Portuguese Faculty

Francisco Cota Fagundes
Born in the Azores, Portugal, he emigrated to the US in 1963. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1976. He has taught Spanish and Portuguese language and literatures at the undergraduate level; Portuguese, Lusophone African, and Brazilian literatures at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and courses in Portuguese- and English-language literature of the Portuguese diaspora in the US. He is a literary critic, autobiographer, short story writer, and translator.

José N. Ornelas
Born in Madeira Island, Portugal, he emigrated to the United States in 1961. In 1976, he was awarded his Ph. D. from the City University of New York in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. He has been a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts Amherst since 1974. From 1999-2007, he was the Chair/Director of Spanish and Portuguese, and from 1997-2008 he was the Director of the BDIC Program, the largest interdisciplinary program at the University.

Daphne Patai
Born in Jerusalem, Daphne Patai came to the United States as a child. She received her B.A. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University, and her Ph.D. in Portuguese from the University of Wisconsin in 1977. She teaches courses on Brazilian literature, film, utopian literature, literary theory, and related subjects. She has published widely in all these fields, as well as on translation, women studies, and higher education. She is the author and editor of over a dozen books.

Spanish and Portuguese, Deparment of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Portuguese Faculty