My research revolves around the relationship between poetry and politics, with a particular interest in the Poetics of Resistance and on the theoretical underpinnings of committed writing. My projects are mostly comparative and integrate a strong theoretical component with close readings of case studies, usually from Europe and the Americas (North, Central, South).
The Poetics of Resistance / Creativity and Alternative Globalisation
My research into the poetics of resistance focuses, on the one hand, on the relationship between poetic subjectivities and the survival of situations of coercion and, on the other hand, on the role of art and literature in resistance projects that focus on the construction of alternatives. The first strand of research has led me to differentiate between poetry of witness, resistance poetry, and poetry of survival. The second strand of research explores the emergence of an aesthetics of alterglobalisation in art and writing.
My research into poetic subjectivities in situations of coercion has led to the book chapter '"Don't Misunderstand Me": Apostrophe and Direct Address in Poems of Survival', and I am currently working on an article on literary engagement with the Mexican guerrilla and the dirty war of the 1970s.
My work on the aesthetics of alterglobalisation has led to the publication of the articles 'Where There is a Lot of Sound: The Trilanguaging of Media in the Work of Manu Chao', and 'Four Paths Five Destinations: Imaginaries of Alternative Globalisation in Literary Text'. I'm currently preparing a book proposal on this subject.
My research in this area is linked to the project ' Poetics of Resistance'. For a special issue on 'Poetics of Resistance', edited together with David Wood, see http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/issue/current
Performance Poetry
My long-standing research interest in performance poetry evolved from my doctoral dissertation, on politically committed performance poetry. Since 2007, I have researched especially the significance of rhythms in performed poetry, as a means of representing and engaging with text-internal and text-external rhythms; and I have developed the concept of 'poetic licence' as an analytical tool to explore the relationship of individual performance poets to the poetic tradition and to the wider context of their work.
The members of the research group 'Non-Lyric Discourses in Contemporary Poetry' have provided me with a stimulating research context on performance poetry.
Publications from this line of research are Performing Poetry: Rhythm, Place and Body in the Poetry Performance (with Arturo Casas), the book chapters '"The Hurricane doesn't Roar in Petameters": Rhtyhmanalysis in Performed Poetry', 'Poetic Licence and Direct Address: Political Performance Poetry in Britain', and 'Reconsidering Poetic Licence in 1970s and 1980s Northern Europe: Poetry Performances by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Urs M. Fiechtner & Sergio Vesely'.
Cultural Interventions in Urban Space
Cities and urban spaces are intersections of urban politics, cultural production and of social and political tensions. Urban cultural producers respond to the imaginaries of a city that are developed through urban politics, but they also develop their own, often alternative, urban imaginaries. I am interested in the interaction between city government and civil society as it is manifested particularly in cultural production and urban cultural politics.
So far, my research into this area has produced the book chapter 'Los ritmos de la megalópolis: La poesía en voz alta en la Ciudad de México y en Spanish Harlem, Nueva York'. Currently I'm working on an article on representations of the Oaxaca Uprising from 2007, and on an article on New Orleans performance poetry after Katrina.
Secured Funding
2011: British Academy Overseas Conference Grant for the Congress of the International Association for the Study of the Americas, Rio de Janeiro, July 2011 (£800)
Presentation of paper entitled 'Dissident Encounters: Latin America and Europe in the works of Ramón and Manu Chao'
2011: Society of Latin American Studies
Events grant for an event on 'Media, Community and Social Movements'.
2009-2010: Rearch and Enterprise Fund, FASS, Lancaster UniversitySmall grant from the Research and EnterpriseFundfor research on 'Changing Perceptions of the City of Oaxaca in 2006'
December 2009: IAS Incubation Fund, Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster UniversityLead applicant for a grant from the IAS Incubation Fund for the Latin America Research Cluster, for a series of events on "Modernization, Globalisation and Alterglobalisation in Latin America"
July 2009: British Academy Conference Fund (£800)
Travel grant for participation in the International Congress of Americanists, July2009,Mexico City, Mexico
April 2007: Partial travel grant of the American Comparative Literature Association
Participation in the ACLA conference 2008, Puebla, Mexico.
1 January 2006 - 31 December 2006: Royal Netherlands Academy ofArts andSciences (KNAW)
Full-time scholarship for completion of dissertation.
1 September 2005 - 30 November 2005: Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)
Funded research trip to the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM).
Most recent presentations
CRESC Annueal Conference 'Framing the City', Manchester, 9th September 2011
From Tourist City to Rebel City: Oaxaca during the 2006 Uprising
CPDOC, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, 3rd August 2011
El otro mundo que si es posible: Imaginarios Neozapatistas en el trabajo cultural
Congress of the International Association of the Study of the Americas, Rio de Janeiro, 27 - 29 July 2011
Dissident Encounters: Latin America and Europe in the works of Ramón and Manu Chao
University of Vigo, Project 'Poetic Discourse Beyond the Lyric', I International Conference on Non-Lyric Discourse in Contemporary Poetry, Vigo, 26th April 2011
Plenary Lecture: "History and Poetry: Re-telling History Poetically and 'from below'in Alterglobalisation Literature"
Department of Literary Studies, University of Leiden, The Netherlands, 2nd March 2011
Who Grants Poetic Licence? Performance Poetry between Social Citique, Political Activism, and the Market
Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca, 12th January 2011
La poesía en voz alta en los años 70 y 80: Tendencias y manifestaciones
Seminar Series of the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology, Lancaster, 16th June 2010
Imaginaries of Alterglobalisation: The Mega-City as Theme and Organizing Principle in Narratives of Alterglobalisation
Annual Congress of the American Comparative Literature Association, New Orleans, 1st - 4th April 2010
Resistance, Political Violence and Intercultural Encounters in The Long Night of White Chickens by Francisco Goldman
International Congress of Americanists, Mexico City, 19th - 24th July 2009
"Sonyar otro mundo": Intertextualidad en la escritura de Eduardo Galeano y el Subcomandante Marcos
Urban Spaces and Inequality (workshop), Lancaster University, 5th June 2009
Literary Representations of Mobility and Inequality in Urban Spaces
On Sound (workshop), Royal Holloway, London, 25th April 2009
Rhythmanalysis in Urban Performance Poetry
Poetics of Resistance: Practices, Repertoires, Strategies, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15th and 17th April 2009
"Sonar otro mundo": Sigue existiendo un discurso global de la resistencia?
La ciudad latinoamericana, Leiden University, 6th April 2009
Los ritmos de la megalopolis: La ciudad de Mexico a travesde sonidos y ritmos en la poesia contemporanea
From Human Rights to the Primacy of the Political (conference), Lancaster University, 7th-8th November 2008
Subjectivity Construction and the Deprivation of Rights in two Novels on the Mexican dirty war
The Latin American and Caribbean City (symposium), University of Liverpool, 17th-18th October 2008
Analysing Rhythms: Sounds and Rhythms in Performed Poetry from Mexico City and Spanish Harlem (invited presentation)
