Professor and Chair, Hispanic Studies
I teach across the Hispanic studies curriculum, from intermediate Spanish to upper-division seminars on Latin American literary and cultural studies. I also regularly offer courses in English as part of our interdisciplinary Latin American Studies program. As I scholar, I am primarily interested in the cultural production of nineteenth-century Latin America. My book Beyond Civilization and Barbarism demonstrates how political rivals in post-revolutionary Argentina were complicit in articulating modern political concepts by employing a variety of cultural forms, including portraiture, graffiti, audiovisual spectacles, and literature. My recent work includes studies on the use and reception of early photography, and my current book project concerns the cultural origins of populism throughout Latin America in the nineteenth century. I’ve also published a series of essays on the ways in which film, literature, and public spectacles reconfigure foundational figures and myths in the present.