Juan Claudio Retes Campesino

Juan Claudio Retes Campesino

Specialist researcher in Theatre Pedagogy


He has a Bachelor´s Degree in Literature and Language Sciences from the Sister Juana’s Cloisters (Claustro de Sor Juana), a Master´s Degree in Latin American Literature and a PhD in Literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).


(Mexico City, 1973) He has a Bachelor´s Degree in Literature and Language Sciences from the Sister Juana’s Cloisters (Claustro de Sor Juana), a Master´s Degree in Latin American Literature and a PhD in Literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), all of which have been received with honors. He has twice been an intern at the Telmex Foundation of the Mexican Center for Writers (Centro Mexicano de Escritores), and of Conacyt. From 2008 to 2012 he served as an academic advisor at Terramar Alive School (Terramar Escuela Viva A.C.), where he is currently part of the teaching staff. Presently he is a professor at the Foreign Language Teaching Center (Centro de Enseñanza de Lenguas Extranjeras, CELE, UNAM) and technical researcher for the Rodolfo Usigli National Theater Research, Documentation and Information Center (CITRU) at INBA.

He started his career as an editor in 1993 for the cultural supplement “La Plaza”, for El Economista newspaper; since then he has worked in various publications, to name a few: Origina, Sputnik, El Huevo, Quo and Paso de Gato. He has been editor for the webpages Alo.com and Euforia.com, founding coeditor of Sónika magazine, closing editor for Quo and proofreader for Chilango magazine and the Time Out México DF entertainment guide. In 2004, he collaborated with Trilce Ediciones, Océano, Conaculta and Colef, and he edited the collage-book Paso del Nortec. This is Tijuana! On his own, he has published the book History as Irony: Ibargüengoitia as a Historian (Universidad de Guanajuato, 2005), the play The Arabs are The Enemy (Universidad de Guanajuato, 2007), and the random articles “Elements of the Serious Comedy in Jorge Ibargüengoitia’s Kill the Lion” (Acta Poética, 30, 1, 2009) and “Notes for a Semiology” (Semiosis, 9, 17, 2013).

He has ventured into theater as a playwright with: The Arabs are the Enemy, The Green Lamp (2005), Rome Termini (2008); as a director with: October Ended a Long Time Ago (1999), by Pilar Campesino, The Green Lamp (2008); as an actor in:Requiem for a Spray (1987), by David Hevia, La Chunga (1993), by Mario Vargas Llosa, Trainspotting (2000), by Harry Gibson,Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (2005); and as a stage designer in: The Line of Oblivion (1997), by Carlos Fuentes, andThe Green Lamp (2008). Other activities in the area of theater include the authorship of the following film scripts: Brave Race (1996),Square Lobster (2007) and There and Then (2012), this last one directed by Ángel Flores Torres; he did art direction for Into the Liquid Box (in postproduction), Gabriela Retes’ film debut, and he also edited the play The Sold Out Conspiracy (Los Centenarios de Morelos Award, 2010), by Jorge Ibargüengoitia, directed by Rosalba Garcia.