Education: Mario Alfonso Rojas earned his Licentiate in Spanish Literature from Universidad de Chile (1964), his M.A. in Linguistics from Ball State University (1973), and his Ph.D. from Temple University (1978). He has attended 2 Sessions of the International School of Theatre  Anthropology (ISTA) held in Londrina, Brazil in 1994, and in Seville and La Rinconada, Spain, 2004 directed by  Eugenio Barba, one of the leading directors of contemporary European theater.  Dr. Rojas was a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship.

Teaching and Administration: He taught Spanish language and Latin American literature at the San Ignacio College, Pocuro Santiago, and at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile.  In the USA while a graduate student at Temple University, Dr. Rojas taught undergraduate language courses. He has been on the faculty at CUA since 1979. He has served twice as Chair of the Department of Modem Languages and Literatures 1994-1997 and 2001-2004. Since 2003 he has been Director of the Latino and Latin American Studies Program. At CUA he has taught a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses, including Spanish Pragmatics; Survey in Contemporary Latin American Literature; Senior Seminar for students in the Spanish for International Service Program; Latin American Theater; Semiotics and Latin American Literature; Latin American Post-Modern Literature; The New Spanish American Novel; Latin American Short Story; 19^th Century Latin American Novel, 20^th Century Latin American Novel; and Caribbean Literature.

Research and Publications: Dr Rojas has published extensively on Latin American Literature, Socio-Semiotics, and Latin American Theater. He has edited or co-edited: Discursos teatrales en los umbrales del siglo XXI (2001), De la Colonia a la Postmodernidad: Teoría Teatral y crítica sobre teatro latinoamericano (1991), Pedro Lastra y la Erudición Compartida (1989), Semiótica Teatral: teoría y práctica, a special issue of Dispositio, University of Michigan (1988), and  Aproximaciones a la sintaxis del español: estudios sintácticos del español y el progreso de la teoría lingüística (1986). His numerous articles have been published in Latin America, USA and Europe. His latest articles include: “Divino Pastor Góngora de Jaime Chabaud: Historia y Ficcio(nes) de un Cómico de la Legua” (2005); “Drama”, Handbook of Latin American Studies Latin American Studies, v. 60, Humanites, 2005; “El paratexto teatral y los festivales internacionales de teatro”, 2004; “IV Festival Internacional de Teatro de Santo Domingo: Un modelo de políticas culturales de producción y recepción teatral”, 2004; “Festivales Internacionales, interculturalismo y globalización”, 2004; “El teatro chileno de los ’60 revisitado: Textos teatrales y contexto histórico-social”, 2004; El  Auto dos Bons T ratos de La Companhia do Latão y la desritualización de la historia”, 2003; “Encuentro de dramaturgos en Buenos Aires: Hacia la búsqueda de políticas culturales y estrategias de producción teatral, 2003; “El FITEI, una fiesta de cultura y de culturas”, 2003; Entries on Chilean Theater in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, 2003, “Drama” Handbook of Latin American Studies Latin American Studies, v. 52, 2002; “Interculturalismo y multiculturalismo: nuevas tendencias del teatro latinoamericano actual”, 2002. Dr. Rojas is a recipient of the Armando Discépolo Award conferred by the Universidad of Buenos Aires annually to outstanding scholars on Latin American Theater research.

Service: Professor Rojas is a member of the editorial board of the following periodicals or special collections on Latin American theater: GESTOS: Teoría y Práctica del Teatro Hispánico (University of California at Irvine), Alba de América (Instituto Literario y Cultural Hispánico), Teatro XXI (Universidad de Buenos Aires), Collección de teatrología  (Universidad de Buenos Aires, CONICET, Historia del teatro Argentino-Buenos Aires (Universidad de Buenos Aires, CONICET), Colección de Estudios Teatro Argentino e Iberoamericano, GETEA, Buenos Aires.