Tamara Mitchell is a scholar of 20th- and 21st-century Latin American literatures and cultures. Her research examines the relationship among aesthetics, politics, and the literary tradition under advanced capitalism, with a focus on Mexican and Central American narrative fiction. Her first monograph (under review), Novel Distortions: Postnational Form in Mexican and Central American Narrative, examines contemporary literary responses to the shifting form and function of the nation state, as well as the implications of this political upheaval for society, culture, and literary form. She is working on a second book project entitled Sounds of the Capitalocene: Extraction and Aurality in Mexican Literature. There, she examines contemporary Mexican authors who turn to sound and listening in poetry and prose as a means of responding and imagining alternatives to the social and environmental devastation of the extractivist present.

Prof. Mitchell has published numerous articles and book chapters on contemporary Latin American and Latinx authors. Her work has appeared in the Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Modern Language Notes, Oxford Handbook of the Latin American Novel, and CR: New Centennial Review, among other venues. She co-edited a special issue on “Latin American Literary Aurality” (2023, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos) and was commissioned by the Latin American Research Review to prepare a thematic review on Latin American literary sound studies.

Interests

• Contemporary Mexican Literature and Culture
• Contemporary Central American Literature and Culture
• Sound Studies
• Political Philosophy, Critical Theory
• Border and Diaspora Studies
• Latina/o/x Studies, Latinocanadá

View website for PDFs of peer-reviewed publications

Select Articles and Book Chapters

“Sounding Out the Text: Approaches to Latin American Literary Aurality,” with Prof. Amanda M. Smith (UC Santa Cruz). Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 57.3, October 2023.

“Rewriting the Militant Left: Untranslatability and Dissensus in Horacio Castellanos Moya,” Central American Literature as World Literature, ed. Sophie Esch, Bloomsbury Academic World Literature Series, October 2023.

“The Regional Novel and the Novel of the Mexican Revolution on Common Ground.” Oxford Handbook of the Latin American Novel. Co-authored with Amanda M. Smith, UC Santa Cruz. Eds. Ignacio López-Calvo and Juan E De Castro, November 2022.

“Migration and Diaspora: Central American Literature beyond the Isthmus,” Teaching Central American Literature in a Global Context, MLA Anthology, Eds. Mónica Albizúrez and Gloria E. Chacón, (Summer 2022).

“From Ratiocination to Globalization: Poe, Borges, Bolaño and the Complot of the novela negra mexicana.” CR: The New Centennial Review 21.3 (December 2021): 105-33

“A Narrative Vaivén: Lucha libre and the Modern Nation Unready-to-hand in Horacio Castellanos Moya’s La sirvienta y el luchador.” Modern Language Notes 136.2 (March 2021): 270-91.

“Broken Bodies, Broken Nations: Roberto Bolaño on Neoliberal Logic and (Un)Mediated Violence.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 55.1 (March 2021): 189-211.

“Escatología y marginalización en la literatura andina: Las porosas fronteras sociopolíticas en Los ríos profundos de José María Arguedas,” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, 43.2 (May 2020): 425-47.

“Geopoetics, Geopolitics, and Violence: (Un)Mapping Daniel Alarcón’s Lost City Radio,” Latin American Perspectives 46.5 (September 2019): 186-201.

“Carving Place out of Non-Place: Luis Rafael Sánchez’s ‘La guagua aérea’ and Post-National Space,” Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana 47.1 (May 2018): 275-92.

Research Grants and Awards (since 2019)

• SSHRC Insight Grant (2024-2029)
• SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2022-2024)
• Green College Interdisciplinary Thematic Series Fund
• Public Humanities Hub Research Cluster
• Latin American Landscapes Visiting Speaker Grant
• SSHRC Explore Grants
• Travel grants from: SSHRC Exchange, Latin American Studies Association (LASA)
• Hampton New Faculty Research Grant, UBC

Teaching and Mentorship

• Dean of Arts Graduate Mentorship Award (2023), Faculty of Arts, University of British Columbia
• Advancing Community Engaged Learning Grant
• SSHRC Explore Grants for Graduate Research Assistant Support
• Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Researcher Awards (AURA), UBC
• Work Learn International Undergraduate Researcher Award, UBC

Not currently accepting graduate students for supervision.