to prepare researchers and teachers with a strong critical profile. For four decades, this pioneering program has pushed beyond traditional academic boundaries to offer a transformative perspective on continental letters.
Over time, the curriculum has evolved to address essential literary milestones, from pre-Hispanic and colonial literature to the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Today, the program is a leader in modern critical studies, including themes such as gender, sexualities, memory, testimony, and indigenous discourses in its research.
For Dr. Cristina Moyano Barahona, dean of the Faculty of Humanities, commemorating these 40 years is much more than marking a date on the institutional calendar: “It is recognizing an intellectual history that has contributed decisively to shaping the field of literary studies in Chile and that has been able to articulate, from a public university, a critical, sophisticated, and committed reflection on our literature and culture.”
The director of the Master's Degree in Latin American and Chilean Literature, Dr. Jessica Puyol Durán, expressed delight with this new achievement, marking four decades as a postgraduate program. “What we are celebrating today are the people who have shaped this master's program and those who are part of it today; those who built it and those who sustain it day after day, its faculty, students, and administrative staff (...) ours is a deeply collective effort, and for me, it is an honor to be part of it,” she said.
The celebration’s guest of honor was Elvira Hernández, winner of the 2024 National Literature Prize. During her recital, she highlighted the vital role of the humanities today. “This Master’s program at USACH shows that the humanities are essential; they allow us to face new virtual realities that are often imposed as absolute truths,” the poet emphasized.
Historical Roundtable
The activity included a discussion with historical academics from the master's program, in which they recounted important moments from these four decades of operation.
Dr. Naín Nómez referred to his first arrival at our university, in the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of General Studies in 1971. After the coup d'état, he went into exile in 1974 and did not return to Usach until 1990. “The master's program was created in 1985 and began in the Department of Languages—it took us years to change its name. The master's program was a kind of dome without a base, because, although it did not have undergraduate programs in the area, it was imperative to have humanities at the university, especially during the dictatorship,” he said.
Dr. Raquel Olea recounted her arrival at the university through an advertisement by Professor Nómez, who was looking for a professor to teach gender issues in the master's program, something she had already developed in NGOs during the second part of the dictatorship. "Usach has been a great place to work, with wonderful, critical, politically-minded students. This was extremely important at the time because it allowed for the development of post-dictatorship thinking, but not only that, it has endured over time and grown with its history. The humanities at the University of Santiago de Chile have been a bastion of resistance to the maelstrom of new times and societies," she said.
Dr. Andrea Jeftanovic recalled that she and Professor Jorge Rueda are part of the master's program's transitional generation, as they witnessed the retirement of historic academics such as Raquel Olea and Luis Hachim, among others. "We had to choose the new vanguard, which today includes Sebastián Reyes, Jessica Puyol, and Macarena Urzúa, who are with us because of their own merits and talents. This master's program is characterized by academic freedom, by having a library where there are no prohibited books or topics (...) Usach Media is committed to its faculty, and with them, I have been able to record radio and television programs and appear in the digital pages of their newspapers.
But, in addition, the soul of the master's program is our students, who show us their vocation by arriving at 6:30 p.m., after having attended classes all day, with the intention of changing public education in the country," emphasized the academic.
Speaking to the audience, Dr. Jorge Rueda recounted how he began as a student of Dr. Naín Nómez, never dreaming he would one day return as a professor. His primary focus remains the future of public knowledge. He pointed out a stark reality: while Portugal boasts eleven researchers per thousand inhabitants, Chile has only one. "This is the challenge we face as a country and a public educational institution," he said, calling for a 40-year commitment to "generate more knowledge, more dissemination, and to advance in valuing the humanities and the world of language."