Gabriela Polit-Dueñas
1 University Station, B3700
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712
gabriela@austin.utexas.edu
(512) 232-4539
I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas in Austin. I came to UT in 2008. I moved from Long Island – New York where I taught at the State University of New York since 2002. I got my Ph.D. from New York University earlier that same year. I have an M.A. in Political Science from The New School for Social Research (1996) and a Licenciatura (B.A.) in Philosophy from the Universidad Católica del Ecuador – Quito.
My first book, Cosas de hombres. Escritores y caudillos en la literatura latinoamericana del siglo XX (Argentina: 2008, Beatriz Viterbo Editoras) is an analysis of the aesthetics of masculinity in novels about strong men. I analyze how writers use the figure of the tyrant to criticize a political regime, while displaying an attraction to his particular masculine identity and aesthetics. The book also explores how female and male writers negotiate in different ways their own identity as authors when it comes to represent power.
My interest in the connection between politics, violence and representation led me to look carefully at the ways in which the traffic of illegal drugs is portrayed in literature. Narrating Narcos. Culiacán and Medellín (Pittsburgh University Press, 2013) is a comparative case study of the ways in which this phenomenon is lived and represented in two of the most important cities linked to the history of narcotrafficking in the region.
My latest book, Unwanted Witnesses. Journalists and Conflict in Contemporary Latin America explores the work of five journalists, three from Mexico, one from Colombia and one from Argentina. I am interested on the way in which cronistas listen to the subjects of theirs stories; Despite their crónicas are about violence, trauma, forced-disappearances, the analysis shows that they are narratives of care, empathy, and the exploration of a shared vulnerability. The book scrutinizes the ethical demands that violence imposes on contemporary cronistas and shows the many and perverse faces of silence.
Gabriela Polit-Dueñas 