Oswaldo Estrada

Education

Ph.D., University of California, Davis, 2004

MA, University of California, Davis, 2001

BA, University of California, Davis, 1999

About Professor Estrada

Oswaldo Estrada’s research focuses on otherness, coloniality, gender studies, and the representation of violence. He is the author and editor of several books of literary and cultural criticism, including the award winning Troubled Memories: Iconic Mexican Women and the Traps of Representation (2019 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title).

Professor Estrada has earned very prestigious university-wide teaching awards: the Distinguished Post-Baccalaureate Teaching and Mentoring Award in 2012, the Chapman Family Distinguished Teaching Award in 2015, and the Carolina Women’s Leadership Council Teaching and Mentoring Award in 2019. For five years, he served as editor of Romance Notes, a journal founded in our department in 1959, and he is currently editor of Hispanófila, published in our department since 1968. In 2015, he founded the book series, “Palabras de América” (Valencia: Albatros), focused on contemporary literary criticism.

As a fiction writer, Professor Estrada has won several awards. In 2020, he won the International Latino and Latin American Book Fair Prize for Las locas ilusiones y otros relatos de migración (Axiara, 2020). In 2020, he also received an award for one of his short stories from the University of Guadalajara Press, and two major awards from the 2020 International Latino Book Awards for his collection of short stories, Luces de emergencia (Valparaíso USA, 2019, 2020), and for his edited volume, Incurables: relatos de dolencias y males (Ars Communis, 2020). In 2022, his book Las guerras perdidas received a Gold Medal for "Best Collection of Short Stories in Spanish" from the International Latino Book Awards.

Personal website: https://oswaldoestradaescritor.com

Publications, Articles, & Presentations

Special Journal Issues

El Perú en el nuevo milenio. Reflexiones y propuestas en torno al Bicentenario, with Carlos Villacorta. Special Issue. Hispanófila, 192, 2021

Género y sexualidad en la literatura mexicana del siglo XXI, Special Dossier for iMex: México Interdisciplinario / Interdisciplinary Mexico, 13, 2018

Cristina Rivera Garza: fronteras abiertas y colindancias de género. Special Dossier for Letras Femeninas, 42.2, 2017

El Quijote: senderos y destinos, with Sara Poot Herrera, Special Dossier for Romance Notes, 56.1, 2016

México: Sin Fronteras / Without Borders, Special Dossier for Revista de Literatura Mexicana Contemporánea, 53, 2012

Nueva Narrativa Latinoamericana / New Latin American Narrative, Special Monographic Issue of Cuaderno Internacional de Estudios Humanísticos, 14, 2010

The Survival of Literature in the Age of Globalization, 50th Anniversary Issue of Romance Notes, 50.1, 2010

Transgresiones en el tintero: nuevos narradores mexicanos, Special Monographic Issue of Explicación de Textos Literarios, 36.1-2, 2008

Books

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Vivir la Violencia en El Perú del Nuevo Milenio

Quince autores peruanos que viven dentro y fuera del Perú analizan en este libro distintos tipos de violencia en alguna manifestación contemporánea, en una obra de arte, en un documental o en una película. Al pasar de lo real a lo simbólico en un poema, o de la historia a la ficción con que se talla una novela, todos encuentran “memorias” dolorosas de nuestro país, aquellas que, al transformarse en productos de arte, se imponen como espacios de lucha política contra el olvido, el silencio y la amnesia histórica. Las obras analizadas —escritas, visuales— son verdaderos actos de resistencia: dan cuenta de lo que es producir, crear en medio de condiciones adversas, muertes impunes, la normalización de la violencia, corrupción del Estado y atropellos de todo tipo.
, 2023
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Rosa Beltrán: afectos literarios y el arte de narrar

Imposible pensar en la literatura mexicana actual sin tomar en cuenta la obra multifacética de Rosa Beltrán (México, 1960) Sus cuentos, novelas y ensayos forman parte fundamental del panorama literario del nuevo milenio, y también su presencia en los medios, sus entrevistas y reseñas, sus artículos en prensa, su labor como gestora cultural, o como crítica y fundadora de varias colecciones literarias. Los ensayos críticos reunidos aquí descubren los universos literarios de quien cuestiona el devenir de la historia, calcificadas asignaciones de género y nuestro lugar en el mundo. Si la ficción, como sostiene la narradora de su novela Radicales libres (2021), tiene el poder de "hacernos hablar a través de historias que cuentan otros", la autora lo consigue una y otra vez con personajes que parecen reales y apelan a nuestras emociones desde inquietantes escenarios.
, 2023
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Tus pequeñas huellas

Andrés y Marena viven en Nueva York. Los une el recuerdo de un Perú violento, el afán de reinventarse en una sociedad ajena intolerante y el luto solitario de quienes pierden a sus hijos de manera prematura. A través de ellos conoceremos la marginalidad que habitan aquellos que emigran, su lengua diversa, las familias alternativas que construyen en la nueva tierra, y dilemas en torno a la maternidad, la adopción, las paternidades truncas y el futuro que se presenta como una interrogante. Tus pequeñas huellas es una novela que gira en torno a la pérdida y el dolor de dos seres que sufren de maneras distintas y que buscan desesperadamente salidas de emergencia o alguna tabla de salvación. El viaje visceral que emprenden Andrés y Marena nos sitúa entre la pertenencia y el desarraigo, el feminismo y la masculinidad, o entre América Latina y sus diásporas, en un remolino de afectos, políticas antimigratorias y esperanzas de vida que surgen en medio de una pandemia.
, 2023
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Fronteras de violencia entre México y Estados Unidos

To speak of Mexico today is to speak of violence, femicides, the so-called "war against drugs" and its problematic relationship with the United States in a neoliberal world. The critics gathered in this volume analyze literary, artistic and filmic manifestations of current violence on both sides of "the line," paying attention to various violent fronts, to border spaces, to Mexican and American politics...
Academic, 2021
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Las guerras perdidas

The characters in these stories are immigrants clinging to life. They travel from the world of politics to the labyrinths of religion, or from violence to reason. Situated in Latin America, Spain or in the United States, at the crossroads of various physical and symbolic borders, they defend their exile, they build their own morality. They lose the war in a hospital, in a kitchen, at the foot of a sidewalk, at a funeral...
Fiction, 2021
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Incurables. Relatos de dolencias y males, editor, Chicago, Ars Communis

Fiction, 2020
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Luces de emergencia

The characters in these stories ask for help in many ways. They suffer from terminal illnesses or profound psychological trauma. Political, domestic violence pursues them. They yearn to escape to other worlds, to set out on a pilgrimage. To grow roots in new lands. To be reborn. Or to die without anyone knowing. Suffering is described from the perspective of a child who crosses several borders in search of refuge...
Fiction, 2020
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Las locas ilusiones y otros relatos de migración, Salem, Axiara

Fiction, 2020
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Literatura y globalización. Latinoamérica en el nuevo milenio, edited with Eva Valero Juan, Barcelona: Anthropos

Academic, 2019
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McCrack: McOndo, el Crack y los destinos de la literatura latinoamericana, edited with Pablo Brescia, Valencia, Albatros, Serie Palabras de América

Academic, 2018
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El secreto de los trenes

A stranger arrives at an empty station waiting to board a train. Out of nowhere, an old man with a red lantern appears. He tells the traveler to consider looking for accommodation, because things are different here. And he begins to explain the secret of the trains: they have a life of their own, they are capable of changing the lives of travelers. Suddenly, the whistle of the train breaks the traveler's reverie. The destination that marked his ticket no longer mattered. He understood that the stories he heard about the trains were true if he ventured to change course, station, or destination...
Fiction, 2018
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Troubled Memories: Iconic Mexican Women and the Traps of Representation, Albany, SUNY Press, series Genders in the Global South

Academic, 2018
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Senderos de violencia. Latinoamérica y sus narrativas armadas, editor, Valencia, Albatros, Serie Palabras de América

Academic, 2015
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Ser mujer y estar presente

Talking about literature written by women continues to represent, even today, in the XXI century, an intellectual and theoretical challenge. An intellectual challenge, because it often puts us in front of the danger of generalizations; a theoretical challenge, because it exposes us to the need to accept that there is something like that feminine writing theorized in the '90s by Hélène Cixous and, at the same time, to work tirelessly so that this very acceptance transcends a certain isolation of gender writing with with respect to a global dimension...
Academic, 2014
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Colonial Itineraries of Contemporary Mexico. Literary and Cultural Inquiries, edited with Anna M. Nogar, Tucson, University of Arizona Press

Academic, 2014
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Cristina Rivera Garza. Ningún crítico cuenta esto..., editor, México: Ediciones Eón, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill y UC-Mexicanistas

Academic, 2010
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La imaginación novelesca. Bernal Díaz entre géneros y épocas, Madrid, Iberoamericana/Vervuert, sSerie Nuevos Hispanismos

Academic, 2009
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Awards & Honors

International Latino Book Awards, 2020, 2022

Campoy-Ada Prize, The North American Academy of the Spanish Language, 2021

International Latino and Latin American Book Fair Prize, 2020

Carolina Women's Leadership Council Teaching and Mentoring Award, 2019

University Research Council Award, 2016

LASA Honorary Mention for Best Article in the Humanities, Mexico Section, 2015

Chapman Family Distinguished Teaching Award, 2015

Academic Excellence Award, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, 2014

Faculty Mentoring Award, Department of Romance Languages, 2014

Frank Porter Graham Honorary Member, 2013

Distinguished Post-Baccalaureate Teaching and Mentoring Award, 2012

Dissertations

Vinodh Venkatesh, “Masculine Textualities: Gender and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Latin America,” 2011 (Virginia Tech).

Esther Sánchez-Couto, “Representaciones del silencio en la narrativa femenina de España y México (1990-2012),” 2013 (University of North Texas)

Anca Koczkas, “Cartografía del deseo: transgresiones sexuales y género en la literatura latinoamericana contemporánea,” 2015 (University of West Georgia)

Francisco Brignole, “Nuevos rumbos en la novela del exilio latinoamericano de la postdictadura (1990-2014),” 2015 (University of North Carolina Wilmington)

Wesley Costa de Moraes, “Animalidades literarias en la ciudad latinoamericana del siglo XXI,” 2018 (SUNY Geneseo)

Alejandra Márquez, “Disidencias de deseo femenino en representaciones literarias y culturales del México contemporáneo (1989-2015),” 2018 (Michigan State University)

Adrienne Erazo, “Identity in Trauma: Central American Migration in Contemporary Latin(x) American Literature”, 2019 (Appalachian State University)

Etna Avalos, “Intersections of Gender and Disability in the Contemporary Latin American Novel (2000-2015)”, 2019 (MacEwan University)

Francisco Y. Chen-López, “Mapping Chinese Diaspora: Chinatowns in Contemporary Latin American Literature (1963-2016).” (Spelman College)

Sarah Booker, “Mobile Embodiments: Tracing Translation in Contemporary Latin American Narrative.” (North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics)

Andrés Porras Chaves, “El imperio en disputa: diálogos entre crónica, novela y cine en la España postcrisis (2008-2020), (IE University, Madrid)

Typical Courses

ROML 55H: Writing with an Accent: Latina/o Literature

SPAN 301: Introduction to Literary and Cultural Analysis

SPAN 344: Latin@ American Cultural Topics

SPAN 394: Creative Writing in Spanish

SPAN 709: Nonfiction Prose of the 16th and 17th Centuries

SPAN 741: The Essay and Short Story

SPAN 747: The Contemporary Spanish American Novel

SPAN 835: Seminar in Spanish American Literature