About Me

My aim as a teacher is to make students aware of two essential ideas: that monolingualism impoverishes their possibilities of personal and professional fulfillment, and that the study of a language and culture not their own is a powerful resource for establishing fruitful connections in today’s world. My main goal is to enable students to utilize ideas for themselves in creative and open-minded ways, empowering them to function fully as individuals and citizens. My pedagogical strategies are dedicated to bringing Spanish language and Latin American / Caribbean literatures and cultures to students’ lived experience. I am interested in how students create narratives of their histories in conversation with a course’s content. As a teacher, it is gratifying to facilitate an inclusive, multicultural learning environment where students connect with each other and discover new perspectives.

My research and teaching interests focus on twentieth and twenty-first century Latin American and Caribbean literatures and cultures, Latin American and Caribbean cinema, ecocriticism, visual and media studies, and critical and political theory. I am more specifically concerned with issues such as dystopian and speculative fiction, counter-hegemonic practices, postnationalism, non-lyric poetry, and new forms of belonging and citizenship in Latin American and Caribbean cultural contexts.

I am currently working on a book manuscript about the relationships between several projects (Paideia, Diáspora(s), and Generation Zero) and the cultural politics of the Cuban State. Through the analysis of a wide range of objects, such as programmatic documents, journals, literary works, films, blogs, and online magazines, the research focuses on the ways through which certain alternative projects intervene directly in state cultural politics.

Professional Experience

PUBLICATIONS

Edited Journal Issue

• “Literatura cubana hoy” [“Cuban Literature Today”]. Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 829-830 (2019): 5-45.
• “Inscripciones actuales de un mundo por venir: nuevos escenarios en literatura y arte cubanos recientes” [“Current Inscriptions of a World to Come: New Scenarios in Recent Cuban Literature and Art”]. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 51.2 (2017).
• “Monográfico Literatura cubana contemporánea” [“Dossier on Contemporary Cuban Literature”]. Revista Letral 18 (2017). Web.

Refereed Journal Articles

• “Narcos in Jesús María: Dystopian empowerment in the amateur exploitation film Corazón cubano/Cuban Heart (2014).” Studies in Spanish & Latin American Cinemas 18.2 (2021): 139-158.
• “Cubaxploitation: el cine de Jorge Molina (voyerismo, fetichismo y la mujer monstruosa)” [“Cubaxploitation: Jorge Molina’s Cinema (Voyeurism, Fetishism, and the Monstrous Woman)”]. Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World 9.4 (2020): 147-167. 
• “Narrativas de la Generación Cero: escenas de traducción, cosmopolitismo y extrañamiento” [“Generation Zero’s Narratives: Scenes on Translation, Cosmopolitanism, and Strangeness”]. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 51.2 (2017): 349-68.
• “Fricciones y lecturas del archivo cultural cubensis: Diálogos entre Juan Abreu y Jorge E. Lage” [“Frictions and Readings of the Cultural Cubensis Archive: Dialogues Between Juan Abreu and Jorge E. Lage”]. Revista Letral 18 (2017): 37-55. Web.
• “Políticas de la distancia y del agrupamiento. Narrativa cubana de las dos últimas dos décadas” [“Groups’ Politics. Cuban Narrative of the Last Two Decades”]. Istor. Revista de Historia Internacional 63 (2015): 115-35.
• “Interrogar el vacío: ‘Deutsches Requiem’ de Borges y algunos discursos sobre la Shoah” [“Questioning Emptiness: Borges’s ‘Deutsches Requiem’ and Some Discourses on the Shoah”]. Variaciones Borges 37 (2014): 53-68.
• “Los bordes del canon y la centralidad del mal: La literatura nazi en América de Roberto Bolaño” [“The Edges of the Canon and the Centrality of Evil: Roberto Bolaño’s La literatura nazi en América”]. Caracol 5 (2013): 252-64.

Refereed Book Chapters

• “Without Initiation Ceremonies: Cuban Literary and Cultural E-zines, 2000-2010.” Cuba’s Digital Revolution. Citizen Innovation and State Policy. Eds. Ted A. Henken and Sara García Santamaría. Gainesville: U of Florida P, 2021. 285-305.
• “Diáspora(s) y Orígenes: un trabajo de archivo contra el origenismo de Estado” [“Diáspora(s) and Orígenes: an Archival Work Against State’s origenismo”]. La futuridad del naufragio: Orígenes , estelas y derivas. Eds. Juan Pablo Lupi and César Salgado. Leiden: Almenara, 2019. 327-361.
• “Negociaciones en el devocionario: Juan Ramón Jiménez y los origenistas” [“Negotiations in the Prayer Book: Juan Ramón Jiménez and the Orígenes group”]. El Atlántico como frontera. Mediaciones culturales entre España y Cuba. Ed. Damaris Puñales-Alpízar. Madrid: Verbum, 2014. 188-218.
• “Discursos postnacionales, políticas de (des)autorización y terror-ismo literario: la poesía no lírica de los escritores del grupo Diáspora(s)” [“Postnational Discourses, Politics of Authorization, and Literary Terrorism: Diáspora(s)’s Non Lyric Poetry”]. Non Lyric Discourses in Contemporary Poetry. Eds. Burghard Baltrusch and Isaac Lourido. München: M. Meidenbauer, 2012. 231-46.

Book Reviews

• Generation Zero. An Anthology of New Cuban Fiction. Ed. Orlando L. Pardo Lazo (Pittsburgh: Sampsonia Way Magazine, 2014). Cuban Studies 45 (2016): 399-400 .
• ¿De qué, silencio, eres tú silencio?, by Fina García Marruz. Ed. Carmen Ruiz Barrionuevo (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca). Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 76 (2012): 511-14.

CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION

Papers presented (selection)

• “Millennial and tropical vampires: an amateur and exploitation film (Sangre cubana)”. VIII Congreso Internacional Narrativa Fantástica. Centro de Estudios Literarios Antonio Cornejo Polar, Perú, October 26-28, 2022. Virtual.
• “Cuban amateur and exploitation cinema: narcos and vampires”. Thirteenth Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. Florida International University, February 3-4, 2022. Virtual.
• “Monstrous woman, voyeurism, and fetishism in Jorge Molina’s cinema”, XLIII Congreso del Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberamericana, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne. July 6-9, 2021.
• “Exploitation narratives and sensibilities in Cuban esthetic discourses”. XXXIX International Congress, LASA (virtual). May 26-29, 2021.
• “Las vidas del detritus: Cubaxploitation.” XXXVII International Conference, Latin American Studies Association (LASA, Guadalajara), 2020
  *Accepted and not presented because of COVID-19.
• “El cuerpo femenino en el cine de Jorge Molina: mujer monstruosa, voyerismo y fetichismo.” International Conference Italian Association Iberoamerican Studies (AISI, Naples), 2020.
  * Accepted and not presented because of COVID-19.
• “Mujer monstruosa, voyerismo y fetichismo en el cine de Jorge Molina.” International Conference Institute of Iberoamerican Literature (IILI, Reims), 2020.
  *Accepted and not presented because of COVID-19
• “Cubaxploitation: Disorder and Degradation in Recent Cuban Cinema.” Congreso Internacional “Hispanismo y cine”. Universidad Carlos III, Madrid. July 2-5, 2019
• “The Cuban Semiosphere of Cultural and Literary Ezines and Blogs (2000-2010).” XXXVI International Congress, LASA, Barcelona, Spain. May 23-26, 2018.
• “Fidel Castro and the Last Representational Taboo: Aesthetic Disruptions of a Prohibition.” MLA Annual Convention, New York. January 4-7, 2018.
• “Time dislocations and counter-archives: “The feats of the mambí” and Tregua fecunda.” XXXV International Congress, LASA, Lima, Perú. April 29-May 1, 2017.
• “Disruptive Worlds for a Limited Narrative: Cuba - United States from the Counterfactual, Sexsploitation and Intrahistory”. Eleventh Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies; Florida International University, Miami. February 23-25, 2017.
• “Fabricando the criticism on the artistic entrepreneurship in Cuba: Cristo Salvador Galería.” MLA Annual Convention, Philadelphia. January 5-8, 2017.
• “Frictions and Readings of the Cultural Cubensis Archive: Dialogues Between Juan Abreu and Jorge E. Lage”. Reading Cuba. An Interdisciplinary Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Literature; Florida International University, Miami. November 9-10, 2016.
• “Variations of a Defining Relationship: Paideia, Diáspora(s), Generación Cero, and the State”. XXXIV International Congress, LASA, New York. May 27-30, 2016.
• “New Scenarios for Cuban Literature: Current Inscriptions of a World to Come.” MLA Annual Convention, Austin. January 7-10, 2016.
• “Politics on Opacity and the Untranslatable in the Recent Cuban Narrative”. XXXIII International Congress, LASA, San Juan, Puerto Rico. May 27-30, 2015.

Panels Organized (selection)

• “Aesthetic and Political Inclusions in Recent Cuban Visual Arts.” XXXVII International Congress, LASA, Boston. May 23-27, 2019.
• “Cross-temporalities, Anachronisms, and Dystopias in Recent Cuban Art and Literature.” XXXV International Congress, LASA, Lima, Perú. April 29 - May 1, 2017.
• “Beyond the Contingencies of the ‘Thaw’ and the Realpolitik: Traces of the Relationship Between Cuba - USA.” Eleventh Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies; Florida International University, Miami. February 23-25, 2017.
• “Culture and State in Cuban Postrevolution.” XXXIV International Congress, LASA, New York. May 27-30, 2016.
• “Exposed bodies and images: Caribbean mediascapes as places of (de)stabilization.” Tropical exposures. Photography, Film, and Visual Culture in a Caribbean Frame; Tulane University. March 10-12, 2016.
• “Recent Cuban Literature: Exercises of (De)Appropriation.” XXXIII International Congress, LASA, San Juan, Puerto Rico. May 27-30, 2015.

SERVICE TO PROFESSION

• Peer reviewer, Hispanic Review (University of Pennsylvania) (2022).
• Peer reviewer, Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas (The City College of New York, CUNY) (2022).
• Peer Reviewer, Revista Poligramas (Universidad del Valle, Colombia) (2021).
• Peer Reviewer, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos (Washington University in St. Louis) (2021).
• Peer Reviewer, Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World (Univ. Of California, Merced) (2021).
• Peer Reviewer, volume Isla diseminada. Cuba en el ensayo joven. Eds. Justo Planas, et al. Madrid: Hypermedia (forthcoming, 2020) (2020).
• Peer Reviewer, volume Constelación Latinoamericana. Mantova: Universitas Studiorum (Università degli Studi di Verona, Italia) (2019).-Peer Reviewer, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies (University of Arizona) (2019).
• Peer Reviewer, Caribbean: Journal of Culture and Literature (Lafayette College) (2019).
• Peer Reviewer, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos (Washington University in St. Louis) (2018).
• Peer Reviewer, Hispania (American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese) (2018).
• Member Executive Committee, Forum LLC Cuban and Cuban Diasporic, Modern Language Association (MLA) (2018- ).
• Member, Comisión Científica, II Encuentro Internacional de Poesía Hispanoamericana “La poesía como lengua franca.” Universidade de São Paulo, April 28-29, 2016 (2015-2016).
• Peer Reviewer, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos (Asociación Canadiense de Hispanistas) (2015).
• Peer Reviewer, Caracol (Universidade de São Paulo) (2012 - Present).
• Member, Comité de Redacción, Trasatlántica. Poetry and Scholarschip (Case Western Reserve University) (2012-Present).

INVITED TALKS (selection, 2019 – present) 

• “Piñera “diasporizado”: máquina de Guerra contra el origenismo de Estado”, International Symposium “Virgilio Piñera’s Paths” (Paris-Est Créteil University), 2020.
  *Accepted and not presented because of COVID-19.
• Keynote Speaker). “Cubaxploitation: the Lives of the Detritus.” Colloquium “Cuba After ’59”. The Graduate Center (CUNY). November 1, 2019.

Courses Taught