I specialize in the literature and cinema of 20th and 21st century Latin America, focusing particularly on Argentine fiction and film and engaging with gender, political dissent, cultural memory, home, intermediality, and affect.
My first book, Affective Moments in the Films of Martel, Carri, and Puenzo (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), studies the subtle tensions between affect and emotions as terrains of sociopolitical significance in several prominent women filmmakers’ aesthetically heterogeneous films. Such tensions significantly relate to the films’ core arguments, signaling these directors’ novel insights into complex manifestations of memory, desire, and violence.
My second book studies the intersection between marginality and sensescapes in Paula Markovitch’s films. The Cinema of Paula Markovitch: Contested Marginality (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming) probes the director’s explorations of differently marginalized dwellers and their sensescapes as a vital feature of her oeuvre. By inviting the viewer into the socioemotional layers of homeless sites, hospice-like spaces, assisted-suicide intersubjectivities, and political displacements, Markovitch revitalizes the complexity of the margins in novel and expansive ways. Such aesthetic considerations of the margins also bring to light fecund modes for broader sociocultural critiques in Markovitch’s films.
Working on my first two books inspired additional collaborations with my colleagues from Latin America, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. I co-edited The Feeling Child: Affect and Politics in Latin American Literature and Film (Lexington Books Press, 2018), Inusuales. hogar, sexualidad y política en el cine hispano (Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2020), and Encuentros fortuitos. Agencialidad en conflicto y poder en movimiento en el cine hispano (Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2023).
In 2023, I co-edited a special issue, “Interrupted Frames: Gender and Intermediality,” for Mistral: Journal of Latin American Women’s Intellectual & Cultural History. The issue explores the ways in which Latin American women artists have generated singular intermedial relations with other artforms, particularly literature, photography, sculpture, painting, audio recordings, and video.
I have also published articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as Revista Hispánica Moderna, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Chasqui, Mistral: Journal of Latin American Women's Intellectual & Cultural History, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. I have reviewed books and films in World Literature Today, Human Rights Quarterly, and La Jornada Zacatecas.
My research and teaching are coupled with service to the Spanish Department and the College in general. I served as the Intermediate Spanish Coordinator from 2016 to 2018 and as the Casa Cervantes Director and Faculty Advisor from 2019 to 2021. In addition to my service at the Spanish Department, I have been part of the International Study Committee (2016-2018; 2019-2021 and 2023-present) and the Agenda Committee (2017-2018 and 2022-2023).
Beyond my academic pursuits, I have conducted, and published on, several human rights-related projects at home and abroad. I have also worked at The United Nations Security Council, The International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. At Wellesley College, I have participated in the Albright Institute. These undertakings have remained an inspirational force for my interdisciplinary research and teaching efforts.
I believe in pedagogical dynamism that encourages critical thinking, academic rigor, and meaningful creativity among my students.
© 2024 Inela Selimović