The Diplomat
The director of the Instituto Cervantes, Luis García Montero, travels this week to Chile where he will be invested doctor honoris causa by the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV), will inaugurate the VI International Congress of the SICELE Association and will participate in the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Cultural Center of Spain in Santiago de Chile.
More than 80 specialists in teaching, research and certification in the field of Spanish as a foreign language will meet from April 19 to 21 in Valparaíso – Chile’s second most populated city – and Viña del Mar to participate in the VI International Congress of the SICELE Association (International Certification System for Spanish as a Foreign Language), under the title Spanish, language of integration, research and certification.
In the inaugural session, the director of the Instituto Cervantes will give a keynote speech on the figure of the universal poet Pablo Neruda. Subsequently, and within the framework of this international meeting, García Montero (poet and professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Granada) will be awarded an honorary doctorate in a solemn ceremony by the PUCV, one of the founding institutions of SICELE.
The SICELE congress, a biennial event held since 2012, is a meeting for the debate, analysis and dissemination of studies on topics related to Spanish as a foreign language (ELE). The first edition was held in Puerto Rico, followed by Mexico City (2014), Alcalá de Henares (2016), Rosario, Argentina (2018) and Salamanca (2021).
The SICELE Association is a multilateral initiative of higher education institutions of the Spanish-speaking community that brings together 38 institutions from six countries: Argentina (two), Chile (two), Colombia (four), Spain (25), Mexico (four) and Peru (one). Among the latest additions is the Universidad Internacional de Valencia, the first Spanish online university to join the association.
In Santiago, the Chilean capital, Luis García Montero will participate on Thursday, April 20, in a recital with the Chilean poet Raúl Zurita, winner of the Chilean National Literature Prize and the Queen Sofia Ibero-American Poetry Prize, among others. This activity is part of the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the Cultural Center of Spain in Santiago de Chile. The Cultural Center of Spain, inaugurated in 1993 and belonging to the Network of Centers of the AECID, has among its objectives the exchange and development of joint projects between cultural agents and institutions of Spain and Chile, as well as collaborative work with local entities, both public institutions and civil society organizations.
That same day, García Montero will meet with members of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage of the Chilean government, as part of the work agenda that the director of the Instituto Cervantes will develop in the Latin American country.
