Writing

Publications

Article in a Peer-Reviewed Journal 

"'You could see rage’: Visual Testimony in Post-genocide Guatemala.” Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 20 (2018). 

“‘Tengo que gritarlo’: Historical Witnessing and Testimonio, Again.” Política Común. A Journal of Thought 10 (2016). http://dx.doi.org.libproxy2.usc.edu/10.3998/pc.12322227.0010.015.

Book Chapter 

“Soberanía Bestial y Derechos Post-humanos.” Invited contribution to Pensamiento y Terror Social: El Archivo Hispano, eds. José Luis Villacañas, Jacques Lezra, Alberto Moreiras, and Erin Graff Zivin. (accepted for publication)

Translation 

“The Creative Process of Robinson Crusoe: Exile, Loneliness and Humanism.” Invited translation for Blackwell Companion to Buñuel, eds. Rob Stone and Julián Gutiérrez-Albilla. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

Work in Progress 

“Crossing Archives: A Transnational Pedagogy”

“The Desert as a Disintegrating Witness”

Dissertation 

“Anti-Gritos: Screaming as Witnessing in Postwar Central America” 

My dissertation investigates figurative screams—gritos—in literature, photography, film, and performance art from Central America and the Central American diaspora. Historically, “El Grito” has acted as a symbol of colonial independence in multiple Latin American countries and included anniversary celebrations such as El Grito de Dolores (Mexico), El Grito de Ascencio (Uruguay), and El Grito del 20 de Julio (Colombia). In contrast, I propose the notion of anti-gritos as an aesthetic and political response to the neocolonial orders that have continued to dominate Central America, particularly since the 1970s. In chapters organized around issues of state terror, institutional impunity, mass migration, and transborder solidarity, I analyze the ways anti-gritos bear witness to ongoing social and economic violence, including that perpetuated by international human rights politics. Though these screams emerge in the work of various writers, artists, and activists, including Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala), Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador), and Patricia Villalobos Echeverría (Nicaragua), they consistently expose human rights politics as compliant with the neocolonial enforcement of Enlightenment-based, and thus highly circumscribed, concepts of truth, time, and the human. 

Online Publications

On Alberto Moreiras’ Marranismo e Inscripción (January 2017)

A brief response to Alberto Moreiras’ Marranismo e Inscripción, a book that reflects on the status of Latin American Studies as an academic discipline. Read at a panel called “Los Malos Pasos," which was held at the University of Pennsylvania.

Art, Migration, and Human Rights (August 2015)

A dossier by artists, scholars, and activists on the issue of migration in Chiapas, Mexico. Created in collaboration with New York University's Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.

Blog with HASTAC (October 2014- ) 

Short entries about my interests in critical media literacy, grassroots film-making, and collaborative pedagogy. Published while working with HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory).

Personal

"Staying Tuned: A Journal Series" (June 2021)

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