As a born-and-raised Argentine (Buenos Aires), Canadian citizen, and US-educated scholar, cultural and linguistic diversity have been at the core of who I am. My life experiences taught me that languages are the doors to diverse and otherwise inaccessible worldviews. Learning English, French, Italian, and Portuguese as second languages made me fall in love with the process of second language acquisition and led me to professionally dedicate myself to second language pedagogy. In 2001 I moved from Buenos Aires to Toronto, where I learned English and French. I received my BA in Spanish and Italian from Queen’s University (Canada) in 2009. After 5 years working in the private sector, I returned to graduate school and earned my MA (2016) and PhD in Spanish & Portuguese Languages and Literatures (2023) from the University of Kansas. During my time as a graduate student, I taught a broad range of Spanish and Portuguese language and culture classes, including a graduate-level course.
I am very excited to teach Spanish courses at the University of Chicago during the 2023-24 academic year. I bring a personable teaching approach to the classroom as I believe that clear and fluid instructor-student communication is paramount in creating a safe and effective learning environment. I prioritize an immersive approach in my courses where Spanish is to be the main language of communication.
As a literature and culture scholar, I am interested in the study of popular culture in 19th-to-21st century Argentina and Brazil. My current book project explores the ways in which soccer can be read in film and novels as an index of the cultural permeation of neoliberalism in Argentina and Brazil (2003-2016). I am also interested in critical theory with a focus on the intersection of psychoanalysis and decolonial perspectives.
Publications
- 2023,“Passionate Attachments: Fanship as Desire and Drive in Contemporary Argentine Cinema” in Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, Special Issue “Just a game? Sport and Psychoanalytic Theory,” edited by Jack Black and Joseph S. Reynoso, forthcoming (Journal article)
- 2022, “Staging Desire: The Ideological Fantasy of Argentine (Football) Culture” in Psychoanalysis as Social and Political Discourse in Latin America and the Caribbean, edited by Paola Bohórquez, Routledge, pp. 29-39. (Book chapter)
Recent Courses in RLL
- SPAN 10200 Beginning Elementary Spanish II (Winter 2024)
- SPAN 10300 Beginning Elementary Spanish III (Autumn 2023)
- SPAN 20100 Language, History, and Culture I (Spring 2024)