Luciano Martínez is Professor of Spanish at Swarthmore College and a recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award (2025–26), in residence at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan, Taiwan. He is a seasoned administrator, having served as Chair of the Division of Arts and Humanities and of the Department of Spanish, and as director of the Latin American and Latino Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies programs, as well as Spanish section head in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.

Drawing on his administrative and curricular experience, Martínez recently published “Who We Really Are? Disciplinary Struggles and the Role of Literature in Language Departments” in the ADFL Bulletin (MLA, 2022). His scholarship centers on contemporary Latin American literature, gender and sexuality studies, and literary pedagogy. In an essay for Approaches to Teaching the Works of Jorge Luis Borges (MLA, 2024), Martínez summarizes his work on literary pedagogy, advancing curricular frameworks and theoretical approaches for effectively teaching Borges and related texts.

Professor Martínez earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in Spanish and Latin American Literatures from the University of Pittsburgh, where he received an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship and the Elizabeth Baranger Award for Excellence in Teaching. At Pittsburgh, he also completed a Doctoral Certificate in Cultural Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies. In Argentina, he earned three B.A. degrees—“Profesor de Castellano y Literatura” (Instituto San José), and “Profesor en Letras” and “Licenciado en Letras” (National University of Mar del Plata)—and was honored with multiple academic prizes, including the Academia Argentina de Letras award for the country’s most outstanding literature graduate.

Selected books and edited volumes include Escritoras latinoamericanas del siglo XXI  [21st- Century Latin American Women Writers] (Liverpool University Press, 2023); Pedro Lemebel, belleza indómita [Pedro Lemebel, Savage Beauty] (Serie ACP / IILI, 2022); and Los estudios lésbico-gays y queer latinoamericanos [Latin American Lesbian, Gay and Queer Studies] (2008). He is co-author of Miguel Briante, genealogía de un olvido (Beatriz Viterbo, 2001). 

At Swarthmore, Martínez teaches courses on Latin American literature and culture, with particular emphasis on Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, literary theory, and the Latin American short story.

He has served as an elected delegate to the Assembly of the Modern Language Association and as a board member of the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. He is an MLA-certified external reviewer and consultant for higher education institutions, advising on departmental reviews, curriculum design, and program assessment, with a focus on strengthening the liberal arts.