Position Title
Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese; Affiliated Faculty in Music, African American and African Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory
- Spanish and Portuguese
Charlie Hankin specializes in music-literature relations in the twentieth and twenty-first century Caribbean and Brazil. His research and teaching bring together sound studies and ethnomusicology, Afro-Latin American thought and poetics, hip hop studies, and comparative literature. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and recording collaboration in Cuba, Brazil, and Haiti, his book Break and Flow: Hip Hop Poetics in the Americas (UVA Press, 2023) was awarded the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies from the MLA. He is editor of the dossier Words and Rhythm, Sound and Text (Latin American Literary Review, 2024). His current book project, “Writing in Clave,” proposes a rhythmic counterpoint between popular music and literature in the twentieth-century Caribbean.
Hankin has also taught, performed, and recorded as a professional violinist. In 2017, he recorded violin tracks and co-produced with Malcoms “Justicia” the Cuban hip hop album Sentimientos Desafinados, which was nominated for a CubaDisco award.
- Ph.D., Spanish and Portuguese, Princeton University
- M.Mus., Violin Performance, University of Oregon
- B.A., Spanish, Reed College
- Music-literature relations in the twentieth and twenty-first century Caribbean and Brazil; sound studies and ethnomusicology; Afro-Latin American thought and poetics; hip hop studies; comparative literature