Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture

Professor Recognized for Contributions to Latina/o Studies

Wednesday, June 3, 2015, By Rob Enslin
Share
AwardsCollege of Arts and Sciencesfaculty

A professor in the College of Arts and Sciences has been internationally recognized for his service and intellectual contributions to Latina/o studies.

Silvio Torres-Saillant

Silvio Torres-Saillant

Silvio Torres-Saillant, professor of English and Latino-Latin American studies, is the co-recipient of the 2015 Frank Bonilla Public Intellectual Award. Named for the late Puerto Rican intellectual trailblazer, the award was recently presented to Torres-Saillant at the International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) in San Juan.

He shares the award with Ana Celia Zentella, renowned linguist and professor emeritus of ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego.

“I am both excited and humbled to share in this prestigious award,” says Torres-Saillant, who directed the college’s Latino-Latin American Studies Program from 2000 to 2009. “Frank Bonilla personified service, mentoring and innovative pedagogy. I am proud to have my name associated with his, especially since his legacy has offered me an invariably compelling model.”

The award was one of several given out at the LASA congress, whose theme revolved around social and labor issues in Latin America, the academic workplace and education, and modalities of knowledge exchange—all areas of personal interest to Torres-Saillant.

That he taught alongside Bonilla in New York City during the 1980s and ‘90s gives the honor added significance.

“Frank devoted his life to studying the political and economic forces that engender exploitation and injustice,” Torres-Saillant adds. “He also was at the forefront of community struggles against racial and ethnic oppression, especially in education.”

The similarities between Bonilla and Torres-Saillant are uncanny. For starters, both men had strong ties to the City University of New York (CUNY). Bonilla founded the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College; Torres-Saillant, the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at the City College of New York. In fact, Torres-Saillant went on to co-direct the Inter-University Program for Latino Research, a national consortium that Bonilla founded at Hunter a decade earlier.

Both have proven track records in teaching, with Bonilla having held faculty positions at MIT, Stanford University and Hunter (where he rose to the rank of Thomas Hunter Professor Emeritus), and Torres-Saillant, at Hostos Community College, City College and Syracuse.

And both men have won LASA’s Public Intellectual Award—in Bonilla’s case, it was subsequently named for him.

“By linking me … with the Frank Bonilla legacy, you honor me in a way that exceeds any merits you may have discerned from my CV,” Torres-Saillant told a packed room at San Juan’s Caribe Hilton. “With this distinction, you have put me in the difficult bind of having to try my level best from now on, so I can get close to feeling I have earned it. In other words, as folks used to say when I was a kid: ‘Me la han puesto dura [You’ve given me a hard job].'”

Torres-Saillant has held a variety of faculty and administrative posts at Syracuse since his arrival in 1999. They include the William P. Tolley Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities (2009-11), chair of the Humanities Council (2012-14), and cofounder of La Casita Cultural Center (2011). A prolific scholar and social commentator, he is an expert on Caribbean and ethnic American literature; Latino texts; diasporas and migration studies; intellectual histories; and the place of race as a factor of modernity, stemming from colonial transaction marshaled by the Christian West. He is the author or editor of nearly a dozen books, including “The Advent of Blackness” (forthcoming) and the critically acclaimed “Intellectual History of the Caribbean” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

Torres-Saillant also has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, the University of Cartagena (Colombia) and the National University of Colombia; has been knighted by the president of the Dominican Republic; and has been featured on PBS’ “Black in Latin America” series. He earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from New York University.

 

  • Author

Rob Enslin

  • Recent
  • Arts and Sciences Hosts Inaugural Scholarship and Research Gala
    Friday, May 9, 2025, By Sean Grogan
  • Chancellor Kent Syverud Honored as Distinguished Citizen of the Year at 57th Annual ScoutPower Event
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By News Staff
  • New Maymester Program Allows Student-Athletes to Develop ‘Democracy Playbook’
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By Wendy S. Loughlin
  • From Policy to Practice: How AI is Shaping the Future of Education
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By Christopher Munoz
  • Kohn, Wiklund, Wilmoth Named Distinguished Professors
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By Wendy S. Loughlin

More In Arts & Culture

School of Architecture Faculty Pablo Sequero Named Winner of 2025 Architectural League Prize

School of Architecture faculty member Pablo Sequero’s firm, salazarsequeromedina, has been named to the newest cohort of winners in the biennial Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers, one of North America’s most prestigious awards for young practitioners. “An…

A&S Cool Class: Chinese Art

Exploring diverse artistic traditions is one way students in the College of Arts and Sciences develop global perspectives and enhance their cultural awareness, necessary for success in today’s connected world. Artworks from around the world, including those from China, offer…

Jane Austen Returns to Syracuse Stage With Fresh and Fun ‘Sense and Sensibility’

Syracuse Stage continues its 2024/25 season with celebrated actor and playwright Kate Hamill’s whirlwind adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility.” Directed by Jason O’Connell, “Sense and Sensibility” will run April 23-May 11 in the Archbold Theatre at Syracuse Stage,…

Syracuse Student Co-Headlines Society for New Music Concert April 13

Music by Syracuse University graduate student Rolando Gómez is part of the Society for New Music (SNM)’s annual Prizewinners Concert on Sunday, April 13, at 4 p.m. at CNY Jazz Central (441 East Washington St., Syracuse). A master’s student in…

Faculty, Staff Invited to Participate in This Year’s ‘On My Own Time’ Celebration

The University is pleased to announce its participation in “On My Own Time”—a celebration of local visual arts that highlights the often-unsung artists who create art on their own time. This year is the 52nd anniversary of this program, organized…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.