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Carlos Ortiz
Assistant Professor
Spanish and Portuguese

Carlos A. Ortiz

Contact Info

513-529-3826
266 Irvin Hall

Originally from Chile, Professor Ortiz completed his undergraduate studies at CUNY Hunter College (New York). He later moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in the theatre and visual cultures of the Latinx Americas. His research focuses on the intersections of 20th and 21st-century Latin American culture, hemispheric approaches to theatre and performance in the Americas, contemporary Chilean theatre and performance, transnational studies, and queer studies.

Education

Ph.D. Spanish, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2023)

M.A. Spanish, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2016)

B.A. Spanish and Latin American Literature, CUNY Hunter College (2014)

Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

  • “Aesthetics of Precarity: The Vindicating Materiality of Silencio Blanco’s Puppetry.” Making Meaning in Puppetry: Materials, Practice, Perception. eds. Dassia N. Posner, Claudia Orenstein, Alissa Mello. Routledge, 2025.
  • “Awaiting Revolution: Performing Chile’s Hierarchies in Ernesto Orellana’s Inútiles.” Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures. 76.3 (Fall 2022).
  • “Manuela Infante.” Fifty Key Figures in LatinX and Latin American Theatre. eds. Paola Hernández and Analola Santana. Routledge, 2022.

Conference Participation (Selected)

  • “Repensar la memoria en y más allá del cuerpo en Cómo convertirse en piedra (2020).” 2025 LASA Congress. San Francisco, CA.
  • “Performing Beyond the Human in Chile: History and Memory as Sediments.” 2024 American Society of Theatre Research Annual Conference. Seattle, WA.
  • “Mapuche Embodiments: Seba Calfuqueo Performing Liquid Being.” 77th Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference. Lexington, KY.
  • “The Transnational and Coalitional Practice of Carlos Martiel.” 2023 American Society of Theatre Research Annual Conference. Providence, RI.
  • “Technobodies, Sexual Dissidence, and the Cyberactivism of Josecarlo Henríquez.” 2022 American Society for Theatre Research Annual Conference. New Orleans, LA.
  • “Covertly Triggering the Archive on Stage.” Flash Talks on Archives and Literature. Department of Spanish and Portuguese. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • “Performing Plant-Thinking.” The Hemispheric Institute at New York University - 6th Graduate Student Convergence (GSI): Intimate Architectures: Displacement, Irruption, and Emergency in the Americas. University of Chicago.
  • “Silencio Blanco and the New Approaches to Puppetry in Chile.” 2021 American Society for Theatre Research Annual Conference. (Accepted and canceled due to COVID-19)
  • “Defining a Non-Anthropocentric Theatre: The Methods and Reconceptualizations of Manuela Infante.” 2019 American Society for Theatre Research Annual Conference. Arlington, VA. November 2019.
  • “Dissident Acts: Disputing Kinship in the Contemporary Chilean Stage.” 2019 ASLE Biennial Conference. University of California, Davis.
  • “#SoyPuto, redes sociales y lo televisual como espacios contrapúblicos: el caso de Josecarlo Henríquez.” 28th Annual Meeting of the Association of Gender and Sexuality Studies. University of Illinois at Chicago.
  • “¿Democracia en el Chile contemporáneo? Escuela de Guillermo Calderón como contra-discurso para la historia establecida.” Mid-American Conference on Hispanic Literatures (MACHL). University of Kansas.
  • “Developments of Ecodramaturgy in Chile: Cisnes de papel, Queering Ecology through Performance.” Encuentro: Excéntrico. The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. Santiago, Chile. July 2016.

Awards and Honors

  • 2022 Innovation in Teaching Award. Department of Spanish and Portuguese 2022-23 (Nominee). College of Letters & Sciences, Teaching & Learning Administration, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • 2022 Lyman S.V. Judson and Ellen Mackechnie Judson Graduate Student Award in the Creative Arts. Division of the Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  • Fall 2016, 2018, and 2019 University Housing Honored Instructor, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Grants and Funding

  • 2025 Assigned Research Appointment (Spring 2026). College of Arts and Sciences. ߣߣÊÓƵ University, Ohio.
  • 2024 Dean's Research Fund. College of Arts and Sciences. ߣߣÊÓƵ University, Ohio.
  • 2024 Summer Research Grant. College of Arts and Sciences. ߣߣÊÓƵ University, Ohio.

Theater and Performance Experience

  • Co-director (with Jorge Cienfuegos) and Producer of El amor de las luciérnagas by Alejandro Ricaño (full production by Teatro Décimo Piso). Hemsley Theatre, University of Wisconsin-Madison, February 28-March 1, 2020.
  • Director and Producer of The Gardens of Aztlán by Luis Alfaro (full production by Teatro Décimo Piso). Hemsley Theatre, University of Wisconsin-Madison, March 9, 2019.
  • Co-director (with Dr. Paola Hernández) of Antígona: las voces que incendian el desierto by Perla de la Rosa (full production). Play Circle Theatre, Memorial Union, University of Wisconsin-Madison, May 4-5, 2018.
  • Co-Director and Actor in Eran tres y ahora son cuatro by Myrna Casas (full production). Teatro Décimo Piso. Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Bascom Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison. March 11, 2017.
  • Actor in Tararí by Valentín Andrés Álvarez (full production by Teatro Décimo Piso). Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Bascom Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison, March 12, 2016.
  • Actor in Música de balas by Hugo Salcedo (full production). Play Circle Theatre, Memorial Union, University of Wisconsin-Madison, May 8-9, 2015.
  • Actor in Avispas en febrero by Gustavo Pernas Cora (full production by Teatro Décimo Piso). Dejope Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison, March 14, 2015.