C.V.

I specialize in 20th- and 21st-century Latin American and Caribbean cultural studies, with specific teaching and research interests in Afro-Latin American and Indigenous cultural production, visuality, gender and sexuality studies, and the environmental humanities.

Ph.D Dissertation: "Life Politics: Race, Ecology and Dissident Aesthetics in Colombia." Defended June 30, 2022.   

University of Virginia, Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese

University of Virginia, Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese

University of Virginia, Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese 

Thesis: "La televisión iraní en castellano: HispanTV, los 'desheredados del mundo' y la exportación de la revolución a España."

“Suturing or Puncturing the Social Fabric? Afro-Caribbean Textile Art and the Limits of Repair,” Journal of Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture (forthcoming).

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"'Una opción sutil de protestar: Literary magazines and subterranean resistance in Putumayo, Colombia." Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 30, no. 3, 2021.

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"Desplazamientos entretejidos: imaginarios transicionales y la diasporización de la memoria en los Tejidos de Mampuján," Revista de Estudios Colombianos 53, enero-junio 2019.

(Review) Paschel, Tianna. 2016. Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and Ethno-Racial Rights in Colombia and Brazil. Afro-Hispanic Review, Vol. 37, Issue 2, Fall 2018.

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"Network Power." Critical definition published in Global South Studies: A Collective Publication with the Global South. 17 August 2017.

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"Private Military Industry." Critical definition published in Global South Studies: A Collective Publication with the Global South. 17 August 2017.

Upcoming Conferences

Asociación de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades (AEGS). Panel: "Subjetividades, saberes femeninos y resistencias en la producción cultural latinoamericana." Valparaíso, December 2022. 

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Panels Organized

“Rethinking Violence in Latin America: Biopolitics, Necropolitics, Life Politics,” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, January 8, 2021 (Presider/Organizer).

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"Imagining 'Post-Conflict' Colombia," UVA Symposium on Art and Confrontation in the Americas, September 2019 (Organizer).

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"Libros en Lugar de Armas/Books Instead of Guns: Libraries as Sites for Peace in Colombia," Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM), June 2019 (Co-organized with Miguel Valladares-Llata).

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"The Pen and the Dove: Narratives and Post-Conflict Imaginaries in Colombia," Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Congress, May 2019 (Co-organized with Astrid Lorena Ochoa Campo).

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Papers Presented​

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“'Tearing Down the Monument of Sugarcane:' Indigenous Ecofeminisms and the Liberation of Mother Earth," seminar on Feminism/Memory/Activism: Forging Transnational Solidarities, American Comparative Literature Association annual conference, June 2022. 

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“‘Para Desalambrar la Madre Tierra hay que Desalambrar el Corazón:’ Liberating Mother Earth as Life Politics in Cauca, Colombia,” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, January 8, 2021.

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"Jungles and the Colombian Conflict," Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) Biennial Conference, June 2019.

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"'Una opción sutil de protestar: Archive, affect and library activism in the Revista Literaria del Putumayo," Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Congreess, May 2019.

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"Weaving Networks of Dissent: Displacement, Justice and Afro-Diasporic Memory in the Community Quilts of Mampuján," Global South Studies Symposium, University of Virginia, March 2019.

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"Minimal Computing Workshop," Washington and Lee University/University of Virginia Digital Pedagogy Collaboration, March 2019. 

Current Courses

Social Change in the Hispanic World Through Film, Literature, Art and Music (SPAN 2300). Texas Tech University, Fall 2022.

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Advanced Spanish Grammar (SPAN 4350). Texas Tech University, Fall 2022.

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Guest Lectures

"Comics and Participatory Action Research." Community Engagement in Spanish-Speaking Charlottesville. University of Virginia. Spring 2021.

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“La obra del Padre Alcides Jiménez Chicangana en la Amazonía colombiana,” Literatures of the Latin American Jungle, University of Virginia, Fall 2020. 

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“Respuestas a la globalización neoliberal desde el Pacífico colombiano: el caso de CAVIDA,” Afro-Latinidad Across the Americas, University of Virginia, Fall 2019. 

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Courses Taught

Texts and Interpretations (SPAN 3300), University of Virginia, Fall 2019 and Spring 2020.

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Advanced Grammar and Composition (SPAN 3010), University of Virginia, Spring 2019.

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Intermediate Spanish (SPAN 2010), University of Virginia, Fall 2018 and Spring 2018. 

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English 1, 5 and 2, Universidad del Atlántico, Oficina de Relaciones Exteriores/Fulbright Colombia. Fall 2015/Spring 2016.

Advanced English Conversation, Universidad del Atlántico, Oficina de Relaciones Exteriores/Fulbright Colombia. Spring 2016. 

Center for Global Inquiry + Innovation– Movements and Directions in Capitalism Fellowship

Academic Year 2020-2021

$500 fellowship to participate in Movements and Directions in the Study of Capitalism, an interdisciplinary working group organized by Professors Sarah Milov (Hisory), Ira Bashkow (Anthropology), Fahad Bishara (History) and David Singerman (History/American Studies). 

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Center for Global Inquiry + Innovation– Center Grant

Summer 2018-Fall 2019

$20,000 awarded to co-organize Libros en lugar de armas, a panel of Colombian Peace Librarians, at the 2019 SALALM conference at the University of Texas at Austin and host the UVA Symposium on Art and Confrontation in the Americas (September 2019) in collaboration with Miguel Valladares and Herbert (Tico) Braun, Federico Cuatlacuatl, Lucie Stylianopoulous, Mona Kasra and Lydia Moyer. 

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Institute for the Humanities and Global Cultures– Public Humanities Lab

Academic Year 2019-2020

$2,000 grant to fund the event “Cowards Don’t Make History: A Conversation about Participatory Action Research with Professor Joanne Rappaport” (co-organized with Matthew Slaats, November 2020), the Reading Practices Working Group (co-directed by Dipsikha Thakur) and the Action and Knowledge Reading Group (co-organized with Matthew Slaats). 

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Scholars’ Lab– Praxis Fellowship

Academic Year 2018-2019

Teaching buyout to collaborate with an interdisciplinary team of graduate students in designing a Digital Public Domain Toolkit and participate in “soup-to-nuts” introduction to Digital Humanities research and pedagogy.  

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Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese– Charles Gordon Reid Summer Fellowship

Summer 2018

$4,000 for pre-doctoral research in Colombia

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Scholars’ Lab– Digital Humanities Summer Institute Grant

Summer 2018

$2,000 from UVA Scholars’ Lab to receive training in web APIs and natural language processing at the University of Victoria Electronic Cultures Lab (Victoria, Canada)

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Fulbright Colombia– ETA Grant

Academic Year 2015-2016

Fellowship to teach English at the Universidad del Atlántico (Barranquilla) and complete a social engagement project with the Colombian Agency for Reintegration.  

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Jefferson Scholars Foundation– Jefferson Fellowship

March 2015

5-year funding package to support doctoral studies 

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Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese– Wyatt Fellowship 

Summer 2014

$2,000 for undergraduate thesis research

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International Rescue Committee (Charlottesville)– Outstanding Service Award 

April 2015

Recognition for service as ESL instructor to refugees in Charlottesville, VA​

Public Humanities

Editor, Cultural Production section of Colombia Syllabus / Primera Línea Académica. June 2021-Present.

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Organizer, Cowards Don’t Make History: A Discussion about Participatory Action Research, Fall 2020. Sponsored by the Public Humanities Lab at the Institute for the Humanities and Global Cultures. 

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Organizer, Symposium on Art and Confrontation in the Americas, Fall 2019. Sponsored by the Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation, UVA Arts Council, UVA Library, Institute for the Humanities and Global Cultures, Fundación Puntos de Encuentro, Centro de las Américas and Page-Barbour Fund. 

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Diversity and Inclusion

Mentor, Leadership Alliance Mellon Initiative, Summer 2019

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Committees and Campus Groups

Organizer, Critical Theory Reading Group, Spring 2020

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Digital Humanities External Review Committee, Fall 2019

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Community Service​

Call Responder, Immigration Rapid Response Hotline, Sin Barreras (Charlottesville, VA), Fall 2019-present

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Translator, Legal Aid Justice Center Immigration Clinic (Charlottesville, VA), September 2014-present

Institute for Liberal Arts Digital Scholarship (College of Wooster)

Liaison, July 2019

Project management and technical consulting for developers of the Reed College Classical Reception Database

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Universidad del Atlántico (Barranquilla, Colombia)

Fulbright English Instructor, July 2015- May 2016

Taught beginning, intermediate and advanced English to university students

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International Rescue Committee (Charlottesville, VA) 

Immigration Services Intern, August 2014-May 2015

Drafted applications for permanent residency, naturalization, and family reunification. Interpreted for Spanish-speaking clients and translated documents from English to Spanish

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The Middle East Institute (Washington, D.C.)                                 

 Assistant to the Director of Research, Summer 2014

Edited submissions to the Middle East/Asia Project, the Sectarian Conflict series, the Korea-GCC Relations project and online articles about current events in the Middle East.

Latin American Studies Association
Modern Language Association
Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment
Asociación de Colombianistas
American Comparative Literature Association
Asociación de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades

Spanish (near-native fluency)
Portuguese (advanced)
Farsi/Dari (advanced reading/intermediate speaking)
Jekyll– static site generation, minimal computing 
Python– text analysis, web scraping, data manipulation
R Studio– basic data visualization 
ArcGIS– mapping, geospatial storytelling