Rhina Toruño Haensly (1948–2022) was a Salvadoran scholar and teacher. She earned two doctorates: one in philosophy and a second in Latin American literature. She began her career as a professor of philosophy in El Salvador. In 1981, shortly after the onset of the Salvadoran Civil War, she immigrated to the United States and began a new career in academics in the field of Spanish language and Latin American literature. She published several books, wrote many scholarly papers, and delivered numerous presentations about 20th century Latin American writers. Her best-known scholarly work is about Elena Garro. In 1995, Toruño Haensly was inducted into the Academia Salvadoreña de la Lengua (Salvadoran Academy of Language), which is a branch of the Royal Academy of Spanish in Spain. She earned numerous other honors for her teaching and scholarship over her life.
Education and early scholarship in philosophy Rhina Toruño Haensly was born in San Salvador, the capital city of El Salvador in 1940 and grew up there with her five brothers and sisters. Her parents were Juan Felipe Toruño and Juana Contreras de Toruño. Her father was an author, poet, and journalist, first in Nicaragua and later in El Salvador.
Toruño Haensly attended high school at Colegio Santa Inés from which she received her teaching certification. She taught at Colegio Sagrado Corazón, a private Catholic elementary school for three years, and then at Colegio La Asunción, a private secondary school.
Toruño Haensly began her scholarly career in philosophy by earning a Bachelors of Art in Philosophy in 1971 from the University of El Salvador, or Universidad de El Salvador, the most prominent university in El Salvador. She pursued her graduate studies at the Catholic University of Louvain, or Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, a major research university in the city of Leuven, Belgium. She earned a Masters of Art in Philosophy in 1973 and a Ph.D. in French Contemporary Philosophy in 1978. Her dissertation was, “Emmanuel Mounier's Idea of Society.” Toruño Haensly received the Emmanuel Mounier International Prize, which was awarded to support doctoral research in philosophy. In addition, her studies were supported by a scholarship for postgraduate studies awarded jointly by University of El Salvador and the Catholic University of Louvain. During her studies in Europe, she became fluent in French.
Toruño Haensly returned to El Salvador in 1976 (while also working to complete her dissertation) to teach philosophy at the University of El Salvador. Over the period 1975 through 1978, she published five scholarly papers in philosophy. (See the subsection, "Scholarly papers in philosophy," in the Publications section below.) She taught courses in modern philosophy, existentialism, contemporary French philosophy, ethics, and social and political philosophy. Her academic accomplishments led to promotion to the rank of Professor at the University of El Salvador.
Transition to a career in Latin American literature The Salvadoran Civil War (1979 through 1992) disrupted Toruño Haensly's academic career in El Salvador. She was a member of the Salvadoran University Catholic Action (ACUS), a social Christian organization. While the majority of members of ACUS, including Toruño Haensly, were not sympathizers of the leftist guerilla organizations that formed the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), some members were. Hence, members of ACUS became targets of the state security forces and paramilitary death squads. When Toruño Haensly learned that she was on a death list, she decided to leave El Salvador for the safety of herself and her two sons.
Toruño Haensly was awarded an international fellowship from the Fédération Internationale des Femmes Diplomées des Universités (International Association of University Women) based in Geneva, Switzerland. This fellowship was awarded for post-doctoral multidisciplinary research combining Latin American literature and philosophy. The one year fellowship provided the financial support for scholarly work as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California, where Toruño Haensly moved in fall 1981. Toruño Haensly and her sons learned English from scratch on moving to the U.S. Thus, she added fluency in a third language to her linguistic skills.
Toruño Haensly's scholarly interest in Latin American literature began earlier while she was studying philosophy at the Catholic University of Louvain. She commuted from Louvain to Paris to take graduate classes at the University of Paris-Sorbonne in France. She earned a Master of Arts in Latin American literature in 1976.
When her fellowship at Stanford University ended, Toruño Haensly began graduate work in Latin American literature at the University of California-Irvine, where she received the Regents’ Fellowship for Outstanding Doctoral Student and also taught Spanish as a teaching assistant from 1982 through 1983. Toruño Haensly's future second husband, Héctor-Neri Castañeda, whom she met while he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, persuaded her to continue her graduate work at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. She moved there with her two sons in 1983. While working on a doctorate in Latin American literature, she taught courses in Spanish and Latin American literature at Indiana University, first as an Associate Instructor from 1983 through 1989 and then as a Lecturer from 1990 through 1993. In fall 1989, she was invited to deliver seminars on Latin American literature and culture at the Collegium Pro America Latina at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.
In 1987, Toruño Haensly married Héctor-Neri Castañeda, who became her second husband. She traveled with Héctor when he delivered lectures in philosophy in Europe. When Héctor was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1990, Toruño Haensly suspended her graduate studies to care for him. She took Héctor to his home country of Guatemala a few weeks before his death to receive his country's highest award, the Order of the Quetzal, in honor of his scholarly accomplishments in philosophy. Héctor died on September 7, 1991, in Bloomington, Indiana. While Héctor still could speak, he urged Toruño Haensly to become a citizen of the United States. She became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. shortly before Héctor died.
In 1994, Toruño Haensly earned her Ph.D. in Latin American Literature from Indiana University Bloomington. Toruño Haensly's dissertation was Tiempo, destino y opresión en la obra de Elena Garro (Time, Destiny and Oppression in the work of Elena Garro). Toruño Haensly did groundbreaking work on the writings of Elena Garro, who is now recognized as one of the leading 20th century women writers in Mexico. This recognition is in part due to Toruño Haensly's books and other scholarly papers that she wrote about Elena Garro. Toruño Haensly's work was based on a series of interviews that she conducted with Elena Garro in Mexico. Toruño Haensly's dissertation was published as a book in 1996 with an updated edition in 1998.
In 1995, Toruño Haensly was inducted into the Academia Salvadoreña de la Lengua (Salvadoran Academy of Language), which is a branch of the Royal Academy of Spanish in Spain. She was the first woman to receive this honor.
Scholar and teacher of Latin American literature After teaching for a year at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1995 Toruño Haensly joined the faculty of the University of Texas of the Permian Basin (UTPB) in Odessa, Texas, as an assistant professor of Spanish. Her experience and outstanding scholarly work led to early promotions, first to associate professor after two years and then to the rank of Professor in 2001. She also became a Fellow in the Kathlyn Cosper Dunagan Professorship in Humanities in 2000 and held this fellowship until she retired in August 2013.
Toruño Haensly was an accomplished scholar. Highlights of her career while at UTPB include a stint as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Latin American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, in summer 2002, as well as active participation in the Academia Norteamérica de la Lengua Española (ANLE), the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and the Modern Language Association (MLA). Toruño Haensly was recognized early at UTPB for her scholarly work with her induction into the La Mancha Society at UTPB in 2002.
Toruño Haensly's other scholarly work about the writings of the Mexican author, Elena Garro, includes three editions of Cita con la memoria; Elena Garro cuenta su vida a Rhina Toruño [Encounter With Memory; Elena Garro Recounts her Life to Rhina Toruño]. Toruño Haensly published two books about the writings of her father, who was a prominent poet, author, and journalist in Central America: Juan Felipe Toruño in Two Worlds; Critical Analysis of his Works (2006) and a critical edition of the novel El Silencio, by Juan Felipe Toruño, that Toruño Haensly co-edited with Dr. Ardis Nelson (2010). Toruño Haensly strived to promote the writings of other Latin American and Mexican-American authors in her books, A viva voz: Las escritoras y escritores latinos hablan de sus vidas y obras (In Their Own Voices: Latino Writers Talk About Their Lives and Works, published in 2009);, Cruzando culturas: Autores hispanos en los Estados Unidos y sus desafíos superados (Crossing Cultures; Hispanic Authors in the United States and the Challenges They Overcame, published in 2011); and Voces de Escritores Latinoamericanos. Análisis critico de sus obras (Voices of Latin American Writers; Critical Analysis of Their Works, published in 2015).
Toruño Haensly was a prolific scholar. In addition to the books that she wrote, Toruño Haensly published 34 scholarly papers. (See the subsection, “Scholarly papers in Latin American literature,” in the Publications section below.) She also wrote nine chapters in anthologies on Latin American literature. (See the subsection, "Chapters contributed to anthologies and encyclopedias about Latin American literature," in the Publications section below.) She gave numerous presentations at academic conferences in the U.S., Mexico, Argentina, France, Costa Rica, Columbia, Ecuador, Panama, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Her presentations included seven keynote speeches and over 20 invited lectures. During her career, Toruño Haensly also was active in organizing conference programs and chairing panel presentations.
Toruño Haensly's enthusiasm for scholarship was matched by her passion for teaching. Beginning with her teaching at Sagrado Corazon, an elementary school in El Salvador to her teaching at UTPB, she delighted in sharing her knowledge and motivating her students to learn. At UTPB, she developed many new undergraduate and graduate courses in Spanish and created a robust Masters of Arts program in Spanish in 2004 with the help of her colleagues. Among the courses that she developed and taught were courses on contemporary Mexican literature, 20th-century Spanish American prose, Central American literature, and Spanish for health care workers. She was especially proud of her course in Hispanic children's literature that she developed for graduate students who were planning to teach at primary schools. Toruño Haensly served as Graduate Head for Spanish from 2004 through her retirement in 2013. Toruño Haensly's teaching has been recognized by nomination many times for the President's or Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Teacher at UTPB. She has been listed eight times in Who's Who Among America's Teachers. In 2015, her recognition culminated with the award by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) for Best Hispanic Educator in Odessa.