Alejandro Herrero-Olaizola

My primary research interests are 20th- and 21st-century Latin American literature, critical theory, comparative literature, and cultural studies. I am particularly interested in the points of contact between Latin American and Spanish literary and cultural traditions.  My other research interests include: popular culture, postmodernism, historical fiction, biographical and testimonial narratives, and North and South American literary and cultural relations. After my experience as a US Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá (2010), Colombia has also become one of my areas of research and teaching.

My most recent book Commodifying Violence in Literature and on Screen: The Colombia Condition (Routlegde, 2022) explores the transnational and inter-cultural forces that have resulted in the heterogeneity and fluidity characteristic of today’s Latin America. I am interested in exploring Latin America as a cultural and intellectual space that expands beyond the American continent in response to the diminishment of nation-state powers.  In this project, I examine mass-marketed media products (i.e., “dirty” best-sellers, film and art about violence, narco-stories) that perpetuate the “gritty side” of Latin America for the benefit of the culture industry and worldwide consumption under globalization.

In addition to my books Narrativas Híbridas (Verbum, 2000), and The Censorship Files: Latin American Writers and Franco' s Spain (SUNY Press, 2007), I have guest edited a special issue for Symposium on "New Latin American Narrative" (2007) and co-edited Market Matters, a special issue of the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies (2005). I have also published the co-edited volumes  Teaching the Latin American Boom (MLA, 2015) and Territories of Conflict: Traversing Colombia Through Cultural Studies (2017).

Research Areas(s)

• Latin American Literature, Critical Theory, Comparative Literature, Trans-Atlantic Studies, The Politics of Publishing, Censorship and Literary Markets, The Culture Industry, Violence and Cultural Production

Affiliation(s)

• Romance Languages & Literatures

Award(s)

• 2010 US Fulbright Scholar, Colombia
• 2003-2004, Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies
• 2002, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship