Erik Camayd-Freixas, Ph.D., is professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages at Florida International University.
Dr. Camayd-Freixas served for twenty years as director of Translation Studies at FIU. He specializes in cultural studies, literature, and historiography of the colonial and contemporary periods of Latin America and the Caribbean.
A Harvard-trained communications analyst, social theorist, and expert linguist at federal and state courts, Dr. Camayd-Freixas has testified before Congress, contributed as amicus curiae to the U.S. Supreme Court, and received human rights awards from the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He has interpreted for more than a dozen heads of state, including President Obama, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, and President Biden.
Dr. Camayd-Freixas has lectured on linguistic, literary, and cultural studies, immigration, labor, ethics, and human rights in law schools, bar associations, and professional organizations nationally and internationally. He has published Realismo mágico y primitivismo: Relecturas de Carpentier, Asturias, Rulfo y García Márquez (1998); Primitivism and Identity in Latin America: Essays on Art, Literature, and Culture (2000); Postville: La criminalización de los migrantes (2009); La etnografía imaginaria: Historia y parodia en la literatura hispanoamericana (2012); Orientalism and Identity in Latin America: Fashioning Self and Other from the (Post)Colonial Margin (2013); and U.S. Immigration Reform and Its Global Impact: Lessons from the Postville Raid (2013), in addition to numerous articles in collective volumes and journals throughout the Americas and Europe. His forthcoming book is titled Metagrammar: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
Professor Camayd-Freixas holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Romance languages, literatures, and linguistics from Harvard University and a B.A. (summa cum laude) in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics from Tufts University.