Research Interests
My research explores the intersections of poetic forms and materiality in contemporary Latin(x) American cultural production. I focus on how poets and artists engage with residual materials to challenge dominant historical narratives and resist monumentalization. Through a feminist, queer and critical theory theoretical lens, I investigate how these poetics reconfigure notions of identity and political resistance, offering alternative frameworks for understanding marginalized voices. My work particularly addresses themes of gendered violence, feminicide, post-dictatorship trauma, and racial marginalization, highlighting how memory serves as a site of both fragility and liberation in response to neoliberal erasure.
Monograph: Poetic Traces: Latin(x) American Objects, Archives, Dust
My first book project, examines how Latin(x) American poets and artists use transient materials—such as dust, water, and sound—to question conventional memory-making practices. Focusing on the works of Mario Bellatín, Graciela Iturbide, Cecilia Vicuña, Óscar Muñoz, Valeria Luiselli, and Guillermo Galindo, I explore how these figures engage with poetic forms as a means of resisting fixity and closure in memory. Through their experimentation with fragments and dislocated origins, these artists critique the hegemonic control of memory while proposing non-linear, unpredictable forms of memorialization. Their works offer a fluid, open-ended approach to memory as a site of ongoing political struggle.
Second Book: Sound Weavings: Politics of Life, Care, and Intimacy in Latin(x) America
My second book project extends my work around sound and the everyday to focus on Latin(x) American women-identifying poets and collective formations. It will explore how the works of diverse figures reveal the intersections between sound and poetry. I will emphasize creative expressions emerging from gossip, hair salons, hallways, streets, performances, and collaborative writings. My focus is on how the shared language in textual-oral narratives in these settings serves as a pathway for forging unexpected alliances that resurfaces historical channels of solidarity and intimacy.
Scholarly Articles
“To come: tatiana de la tierra y las formas del deseo”, in LASA Forum, Dossier Borderlands 2.0. Las nuevas fronteras
“Archivos vivientes: vistas, sonidos y cantos en Border Cantos de Guillermo Galindo y Richard Misrach,” in Latin American Literary Review. April 16, 202a.
“Eyes and Wings: Graciela Iturbide’s Bird Images”. in photographies, Vol 17. No. 1-2, 2024.
“Performance in the Wake/Cuerpas ante lo politico. An Introduction,” co-author and co-editor in the special issue “Performance in the Wake”. In Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3, 2022
“Cecilia Vicuña’s Bodies in Space” in the special issue“Performance in the Wake”. In Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 1-21., 2022
“Flows of breath: Oscar Muñoz’s Unfolding Images”. Discourse, 43.2, pp. 286-310, 2021. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/794605
Review of “Biopolíticas de la visualidad en la necrópolis contemporánea”, by Javier Guerrero. Revista Taller de Letras, UC, no. 67, 2020
“Towards a Minor Art.” Section “Debate” in the dossier Filosofía y violencia: Voces femenina. In Ideas y Valores Revista colombiana de filosofía, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2019 .
“Comentarios a Acosta, María del Rosario Memory and Fragility: Art’s Resistance to Oblivion (Three Colombian Cases)”. Section “Debate” in the dossier Filosofía y violencia: Voces femenina. In Ideas y Valores Revista colombiana de filosofía, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2019.
Upcoming Conferences Papers
“Pulling the Strings: Feminist Friendship and Literary Activism” MLA, New Orleans, January 2025
“Materias silenciosas: voz, imagen y texto”, LASA, Bogotá, Colombia, June 12-15, 2024.
Selected Conferences Papers
“Jesusa Rodríguez, una intimidad radical” LASA, San Francisco, CA, May 23-27, 2025.
“Cecilia Vicuña’s Ephemeral Writings” MLA, Philadelphia, PA, January 4-7, 2024.
“Restos epidérmicos: prótesis, visualidad y escritura”, LASA, Vancouver, BC, May 24-27, 2023.
“Images in Flux”. Photographies Conference, San Antonio, Texas, September 22-24, 2022.
“Ecos del desierto: voz, archivo y escritura”, Latin American Studies Association (LASA), Virtual Conference, May 5-10, 2022.
“Cuerpos vibrantes, materias sonoras: Desierto sonoro (2019) de Valeria Luiselli”. Mexicanistas, University of California, Irvine, April 28-30, 2022.
“Vaporous traces: ink, water, dust”. Northeast Modern Languages Association (NeMLA), Baltimore, MD, March 10-13, 2022
“Doble exposición: retratos, autorretratos y fantasmas.” Escrituras y políticas de la mirada en la literatura chilena e hispanoamericana, Universidad de Chile, Virtual Conference, August 26-27, 2021.
Isabella Vergara C. 