Professor of Spanish Luciano Martínez has been awarded a 2025–26 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Taiwan. This year’s application pool for Taiwan was the largest in the program’s history, making the award especially competitive. He will be hosted by National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), one of Taiwan’s leading research universities, where he will teach, collaborate with colleagues, and explore bilingual education in an international setting.

At NCKU, Martínez will teach two courses in English: Latin American Voices: The Short Story in Translation and a general education course on Latin American cultures, arts, and sports. Designed to engage students with Latin American literature in translation, the courses will also help strengthen students’ English proficiency while developing skills in academic writing, critical thinking, and public speaking.

“I am honored to receive a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Taiwan. This opportunity will allow me to explore how literature and the humanities can be in dialogue with Taiwan’s strengths in science and technology while fostering cross-cultural exchange in line with the Fulbright mission,” Martínez said.

In addition to teaching, Martínez will lead faculty workshops on strategies for teaching in a second language and will study how NCKU integrates the arts, humanities, and liberal arts education into its curriculum. His research will build on his extensive administrative experience at Swarthmore, where he has led the Division of Arts and Humanities, chaired the Spanish Department, and directed interdisciplinary programs.

Upon his return to Swarthmore, Martínez plans to share insights on bilingual education and liberal arts pedagogy and to create new opportunities for international collaboration.

Martínez’s scholarship focuses on contemporary Latin American literature, gender and sexuality studies, and literary pedagogy. In Approaches to Teaching the Works of Jorge Luis Borges, he contributed an essay advancing curricular frameworks and theoretical approaches for effectively teaching Borges and related texts. In 2022, he published “Who We Really Are? Disciplinary Struggles and the Role of Literature in Language Departments” in the ADFL Bulletin, drawing on his administrative and curricular experience. He has also authored and edited several books on Latin American literature, with a focus on contemporary narrative and women writers.

Martínez earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in Spanish and Latin American Literatures from the University of Pittsburgh, where he was awarded an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship and the Elizabeth Baranger Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program offers more than 400 awards in over 135 countries for U.S. citizens to teach, conduct research, and carry out professional projects around the world. College and university faculty, as well as artists and professionals across fields, join more than 400,000 Fulbrighters who have come away with enhanced skills, new connections, and deeper cross-cultural understanding.