Michael Lazzara

EDUCATION AND DEGREE(S)

• Ph.D., Princeton University 

RESEARCH INTEREST(S)

• Contemporary Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies

• Literature, Culture, and Politics of the Southern Cone

• Chile, Argentina, Peru

• Revolutions, Dictatorships, Transitions to Democracy

• Memory Studies

• Trauma, Violence

• Human Rights

• Film Studies, particularly Documentary Film

COURSE(S) TAUGHT

• Spanish 100: Introduction to Critical Reading and Textual Analysis

• Spanish 170: Introduction to Latin American Culture

• Spanish 151: Introduction to Contemporary Latin American Literature

• Spanish 159: Latin American Identities: Utopias and Dystopias

• Spanish 175: Speaking Truth to Power: Testimonial Literature in Latin America

• Spanish 172: Latin American Documentary Film

• Spanish 159S: Contemporary Argentine Narrative (taught for Quarter Abroad in Mendoza, Argentina)

• Spanish 175: Chile and Argentina since the 1960s

• Spanish 182: The Art of Literary Translation: A Workshop

• Spanish 175/175S: Human Rights and Memory in Chile (taught annually for Summer Abroad in Santiago, Chile)

• Human Rights 161: Human Rights in Latin America

• Human Rights 130: The Politics of Memory in Latin America: Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation

• Spanish 274: Testimonio: Theory and Praxis

• Spanish 274: Chile, 40 Years after the Coup: Politics, Aesthetics, Memories

• Spanish 274: Latin American Documentary: From "Third Cinema" to the "Subjective Turn"

• Spanish 274: Critical Directions in Memory Studies

• Cultural Studies 210/Human Rights 200B: Memory, Culture and Human Rights

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

RECENT BOOKS AND SPECIAL ISSUES

• Civil Obedience: Complicity and Complacency in Chile since Pinochet. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2018. Published in the “Critical Human Rights” series, co-edited by Steve J. Stern and Scott Straus.

• Latin American Documentary Film in the New Millennium. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Co-edited with María Guadalupe Arenillas.

• Special Issue of Radical History Review 124 (January 2016): “The Other 9/11: Chile, 1973—Memory, Resistance, and Democratization.” Co-edited with Alicia del Campo, Heidi Tinsman, and Angela Vergara.

• Special Issue of A contracorriente: A Journal on Social History and Literature in Latin America 12.1 (Fall 2014): “La performance del archivo: re imaginar memoria e historia en América Latina.” Co-edited with Fernando A. Blanco and Wolfgang Bongers.

• Luz Arce and Pinochet’s Chile: Testimony in the Aftermath of State Violence. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Foreword by Jean Franco.

• Telling Ruins in Latin America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Co-edited with Vicky Unruh.

• Luz Arce: después del infierno. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2008.

• Prismas de la memoria: narración y trauma en la transición chilena. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2008.

• Chile in Transition: The Poetics and Politics of Memory. Gaineseville: University Press of Florida, 2006.

• Carmen's Rust. A translation with introduction of Ana María del Río's novel Óxido de Carmen. New York: The Overlook Press, 2003.

• Los años de silencio: conversaciones con narradores chilenos que escribieron bajo dictadura. Santiago de Chile: Cuarto Propio, 2002.

• Diamela Eltit: conversación en Princeton. Princeton University: Program in Latin American Studies, 2002.

SELECT RECENT ARTICLES

• “Retazos de la memoria.” In Ricardo Fuentealba Fabio and Rodrigo Araya Tacussis eds., Fuentealba 1973 (Santiago: Editorial Pehuén, 2018).

• “Memory Parks.” In Ricardo Vinyes ed., Historical Dictionary of Concepts, Expressions, and Uses of Collective Memory (Gedisa Editorial/University of Barcelona, 2018).

• “The Memory Turn,” In Juan Poblete ed., New Approaches to Latin American Studies: Culture and Power (New York: Routledge, 2017).

• “Globalization and Documentary Film: Luso-Hispanic Reflections.” In Robert Patrick Newcomb and Richard A. Gordon eds., Beyond Tordesillas: New Approaches to Comparative Luso-Hispanic Studies (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2017).

• “Complicity and Responsibility in the Aftermath of the Pinochet Regime: The Case of ‘El Mocito.’” In Rúbrica contemporánea 5.9 (Autonomous University of Barcelona, 2017). Special issue on “Las declaraciones públicas de perpetradores: narrativas y conflictos en la memoria social en contextos de pos-guerra, pos-dictatoriales y pos-genocidas,” co-edited by Claudia Feld and Valentina Salvi.

• “What Remains of Third Cinema?” In María Guadalupe Arenillas and Michael J. Lazzara eds., Latin American Documentary Film in the New Millennium (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

• “Pensar entre épocas: escrituras de vidas y transformación subjetiva en el Chile post-Pinochet.” (reprint) In Nuestra América: Revista de estudios sobre la Cultura Latinoamericana 10 (Universidade Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal, January-July 2016). Coordinators: Fernando A. Blanco, Andrea Jeftanovic, and Bernardita Llanos.

• “Writing Complicity: The Case of Mariana Callejas.” In Radical History Review 124 (Duke University Press, January 2016).

• “Performances—Memory, Monuments.” In Ileana Rodríguez and Mónica Szurmuk eds., The Cambridge History of Latin American Women’s Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

• “El fenómeno mocito (Las puestas en escena de un sujeto cómplice).” In A contracorriente: A Journal on Social History and Literature in Latin America 12.1 (Fall 2014).

• “Pensar entre épocas: escrituras de vidas y transformación subjetiva en el Chile post-Pinochet.” In Cuadernos de literature 37.XVIII (2014).

• “Aproximación al pensamiento crítico de Nelly Richard: fundamentos y debates de (y con) la crítica cultural.” Taller de letras 54 (2014).

• “Kidnapped Memories: Argentina’s Stolen Children Tell Their Stories.” Journal of Human Rights 12.3 (July-September 2013).

• “Radiografía del pinochetismo: una conversación con la documentalista Marcela Said.” In Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana 42.1 (May 2013).

• “Diamela Eltit.” In Will H. Corral, Juan DeCastro, and Nicholas Birns eds., The Contemporary Spanish-American Novel: Bolaño and After (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013).

• “Violencia, memoria, justicia: una entrevista a Pilar Calveiro.” In A contracorriente: A Journal on Social History and Literature in Latin America 10.2 (Winter 2013). Co-authored with Mónica Szurmuk and María Rosa Olivera-Williams.

• “Militancy Then and Now: A Conversation with Carmen Castillo.” In Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 21.1 (March 2012).

• “Remembering Revolution after Ruin and Genocide: Recent Chilean Documentary Films and the Writing of History.” In Kristi M. Wilson and Tomás F. Crowder-Taraborelli eds. Film and Genocide (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012).

• “Dos propuestas de conmemoración pública: Londres 38 y El Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Santiago de Chile).” In A contracorriente: A Journal on Social History and Literature in Latin America 8.3 (Spring 2011).

• “Justice and its Remainders: Diamela Eltit’s Puño y letra.” In Francesca Lessa and Vincent Druliolle eds. The Memory of State Terrorism in the Southern Cone: Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

• “Guzmán’s Allende.” In Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana 38.2 (November 2009).

• “Filming Loss: (Post-)Memory, Subjectivity, and the Performance of Failure in Recent Argentine Documentary Films.” In Latin American Perspectives 36.5 (2009).

• “Estrategias de dominación y resistencia corporales: las biopolíticas del mercado en Mano de obra, de Diamela Eltit.” In Rubí Carreño, ed. Eltit: redes locales/globales (Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/ Vervuert Verlag, 2009).

• “Pinochet’s Cadaver as Ruin and Palimpsest.” In Michael J. Lazzara and Vicky Unruh eds., Telling Ruins in Latin America (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

• “Crítica cultural.” In Robert McKee Irwin and Mónica Szurmuk eds. Diccionario de estudios culturales. (México: Instituto Mora, 2009).

• “Hacia una delimitación del cine documental como género: una conversación con Andrés Di Tella.” In Brújula 6.1 (2007).

• “The Poetics of Impossibility: Diamela Eltit's El padre mío.” In Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana 35.1 (May 2006).

• “Luz Arce: militancia, colaboración, perdón (palabras desde la zona gris).” In Revista de crítica cultural 32 (November 2005).

• “Miradas políticas, miradas estéticas: un diálogo con Diamela Eltit.” In Brújula 4.1 (2005).

• “Tres recorridos de Villa Grimaldi.” In Elizabeth Jelin and "Victoria Langland, eds. Monumentos, memoriales y marcas territoriales." (Madrid/Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI Editores, 2003).

CURRENT PROJECTS

• A monographic study that seeks to understand memory configurations of children of perpetrators of and collaborators with political violence in Chile, Argentina, and Peru (in progress).

• How the Military Remembers: Countermemories of the Cold War in Latin America. Co-edited with Cynthia E. Milton (in progress).

• Los futuros de la memoria: hacia una redefinición de los derechos y los usos del pasado en las democracias latinoamericanas. Co-edited with Fernando A. Blanco (under contract with University of North Carolina Press/ A Contracorriente, in progress).

• Translation and edition of José Carlos Agüero’s Los rendidos. Co-edited with Charles F. Walker (in progress).

HONORS AND AWARDS

• 7th Annual ASUCD Excellence in Education Award for Humanities, Arts & Cultural Studies, 2009.

• J. William Fulbright Scholarship, 1998.

ADVISEES

Arelis Rivero Cabrera

Daniel Coral

María Fernanda Díaz Basteris

Emily Frankel

Georgina Oller Bosch

Alejandro Rossi

Gustavo Segura Chávez