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Graduate Students

ana-alejos-rios-picture-resized.jpgAna Alejos Ríos
anaalejos-rios2028@u.northwestern.edu

Ana holds a bachelor's degree in Literature from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Peru. Additionally, she obtained a master's degree in Hispanic American Literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. In 2022, she published the book "El artista, el mal y la bella enferma: subversiones y resignificaciones de imaginarios decadentes del entre siglo en 'Hojas de mi álbum' (1903) de José Antonio Román," which reevaluates the contributions of José Antonio Román, an early 20th-century Peruvian writer often overshadowed in academic discussions about the turn of the century in that country. Her academic interests are focused on 19th and early 20th-century Hispanic American Literature and Cultures. Specifically, she aims to study the emergence of the Peruvian literary field in dialogue with other Hispanic contexts during this period of crisis and its relationship with the emerging ideological, aesthetic, and political projects of the time.

nubiophoto.jpgEzra Arreola Martinez
ezraarreolamartinez2026@u.northwestern.edu 

Ezra received a dual B.A. in Gender & Women's Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an M.A. in Latin American and Latino Studies from the same institution. They have worked as a Mellon Fellowship assistant for the Inter-University Program for Latino Research and as an independent researcher at the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam. Their research examines how transnational anarchist networks have shaped sexual cultures throughout Latin America. They are particularly interested in late 19th and early 20th century literary works on amor libre written in the cities of the Rio de la Plata, where narratives of sexual deviance emerge as forms of self-expression and a site of class conflict. Their writing has appeared in publications like AREA Chicago and in the edited volume Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement. Their involvement in grassroots organizing against gentrification, displacement and immigrant detention is central to producing the ethics that inform their life's work.

Marco Carvajal
Marco received his B.A. in Liberal Arts from Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador) with a concentration in Art History and Hispanic Literature. He also received a master’s degree in Literary Studies from Universidade Federal do Paraná (Curitiba, Brazil).  His interests are bilingual and cross-cultural writers, cosmopolitanism, the Andean region, Francophone literature, Lusophone literature, the avant-gardes, and contemporary literature.
IMG-20161015-WA0033.jpgFelipe Costa Neves
felipeneves2021@u.northwestern.edu

Felipe received his first BA in journalism from PUC-SP (Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo). He worked as a journalist in the early 2000s, being a reporter and editor for major Brazilian media outlets, such as Folha de S. PauloiG and Radio Bandeirantes. He dedicated his last years to civil service, being head of press and public relations for the Sao Paulo State Government. In parallel to the development of his journalistic career, he pursued his second BA in Literature and Linguistics from USP (University of Sao Paulo), Brazil's most important and prestigious university. His main interest is literature in general and its connections with other human sciences, such as sociology, history, anthropology and philosophy – literature as the lens through which he can see and understand the world. From a post-colonial perspective, he wants to work with contemporary fiction, especially the possible relations between Brazilian and other Portuguese-speaking cultures, such as Angola and Mozambique. 
deisi_photo_2020.pngDeisi Cuate
T6M3E7@u.northwestern.edu

Deisi received her B.A. in Hispanic Studies from Wheaton College (MA). Subsequently, she taught 7th grade math in English and Spanish through Americorps as a teaching fellow in the South Bronx. Previously, she worked as a success college counselor in New York private and public colleges. Her research examines female literary representations of Latinx NY/NJ since the 1990s. She is particularly interested in how Latinx female-identified writers have problematized monolithic views of NY and its environs by reexamining the relationship between identity and space.

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Michelle Davó Ortíz
michelledavoortiz2029@u.northwestern.edu

Michelle Davó Ortiz is an arts administrator and researcher from Mexico City. She holds an MA in Art History and Arts Administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, supported by the Fulbright-Garcia Robles Fellowship, the Jumex Museum Scholarship, and the SAIC Pritzker Scholarship. Since 2018, Michelle has been the project coordinator of Archivo El Insulto, co-curating exhibitions such as “Please Touch: Embracing the Memories of Desire” at La Postal-Terremoto and “A Particular Collection” at Noche de Archivos Abiertos. Michelle is currently pursuing a PhD in Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University. Her research explores the intersections of sexuality, affect, and social justice within theoretical and historiographic aesthetics studies.

felipe-gutierrez.jpgFelipe Gutiérrez Franco
FelipeGutierrez2024@u.northwestern.edu

Felipe Gutiérrez Franco holds a B.A. in Literary Studies from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, and a M.A. in Hispanic Literature and Culture from the Instituto Caro y Cuervo in Bogotá, Colombia. He specializes in modern Iberian and transatlantic cultures, with a particular focus on issues of material and visual culture, museum and heritage studies. His research analyzes the ways in which literature and visual arts intervene in heritage and repatriation conflicts through the study of disputed gold treasures in Spain. He has worked as a curatorial fellow at The Block Museum of Art and is currently a graduate instructor in the International Studies program, where he teaches two courses on global heritage, museums, and repatriation. He is also co-chair of The Nineteenth Century Series, a year-round cycle of talks on 19th century studies in the Luso-Hispanic world at the department of Spanish and Portuguese.

img-20220915-wa0003.jpgHyerim Hong
hyerimhong2027@u.northwestern.edu

Hyerim Hong received her B.A. in Hispanic Language and Literature from Seoul National University (South Korea), where she also received her M.A. in Hispanic Literature. Subsequently, she worked as an intern at the Nation Theater Company of Korea, where she assisted in an incubating program for young directors and playwrights. Her interests include contemporary Spanish and Latin American theater, migration, race, and ethics. Hyerim’s works have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Sincronía and Journal of Arts and Humanities.

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Roberto Katrandjiyski
RobertoKatrandjiyski2028@u.northwestern.edu

Robbie received his B.A. in Spanish and Economics from the University of Virginia (2017) and his M.A. in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park (2021). His pedagogical experience ranges from working with high school students through the Virginia Governor’s Academy of Spanish to teaching a variety of undergraduate Spanish language courses at the University of Maryland. His research interests include 20th and 21st century testimonial literature, identity formation, migration, race & gender studies, as well as the intersections of fiction and historiography primarily as they relate to marginalized populations in Central America, Mexico, and the US.

profile-photo.jpgOana Katz
oanakatz2028@u.northwestern.edu

Oana Alexan Katz gained an interdisciplinary perspective on migration studies through her B.A. in International Studies and Spanish at Macalester College and her M.A. in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).   

Following six years of nonprofit development work that channeled storytelling into grassroots social change, she returned to the humanities to explore resistant representational strategies through the prism of literary and cultural studies.  

Oana’s research spans the migratory experience in the contemporary Iberian and U.S. Latina/o/e/x contexts. She is intrigued by the emergent field of postmigration—a space for re-narrating social situations of mobility and diversity, as well as re-conceptualizing personal and collective identities in present-day Spain. Her affiliation with the Mellon Cluster in Critical Theory at Northwestern serves as a platform for applying critical studies of race, gender, and sexuality to identity formation. 

helo-imada.jpgHeloísa Imada
heloisaimada2026@u.northwestern.edu

Heloísa Imada received her B.A. in Literary Studies (2017)  from State University of Campinas. She also holds a Master's degree in Theory and Literary History (2021) from the same institution, where she was a CAPES scholar. During her Master's, she was also an invited researcher for the Médias19 project, coordinated by Prof. Dr. Guillaume Pinson at Université Laval (2020). Her interests are Visual Studies, Material Culture, and Press Circulation focusing mostly on the relation between fashion and literature in Latin American culture in the fin-de-siècle. Heloísa's research has been published in peer-reviewed journals Modapalavra and Revista Mídia e Cotidiano.

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Anamaria León Barrios
AnamariaLeonBarrios2024@u.northwestern.edu

 Anamaría León Barrios holds a B.A. in Literature from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (Caracas, 2016), and an M.A. in Spanish Language, Literature, and Culture from Syracuse University (Syracuse, 2019). She was awarded the Gerlinde Ulm Sanford for Outstanding M.A. Student of Spanish and the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award at Syracuse University (2019). Anamaría also worked as an editor at Fundación Biblioteca Ayacucho (2013-2017). She edited the book Llamas sobre el llanto by Cesar Rengifo, a collection of his main plays, and co-edited several books. She was Co-Chair in the Latin American and Caribbean Studies cluster (2022-2023) at Northwestern University. 

Her topics of interest broadly focus on the representations of racialized subjects in Latin American literature, specifically in literary texts from countries with a common geographic space through the Amazonian and Andean regions. Her research areas are race theory, eco-criticism, indigeneities, literary practices and testimony by indigenous peoples, and indigenist literature arching from the late nineteenth century, the twentieth, and the twenty-first-century literature in Latin America.  

christianmartinez.picture_enviar.jpgChristian Martinez Arias
christianmartinezarias2027@u.northwestern.edu

Christian received his B.A. in Literature from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru. His work focuses on the indigenismo movement in the Andes, particularly on the literary representations of indigeneity in Peru from the late 19th to mid-20th century. His current research delves into the works of key Peruvian intellectuals, such as Dora Mayer, Luis Valcárcel, and José María Arguedas. In particular, he examines how they articulated new forms of relationality involving Indigenous communities and other societal actors within the framework of the modern projects of the time.

mcnabb-headshot.pngStephen McNabb
stephenmcnabb2023@u.northwestern.edu

Stephen received a Bachelor’s (2015) and Master’s of Arts (2017) in Spanish from Portland State University. His Master’s thesis examined the representation of cultural identity in Gamaliel Churata’s El Pez de Oro. His current research interests include: Andean Studies, Amazonian Studies, Print and Textual Studies, Decolonial Studies, Cultural Studies, Publishing, and Translation Studies. Before coming to Northwestern, Stephen completed a Fulbright Fellowship at La Universidad Nacional de Colombia - Sede Amazonia where he maintains the position of English Style Editor for the joint institutional publication Mundo Amazónico.  

mendieta_a_profile-picture.jpgAndrés Mendieta
LisandroMendieta2027@u.northwestern.edu

 Andrés Mendieta holds a B.A in Communication Studies from the National University of La Plata (UNLP) and a M.A in Gender Studies from the National University of Tres de Febrero (UNTREF) in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he also teaches seminars in queer and trans* studies. During 2019 - 2020 he was an Andrew W. Mellon predoctoral fellow in the Critical Theory in the Global South Project at Northwestern University. He is also a research member in "Trans. Arch: Archives in Transition” an international research project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Research. 
His research focuses on trans* and queer theory, 19th century Latin American and archival studies. 

mpalacio-profile-pic.jpgMaría Camila Palacio
MariaPalacio2023@u.northwestern.edu 

María Camila received a B.A. in Literature from the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, and, most recently, an M.A in Digital Humanities from Loyola University Chicago. She has collaborated with several Digital Humanities projects, like the 1968 Democratic National Convention virtual reality experience made by the Chicago History Museum, the Lili Elbe Digital Archive from Loyola University,  and her own project,  "Periodismo en Tiempos de Guerra", which aims to serve both as an archive of the armed conflict coverage in Colombia and a tool to compare and study how mediums have narrated the conflict in Colombia. Currently, María Camila is interested in studying contemporary narratives of the conflict in Colombia and analyze how these narratives conform a vision of the conflict and a series of discourses that impact the way Colombia's recent past is seen and read. She would also like to explore how the use of tools and practices such as mapping, data visualization, and text analysis, could contribute to her research.  

yportales-profile-photo.jpegYasmín S. Portales Machado
yasminportalesmachado2023@u.northwestern.edu

Yasmín received a B.A. in Theater Critic from the Cuban University of Arts (2007) and an M.A. in Spanish from the University of Oregon (2018). Her research examines the ways in which science fiction depicts politics, sexualities and families in the Spanish Caribbean Literature. She is particularly interested in studying Cuban cyberpunk, and Cuban female science fiction writers as Anabel Enriquez and Daina Chaviano. She has published essays in the feminist magazine Pikara, the social sciences journalTemasand the edited volumes Women Past and Present: Biographic and Multidisciplinary Studies(Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), La isla y las estrellas. el ensayo y la crítica de ciencia ficción en Cuba(Editorial Cubaliteraria, 2015) and Anatomía de una isla. Jóvenes ensayistas cubanos(Ediciones La Luz, Cuba, 2015). Her fiction work had appeared in Antología de cuentos homoeróticos(Col. Homoerótica, vol. I, España, 2007), Antología de cue
ntos homoeróticos
(Origin EYaoiES & Col. Homoerótica, vol. II, España, 2008), Deuda temporal. Antología de narradoras cubanas de ciencia ficción, (Col. SurEditores, Cuba, 2015), Sombras nada más. 36 escritoras cubanas contra la violencia hacia la mujer(Ediciones UNION, Cuba, 2015), and Órbita Juracán: Cuentos cubanos de ciencia ficción(Voces de Hoy, Miami, 2016).
 

eduardo-bello-department-website-pic.pngEduardo Ramirez Bello
eduardoramirezbello2026@u.northwestern.edu

Eduardo has a B.A. in Hispanic Literature from the University of Guadalajara and an M.A. in Peninsular and Spanish American Literature from the University of Colorado Boulder. His research focuses on the manifestations of Modernism in Latin America during the mid-20th century and their impact and influence on different disciplines, such as literature, cinema, urbanism, and architecture. 

Gabriel Restrepo Parradopicture_gabriel-r.jpeg
gabrielrestrepoparrado2025@u.northwestern.edu

Gabriel obtained a double B.A in Philosophy and Literature (2016) and a M.A in Philosophy (2017) from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. During this time, his research focused on the poetry of Idea Vilariño and, on the philosophical side, on classical American pragmatism. Most recently, he completed an Erasmus Mundus M.A in Crossways in Cultural Narratives (2020) from Università di Bergamo, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and University of St Andrews. For this M.A, he wrote a thesis in which he explored the early narrative of Uruguayan author Mario Levrero in relation to postmodernism and theories of space. His areas of interest include pragmatism, ecocriticism, and philosophy of science. Within this framework, he would like to study Latin American science fiction and horror. Gabriel joined the Ph.D in Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University in 2020.  

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Jesse Rothbard
JesseRothbard2024@u.northwestern.edu

Jesse Rothbard received his B.A. from Carleton College in Spanish and Biochemistry. His research interests include transatlantic crime fiction, contemporary Latin American film, media studies and queer theory. Jesse’s current research project, centered on queer criminalization and criminality in the first half of the 20th century in Latin America, has received support from the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA), the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), and Fulbright.

sofia_sanchez_photo.jpgSofía Sánchez
SofiaSanchez2026@u.northwestern.edu

Sofía holds a B.E.d. in Humanities and Spanish from Universidad Distrital "Francisco José de Caldas". She also completed an M.A in Hispanic Literary and Cultural Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she also worked as visiting lecturer upon graduation. Her research interests have focused on contemporary Colombian theater, specifically on the relationship between dramaturgy, memory and political violence. Her undergrad thesis examined plays that questioned the legitimacy of the state archive as an official repository of national memory on Colombia’s armed conflict. Most recently, her research centers on studies of dramaturgy and gender in Latin America, particularly in the reception and transformations of Antigone in the region.

christian_profile-picture.jpgChristian Vásquez
christianvasquez2024@u.northwestern.edu 

Christian holds a B.Ed. in Humanities and Spanish from Universidad Distrital "Francisco José de Caldas" (2010). In 2015, he earned an M.A. in Literature from Universidad de los Andes, where he worked in the Writing Center as lecturer and coordinator of writing courses from 2015 to 2018. He is also a member of Himpar Editores, an independent publishing house settled in Bogotá, Colombia. His research interests include contemporary Latin American literature and Cultural studies. 

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Jacob Wilkenfeld
jacobwilkenfeld2022@u.northwestern.edu

Jacob received a B.A. in English and Latin American Studies from the University of Connecticut at Storrs and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research examines the ways in which modernity and cultural hybridity have been thematized in Portuguese and Brazilian Literature. He is particularly interested in studying Jewish-Brazilian novelists such as Moacyr Scliar and Clarice Lispector, Afro-Brazilian writers such as Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis and João da Cruz e Sousa, and the modernist movements of Brazil and Portugal. He has published articles in Walt Whitman Quarterly Review and in the edited volumes The Limits of Literary Translation: Expanding Frontiers in Iberian Languages and Whitman Noir: Black America and the Good Gray Poet.

 

Alumni