Currently, I am a PhD Candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Los Angeles, where I will defend my dissertation on May, 2023. My field of specialization is Latin American Studies, with focus on Central American and U.S. Central American literatures and cultures of the 20th and 21st centuries, and I have additional training and teaching experience in Cultural Studies, Memory and Trauma Studies, Political Violence Studies, Migration Studies, and Gender Studies.

Education

  • Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures, UCLA. Expected March 2023.
    – Ph.D. Candidate in Hispanic Languages and Literatures, UCLA, January 2021.
    – Dissertation Committee: Professors Patricia Arroyo Calderón (Chair), Karina Alma, Jorge Marturano, and Maarten van Delden.
    – Dissertation title: Negra memoria: la narrativa policial centroamericana en la era del neoliberalismo
  • Graduate Certificate in Writing Pedagogies, UCLA.
    – Writing in the Disciplines Emphasis, December 2021.
    – Language Learner Emphasis, expected March 2023.
  • Graduate Concentration Certificate in Gender Studies, UCLA, June 2019.
  • M.A. in Advanced Hispanic Studies, University of Seville, July 2014.
    – Master thesis, “El neopolicial se derrite: La pista de hielo de Roberto Bolaño como exponente de un subgénero en auge”, received High Honors
  • B.A. in Hispanic Studies, University of Seville, July 201

Research

  • Central American literatures and cultures of the 20th and 21st centuries
  • Memory and trauma
  • Genocide and political violence
  • Representations of violence
  • Representations of gender and sexuality
  • Diaspora and migration
  • Representations of neoliberal policies impact, economic violence, and social justice struggle

Articles

  • “Asesina del género: la ficción antipolicial de la salvadoreña Claudia Hernández.” Istmo. Revista virtual de estudios literarios y culturales centroamericanos 41, 2021: 49-69.
  • “Memory for Sale: Neoliberalism and Crime in Post-Dictatorial Chile in El corazón del silencio by Tatiana Lobo.” Clues. A Journal of Detection 38.1, April 2020: 48-59.
  • “«El amor es cosa seria»: la novela centroamericana decimonónica como arma de adoctrinamiento sentimental.” Cuadernos de Aleph 10, June 2018: 49-59.
  • “The Irrelevant Mystery, the Involuntary Detective, the Melting Clue: Notes on La pista de hielo, a Neopolicial by Roberto Bolaño.” Alea: Estudos Neolatinos 20.1, January-April 2018: 125-141.

Dissertation

My dissertation, Negra memoria: narrativa centroamericana policial en la era del neoliberalismo (Noir Memories: Central American Detective Narratives in the Age of Neoliberalism), examines crime fiction produced between the 1980s and 2022, and claims that contemporary Central American and U.S. Central American authors employ this genre as a means of political expression. In particular, I argue that despite the shift away from the genres of engaged poetry and testimonio ─dominant in Central American literatures during the period of the civil wars─, the apparently less-engaged genre of detective fiction allows prominent writers such as Sergio Ramírez, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Daniel Quirós, and Francisco Goldman, to politically and critically engage with the new realities of a postwar Central America marked by neoliberal policies, social inequality, mass migrations, and novel forms of violence.

Courses

Language classes

  • Elementary Spanish: Spanish 1, 2, 3, and 10
  • Elementary and Intermediate Heritage Spanish: Spanish 7A and 7B

T.A. in literature and culture courses

  • Latin American Cultures: Spanish 44
  • Literature in Historical Context: Spanish 120
  • Political Violence in the Modern World: Cluster 48A and 48B

Courses designed and taught as instructor of record

  • #SíHuboGenocidio: The Guatemalan Genocide and Its Aftermath: Cluster 48CW
  • 500 Years of Resistance: Political Violence in Central America

Book chapters

 

  • “Matar al padre: psicoanálisis y simbolismo en algunas narraciones de Cristina Peri Rossi”. Cristina Peri Rossi: permanencia en la palabra y el deseo. Ed. Jesús Gómez-de-Tejada. Seville: University of Seville, 2017.

Presentations

  • “Indigenous resistance against the crimes of neoliberalism in Central America in El país de Toó by Rodrigo Rey Rosa”. 2021 MLA Convention, Toronto, January 7-10, 2021.
  • “Asleep Memory: Mystery and the Remembrance of the Salvadoran civil war in Horacio Castellanos Moya’s The Dream of my Return”. 4th Annual Memory Studies Association Conference, University of Virginia, June 18-21, 2020. Event cancelled due to covid-19 pandemic.
  • “«Who in the hell I really was»: complejo de castración e identidad en The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo de Oscar Zeta Acosta”. LASA 2020 Conference. Online, May 13-16, 2020.
  • “El peso del pasado: memoria en el exilio de la Moronga de Horacio Castellanos Moya”. 1st Central American Studies Conference, University of California Irvine, April 16-17, 2020. Event postponed due to covid-19 pandemic.
  • “Una frontera tan vasta”: en torno a las crónicas Los migrantes que no importan de Óscar Martínez”. LASA 2019 Conference. Boston, May 24th-27th, 2019.
  • “El amor es cosa seria»: la novela centroamericana decimonónica como arma de adoctrinamiento sentimental”. 42nd Conference IILI (Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana). Bogota, June 12th-15th, 2018.
  • “La palabra atrapada en el deseo: fracaso artístico y homosexualidad reprimida en El jardín de al lado de José Donoso”. Conference “Affects and Effects: A Feminist Meta-Conference”. University of California Los Angeles, April 19th-20th 2018.
  • “Memory for sale: neoliberalism and crisis in the post-dictatorial Chile of El corazón del silencio by Tatiana Lobo”. Seminar “Crime Fiction, Cosmopolitanism, and Non-Violent Crime”. American Comparative Literature Association Conference 2018. University of California Los Angeles, March 29th-April 1st 2018.
  • “Dictadores y exiliados: una categorización dicotómica de la figura del padre en la narrativa breve de Cristina Peri Rossi y su interpretación”. Simposium 9.3. “Saldar la cuenta: debates, modos y discursos de la narración en la literatura de América Latina y el Caribe (1970-2016)”. 4th International Conference on Latin American and Caribbean Studies FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales). University of Salamanca, July 17th 2017.
  • “Asalto al policial: las claves de género negro en El corazón del silencio de Tatiana Lobo”. Talk. University of Costa Rica, April 26th 2017.
  • “El misterio irrelevante, el detective involuntario, La pista de hielo: algunas notas en torno a un neopolicial de Roberto Bolaño”. Simposium 9.4. “El negro desencanto: la literatura neopolicíaca latinoamericana”. 8th International Conference CEISAL (Consejo Europeo de Investigaciones Sociales y de América Latina) “Tiempos posthegemónicos: sociedad, cultura y política en América Latina”. University of Salamanca, June 29th 2016.
  • “El neopolicial se derrite: La pista de hielo de Roberto Bolaño como exponente de un subgénero en auge”. 2nd International Conference for Young Researchers “Mundo Hispánico: cultura, arte y sociedad”. University of Leon, May 27th 2016.
  • “La soledad de Lituma, un cachaco costeño entre serranos. Incomunicación, prejuicios, esperanza y desesperación”. Simposium “Horizontes Humanos”. University of Seville”, December 2012.