Welcome

I am a scholar of colonial Latin American literature and culture. My approach to teaching is rooted in my research on Indigenous languages in Latin America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In my research, I am often thinking about how and why certain forms of knowledge (grammatical, religious, poetic) were produced, codified, and questioned in a colonial context. The primary sources I teach highlight the intellectual production of communities whose knowledge and cultures were both appropriated and marginalized in colonial Latin America. As a Searle Fellow in the 2024-2025 academic year, I have sought to bring this ethos into the assignments and assessments I use in “Latin American Literature Before 1888." By redesigning the syllabus with a focus on modes of assessment, I aim to convey to students a critical stance on the contemporary production and circulation of knowledge within the institution of the university.