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School of English and Drama

Dr Valentina Aparicio, BA (PUC Chile), MSc (Edinburgh), PhD (Edinburgh)

Valentina

Lecturer in Romanticism

Email: v.aparicio@qmul.ac.uk
Twitter: @@VPAparicio

Profile

I am originally from Santiago, Chile where I studied Hispanic Literature and Linguistics at PUC. I later moved to the UK to pursue further studies at Edinburgh University with the support of the Chilean Ministry of Education. My doctoral research focused on British Romantic views of Latin America and the Caribbean. I studied Robert Southey’s works on non-European communities of the American continent, and how their histories influenced the politics of this major figure of the period. I have undertaken archival research at the National Library of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro with the support of the British Association for Romantic Studies and the Royal Historical Society. In 2022, I returned to Brazil to study the correspondence between Maria Graham and Empress Maria Leopoldina with the support of the Keats-Shelley Association’s Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr. Research Grants. I am interested in British-Latin American exchanges in the nineteenth century and the fraught history of cross-cultural friendships during this period.

Teaching

As a teacher I follow Paulo Freire’s view that education is a transformative process of liberation through dialogue. I believe this is true for all people in the classroom, including the teacher. My classroom aims to be a decolonised space, where we all educate each other in dialogue. This decolonisation does not only mean changes in what we read. It also means we should aim to make classroom expectations and marking processes transparent, to have a participative classroom, and to create a space where we can all feel safe and comfortable.

Modules:

  • Poetry
  • London Global
  • Romantics and Revolutionaries
  • London: Walking the City
  • Romantic Travellers in Europe

Research

Research Interests:

  • British Romanticism and the Americas
  • 19th century (de)colonial studies
  • Transatlantic studies
  • Travel writing
  • Women’s writing
  • Transnational studies

Recent and On-Going Research

I am currently researching the writing of Scottish women travellers who visited Latin America and the Caribbean in the long 19th century. The authors I am focusing on include Frances Calderon de la Barca, Mary Seacole, Mary Lester, Maria Graham, and Florence Dixie. My current work explores how these authors represented friendship with other women during their travels from the perspective of affective, decolonial, and critical whiteness studies. I am generally interested in 19th century writing about the Americas and how race, gender, and class were understood by Romantic writers. I am also currently working towards the publication of my first monograph on Robert Southey’s Latin America and Caribbean works.

 

Publications

Articles

  • ‘The “Domestic Mysteries” of the Cannibal: Indigenous Women’s Agency in Robert Southey’s History of Brazil.’ Essays in Romanticism 29.1 (2022): 51-67.
  • ‘Intermarriage in the Quilombo: Southey’s Republic of Runaway Slaves.’ European Romantic Review 32.4 (2021).
  • Fervor de Buenos Aires y Trampantojos: puntos de encuentro entre Jorge Luis Borges y Ramón Gómez de la Serna’. Episteme: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas 6.1 (2016).
  • El Español (Abril 1810 – Marzo 1811) Negociaciones del Meridiano Cultural entre América y España en un Espacio de Comunicación Transatlántica.’ Cuadernos de Ilustración y Romanticismo 21 (2015): 281-304.

Reviews

  • ‘James Uden, ed. Worlds of Knowledge in Women’s Travel Writing. Boston: Harvard University Press, Ilex Foundation Series, 2022.’ Women’s Studies Group 1558 – 1837 Blog (2023).
  • ‘Kruger, Misty, ed. Transatlantic Women Travelers 1688 – 1843 (Bucknell, 2021), 234 pages, ISBN: 9781684482962, Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650-1850.’ Review 19 (2022).
  • ‘Gerard Cohen-Vrignaud, Radical Orientalism: Rights, Reform, and Romanticism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2015. 268 pp. ISBN: 9781107110328, £64.99.’ FORUM 22 (2016): 1-4.

Forthcoming

  • ‘“Anglo-Saxons on Horseback” or “Mail-Shirted Sioux”?: Romantic Native Americans and Tolkien’s Rohirrim.’ In: The Romantic Spirit in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Zollikofen: Walking Tree Publishers. (Co-author: Elliott Greene).
  • ‘Maria Graham’s Three Months Passed in the Mountains East of Rome (1820): Historicity and the labour of Italian peasant women.’ Through Traveller’s Eyes. Ed. Julie Peakman. London: Pen & Sword.
  • ‘The Politics of the Chilean Family: Mestizos and Huachos in Maria Graham’s Journal of a Residence in Chile.’ Global Exchanges. Ed. Women’s Studies Group 1558 – 1837.

Public Engagement

  • “Movement: Decolonising Friendship / Movimiento: Decolonizando Amistades” with FALA Feminist Assembly of Latin Americans, and the support of the QMUL Centre for Public Engagement. (2022).
  • Worshop “Latin American Decolonial Feminisms: Challenges and Opportunities,” at Queen Mary U. of London, with the support of the IHSS Early Career Workshop Award.
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