Michael J. Lazzara is Associate Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture in the Spanish Department and affiliated faculty with Film Studies and the Program in Cultural Studies. His research focuses on contemporary Latin American artistic projects from the Southern Cone (Chile, Argentina), particularly those dealing with issues of dictatorship, democratic transition and traumatic memory.

He is currently developing courses on the “subjective turn” in recent Latin American documentary film and on representations of political violence and post-traumatic memory in Latin American cinema. Recent Publications Books: Prismas de la memoria: narración y trauma en la transición chilena. Santiago de Chile: Cuarto Propio, 2007. (Spanish translation of Chile in Transition) Chile in Transition: The Poetics and Politics of Memory. Gaineseville: University Press of Florida, 2006. Carmen’s Rust. A translation with introduction of Ana María del Río’s novel Óxido de Carmen. New York: The Overlook Press, 2003. Los años de silencio: conversaciones con narradores chilenos que escribieron bajo dictadura. Santiago de Chile: Cuarto Propio, 2002. Diamela Eltit: conversación en Princeton. Princeton University: Program in Latin American Studies, 2002. Articles, Reviews and Interviews: “Identity Crises: (post-)Memory, Subjectivity and the Performance of failure in Recent Argentine Documentary Films.” Forthcoming in Latin American Perspectives (2008). “Estrategias de dominación y resistencia corporales: las biopolíticas del mercado en Mano de obra, de Diamela Eltit.” Eltit: redes locales/ globales. Ed. Rubí Carreño Bolívar. Madrid/ Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/ Vervuert Verlag (forthcoming, 2008). “Crítica cultural” in Robert McKee? Irwin and Mónica Szurmuk eds. Diccionario de estudios culturales. México: Instituto Mora, (forthcoming 2008). “Hacia una delimitación del cine documental como género: una conversación con Andrés Di Tella.” Brújula: revista interdisciplinaria de estudios latinoamericanos 6.1 (forthcoming, Fall 2007). “Ensayo, eRrancia y las ficciones del cine documental.” Review of Andrés Di Tella: cine documental y archivo personal. Paul Firbas and Pedro Meira Monteiro, eds. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI Editores, 2006. In Brújula: revista interdisciplinaria de estudios latinoamericanos 6.1 (forthcoming, Fall 2007). “Memory Scripts in the Making: Chile’s 9/11 and the Struggle for Meaning.” A contracorriente: una revista de historia social y literatura de América Latina 5.1 (forthcoming, fall 2007). Review of El salto de Minerva: intelectuales, género y Estado. Mabel Moraña and María Rosa-Olivera Williams, eds. Madrid/ Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/ Vervuert, 2005. In Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana 65 (forthcoming, Fall 2007). Review of Steve J. Stern, Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet’s Chile, 1973-1988. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. In The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History 64.1 (July 2007). “On Cultural Difference and Doing Research in Latin America” in Brújula 5.1 (2006). “Polyphonic Memories: Pinochet’s Dictatorship in the Collective Imagination” in A contracorriente 4.1 (2006). “The Poetics of Impossibility: Diamela Eltit’s El padre mío” in Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana 35.1 (May 2006). “Luz Arce: militancia, colaboración, perdón (palabras desde la zona gris)” in Revista de crítica cultural 32 (November 2005). “Miradas políticas, miradas estáticas: un diálogo con Diamela Eltit” in Brújula 4.1 (2005). “Tres recorridos de Villa Grimaldi” in Elizabeth Jelin and “Victoria Langland eds. Monumentos, memoriales y marcas territoriales.” Madrid/Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI Editores, 2003. Current Projects: Telling Ruins in Contemporary Latin America. A co-edited volume with Vicky Unruh (University of Kansas) on the image of urban ruins in Latin American cultural production at the turn of the millennium. Luz Arce: palabras desde la zona gris. A book-length project featuring an extensive case study and interview with Luz Arce Sandoval, a former socialist militant during Chile’s Popular Unity government who later became a collaborator with Pinochet’s secret police organizations. Visions of Allende: Cultural Inscriptions of a Political Body. A new project dealing with competing visions (in multiple genres) of Allende and Popular Unity at different historical junctures. Film Studies Program