Alejandro Cuellar

Alejandro Cuellar, Writing Instructor and Faculty Associate, received his B.A. from Hampshire College and his M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass-Amherst).

His writing concentrates on American identity, biculturalism, and bilingualism, with a primary focus on Latinx and Latin American/Caribbean immigrant narratives. He has taught at UMass-Amherst, Smith College, and Holyoke Community College.

Recent and Upcoming Courses

Primitive Comfort: Writing About Food
Food is so much of who we are. It is a basic function of staying alive, but it is also tethered to so many things that are beyond the basic and in fact can be quite sumptuous and decadent. Much can be discerned about ourselves and our priorities, our beliefs, our past, and our future, by studying how and what we eat. Where does our relationship to food become more than a basic function? How are these basic tenets of food and food culture capitalized upon and shaped by marketers and corporations? We will read a variety of writers whose work deals with these questions, and we will, by writing across the curriculum, study our personal, cultural, historical, and perhaps even mythical relationship to food.
The Space in Our Identity: Writing About Home
Home is where we live in every sense, but "Home" is more than the physical structure we reside in: it is also the psychological, societal, emotional, and even the mythical. In this course we will read a variety of fiction and non-fiction and explore the importance of these spaces, be they physical or metaphysical, to the construction of "home" and more importantly, how these terms, whether we accept them wholly, shun them entirely, or experience via travel and immigration, dictate to us and others a sense of self and identity via our own writing. We will write a mix of critical essays, personal and reflective writings, and creative work as we also delve into the process of writing: topic selection, drafting, and a variety of techniques for revision, including peer review. Individual meetings with the instructor will be required. Limited to First Year Students.
Introduction to Writing
This course will explore the work of scholars, essayists, and creative writers in order to use their prose as models for our own. We'll analyze scholarly explication and argument, and we'll appreciate the artistry in our finest personal essays and short fiction. Students will complete a series of critical essays in the humanities and natural sciences and follow with a personal essay and a piece of short fiction. Students will have an opportunity to submit their work for peer review and discussion; students will also meet individually with the instructors. Frequent, enthusiastic revision is an expectation.