Alejandra Vela-Martínez
Specializations:
20th-21st Century Mexican Cultural Studies
Transnational mass culture, archives, feminine periodicals and literature
Diasporic and border feminine literature
their reception and preservation throughout Latin American Modernity
Course idea:
Open to collaborating on a topic related to formations of identity and/or popular culture
My research critically examines the construction of symbolic value in Latin American literature and culture, with a particular focus on Mexico, through the lens of Gender, Women, and Sexualities Studies. I explore the creation of symbolic capital using two main approaches: historical research based on archival work with understudied materials, and critical readings informed by reception theory and affect theory to highlight biases in cultural consumption. My analyses question the institutionalized margins of official culture from a gendered perspective.
As a whole, my research questions the Latin American cultural field by examining how different "counter-archives," as I call them in my current book manuscript, illuminate literary and cultural history involving feminine writers and materials. I defend the need, within the Humanities, to celebrate the ways femininity has intervened in the public sphere, while rethinking the limits of what is considered Literature and Culture. This is a necessary step towards a reconceptualization of intellectual history based on feminized aesthetics that uncover numerous female and women writers, editors, and readers formerly excluded from the canon.
My interests lie at the intersection of Literary History, Women and Gender Studies, and the History of Material Culture. I challenge prevailing feminist historical perspectives that dismiss cultural products as too conservative or patriarchal, advocating for the recognition of diverse forms of feminine participation in the public sphere throughout history. This approach seeks to restore the agency of women and other feminine subjects in shaping their destinies.