I am a scholar of comparative literature specializing in avant‑garde poetics, ecopoetics, environmental humanities, and translation studies. My research examines transnational modernisms in the Americas through ecofeminist and queer ecological frameworks, anti‑colonial translation theory, and the relationship between experimental poetics and environmental media. I take a hemispheric approach with a current focus on Mexico City and the Caribbean, tracing how writers, artists, and translators created ecological imaginaries through intermedial experimentation.
Book Project
Volcanoes, Islands, and Cities: Ecopoetics of the Transnational Avant‑Gardes in the Americas, 1910–1950s
My monograph, Volcanoes, Islands, and Cities: Ecopoetics of the Transnational Avant‑Gardes in the Americas, 1910–1950s, traces ecological imaginaries across Caribbean and Mexican modernist networks, reclaiming ecological thought within texts that reframe the relationship between body and landscape. My work revises dominant accounts of the historical avant-garde, which have traditionally emphasized institutional critique, war, and technology. Instead, the project foregrounds nature and embodiment in the work of a network of artists across the Americas, with Mexico City as a transnational site of literary experimentation, comparable to New York or Paris in shaping international modernism. Analyzing texts by Nahui Olin, Alice Rahon, and Luz Jiménez, and others, I trace a new genealogy of environmental thought in experimental modern literature. I contend that these writers developed an ecological imaginary that challenges the gendered conflation of women’s bodies with nature, producing literary and visual forms that reconfigure the relationship between body and environment. My research also extends to the Caribbean through the poetics of Jane “Jeanne” Nardal and Jeanne Mégnen, and to related modernist figures including Anita Brenner, Tina Modotti, Leonora Carrington, Lola Álvarez Bravo, and Gertrude Duby Blom.
Articles
“From Mexico City to World Literature: Enrique Olavarría y Ferrari’s and Hugo Meltzl’s Global Literary Projects.” Revista Transilvania, no. 6/7, 2025, p. 21. doi:10.51391/trva.2025.6-7.03.
An examination of the collaboration between Enrique de Olavarría y Ferrari in Mexico City and Hugo Meltzl, founding editor of Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum (1877), to illuminate an early, multilingual vision of world literature. Olavarría’s editorial work in Revista Universal and El Renacimiento positioned Mexico City as a cosmopolitan site where Spanish functioned both as a tool of resistance and as a medium implicated in imperial structures. In tracing the circulation of writers such as José Martí through these journals, I show how Mexico City became a key site for transnational literary exchange and expanded the scope of early comparative literature beyond Eurocentric frameworks.
“Iztaccíhuatl in Intermedial Modernism: Volcanoes and Feminist Ecopoetics in Mexico City.” Journal for Literary and Intermedial Crossings, forthcoming.
A comparison of how the volcano Iztaccíhuatl functions as a feminist ecological figure within Mexico City’s modernist imaginary. Through readings of Luz Jiménez, Nahui Olin, and Alice Paalen Rahon, I argue that the volcano operates as an extension of the feminized body—dormant, powerful, and historically misread—across Nahuatl, Spanish, and French texts. Bringing intermedial theory into dialogue with Nahua cosmology, I show how natural forms like volcanoes shape both form and meaning, enacting a relational ecology in which Iztaccíhuatl is an active participant in feminist and ecological world‑making.
“Ecopoetic Archipelago: Jeanne Nardal’s Night Falls on Karukera Island.” Under review.
A study of Nardal’s volcanic and archipelagic imagery as a feminist ecopoetic intervention that reframes Caribbean modernism through relational ecology.
Conferences & Talks
Ecopoetics and Avant‑Gardes: Modernist Experimentation and Ecological Imaginaries in Mexico City. MLA Annual Convention, panel “Ecologies of Experimentation: Avant‑Gardes and Environmental Thought.” 2026.
Ecopoetics and the Transnational Avant‑Garde: Modernist Experimentation and Ecological Imaginaries in Jane Nardal’s Poetics. ACLA Annual Meeting, seminar “Modernism Otherwise: Global Modernisms Across Asia and Beyond.” 2026.
“From Mexico City to World Literature: Enrique de Olavarría y Ferrari’s Collaboration with Hugo Meltzl’s Global Literary Project,” Presenter, Seminar: Genealogies of World Comparatism, American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Meeting, May 2025.
“Book Talk: Ignacio Infante, A Planetary Avant-Garde,” Moderator, John M. Olin Library, Ginkgo Reading Room, Washington University in St. Louis, February 2024.
Awards
Graduate Research Fellow: Global Comparative Humanities Working Group— 2025, Center For Humanities, Washington University in St. Louis
Researched early Mexican Comparatism, focusing on Enrique de Olavarría y Ferrari (1844–1919) and his contributions to global literary networks and the historical foundations of comparative humanities in the context of the global turn.
Divided City Fellowship—2023, Center for Humanities, Washington University in St. Louis
The Divided City Graduate Summer Research Fellows Program supports research on urban segregation and spatial justice. Funded archival work for the project Experimental City Networks: Mexico City (1910s–1940s), focusing on urban imaginaries through Anita Brenner and Nahui Olin.
Global Futures Research Grant— 2024, Global Studies, Washington University in St. Louis
Awarded for interdisciplinary research in transnational environmental humanities. Supported archival travel to Mexico City and Chiapas for dissertation work on ecological imaginaries in avant-garde networks.