William Anthony Nericcio, aka Memo, is a Chicano literary theorist, cultural critic, American Literature scholar, and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University. Nericcio served two years as the Chair of the Department of English and Comparative Literature from August 2007 through October 2009, where he worked successfully to diversify the professoriate and the curriculum; he stepped down in Fall of 2009 and is now Director of the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences program.[1] He also serves on the faculties of the Chicana/o Studies Department, the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences (MALAS), and the Center for Latin American Studies. His work focuses on Chicano literature and film, Mexican-American cultural studies, continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, and global popular culture. He wrote a book on popular representation of Mexican and Mexican-American identity, Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America which was awarded the designation ‘Outstanding Academic Title’ 2007 by the American Library Association in the category of Film Studies.[2] He has two other books published by San Diego State University Press—one, The Hurt Business: Oliver Mayer's Early Works Plus, and Homer From Salinas: John Steinbeck's Enduring Voice for the Californias, both from SDSU Press's Hyperbole Books imprint.[3][4]
Nericcio is also a graphic designer, creating book covers, film posters, and websites, most notably for SDSU Press and Hyperbole Books, where he oversees the production of cultural studies tomes. His Text-Mex Galleryblog investigates the pathological interrogation of Mexican, Latina/o, Chicana/o, "Hispanic," Mexican-American, and Latin American stereotypes, political, and cultural issues. In late 2010, Nericcio began a text-image exhibition entitled “MEXtasy,” which has been displayed at numerous institutions, including University of Michigan and South Texas College.[5][6] He is currently working on his follow-up book to Tex[t]-Mex, Eyegiene: Permutations of Subjectivity in the Televisual Age of Sex and Race.
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William Anthony Nericcio was born in Laredo, Texas, but with ancestry that hails from General Téran and Monterrey, Mexico, Partanna, Sicily, and England, and considers himself post-Movimiento Chicano. Nericcio received his BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin in 1984, then went on to complete his doctoral degree in Comparative Literature from Cornell University in 1989, with a dissertation entitled The Politics of Solitude: Alienation in the Literatures of the Americas.[7] Nericcio's dissertation director was Enrico Mario Santí—other members of his committee included Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Kathleen Newman. While at Cornell, Nericcio served as a graduate research and teaching assistant to Carlos Fuentes at the A.D. White House Society for the Humanities.