Princeton Spanish Prof Takes Harvard Position

A Princeton professor late last month accepted a post in the Romance Languages and Literatures Department, ending a four-year search to fill the empty chair, faculty members said yesterday.

Luis Fernandez-Cifuentes, who specializes in 19th century Spanish literature, rejected a Princeton counter-offer and will come to Harvard in the fall to fill the spot left vacant by the late Professor Stephen Gilman.

"It is the fourth or fifth time we tried to replace Professor Gilman. For various reasons those other recommendations have not come through," said department Chairman Per Nykrog.

Scholars at Harvard and other universities said the appointment of Fernandez-Cifuentes, who has been a tenured professor at Princeton since 1983, comes at a time when few candidates are available for Romance language posts.

"Everyone is competing now for the top figures in the field of Romance studies," said Jerry R. Craddock, chairman of the Spanish and Portugese department at the University of California-Berkeley.

"There are not enough to go around as it were--so we've been competing directly with Harvard in quite a few cases," Craddock said. He said that Berkeley had not sought to tenure Fernandez-Cifuentes.

Francois Rigolot, chairman of Prin- ceton's Romance languages and literaturesdepartment, said the Harvard-bound scholar will bemissed. "I think [Fernandez-Cifuentes] wouldattract many top graduate students in Spanish.He's full of energy and intellectual curiosity. Hewill be a loss to our department, but I understandhis decision perfectly," Rigolot said.

Fernandez-Cifuentes said he strongly consideredremaining at Princeton, which countered Harvard'sbid by offering a prestigious endowed chair.

"It was a hard decision for me," saidFernandez-Cifuentes, who has spent the last 16years at Princeton. "This was my chance to moveonto something else. I needed the change."

Meanwhile, searches continue for Spanishscholars to fill two more senior posts at Harvard.The department is seeking one scholar specializingin the Golden Age and one in Latin Americanstudies, Nykrog said.

Fernandez-Cifuentes, who earned his B.A. at theUniversity of Madrid in 1971 and his Ph.D. atPrinceton in 1977, is a prominent expert onanalyzing an audience's response to literature.

"No other modern critic has written asforcefuly about reception theory in Romanceliterature," Rigolot said.

Fernandez-Cifuentes has published two books inSpanish, "The Theory and Marketing of the Novel"(1982) and "Garcia Lorca in the Theater" (1986).

The Spanish scholar said he expects to teachtwo courses in the fall: a graduate course on theEnlightenment and an undergraduate course on themodern short narrative. He added he will teach aspring graduate course about romanticism and anundergraduate tutorial