Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor Gisela Heffes, Rice University, USA

Toxic Matters and Matters of Toxicity in Latin America

1 May - 30 June 2023

Biography

Gisela Heffes is a writer and a Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at Rice University. She is the editor of the annotated anthology Judíos/Argentinos/Escritores (1999), and two monographs: Las ciudades imaginarias en la literatura latinoamericana (2008) and Políticas de la destrucción / Poéticas de la preservación. Apuntes para una lectura (eco)crítica del medio ambiente en América latina (2013), which received the First Honorable Mention of the LASA Southern Cone section (Humanities) in 2015. A translated, expanded, and updated English edition is coming out in 2023 with Palgrave under the title Visualizing Loss in Latin America: Biopolitics, Waste, and the Urban Environment. She has edited the collections of essays Poéticas de los (dis)locamientos (2012) and Utopías urbanas. Geopolítica del deseo en América latina (2013). She was also the guest editor for the special issue of Revista de Critica Literaria Latinoamericana on “Ecocrítica” (2014). More recently, she co-edited The Latin American Eco-Cultural Reader (2020) and Pushing Past the Human in Latin American Cinema (2021), Un gabinete para el futuro (2022), and Turbar la quietud (2022). As a fiction writer, she is the author of the novels Ischia (2000), Praga (2001), and Ischia, Praga & Bruselas (2005); the collection of short stories, Glossa urbana (2012); a collection of poetic chronicles, Aldea Lounge (2014); the novella, Sophie La Belle and the Miniature Cities; the novel Cocodrilos en la noche (2020); the bilingual collection of poems, El cero móvil de su boca / The Mobile Zero of Its Mouth (2020; translated to French, Portuguese and Swedish), and Aquí no hubo ni una Estrella (forthcoming 2023 with Sed Ediciones). The English translation of her first novel Ischia will be out in October with Deep Vellum Publishing, and her novel Cocodrilos en la noche is forthcoming in a new edition with Grupo Planeta (2023).

Research Summary

During her stay in Bristol Professor Heffes will be working on her ongoing project, titled “Toxic Matters and Matters of Toxicity in Latin America.” The project explores the intersections of toxicity and space, time, politics and affect in Latin America through an analysis of literary fiction, poetry, visual art, and other media. It pays close attention to the flow of material contamination and pollution through organic and inorganic bodies, vernacular landscapes, and artworks with a particular focus on the unequal distribution of toxins as they travel through the enmeshed territories of material and discursive worlds, natural and cultural practices, biological, textual, and visual spheres. Some questions to be addressed are: How are the imaginaries of sickness, environmental activism and/or decay informed by the continual increase of toxicity in both urban and rural areas? What are the toxic dimensions and legacy of colonialism, and how does pollution contaminate and differ from one culture to another? How do Latin American writers and artists imagine life and how do they contribute to new understandings and conceptualizations of being biological, both human and non-human alike?

Planned activities include a workshop on creative writing in the Anthropocene that will form the basis for an anthology and exhibition. Professor Heffes will also work with researchers from Bristol’s Centre for Environmental Humanities and Cabot Institute for the Environment to strengthen links with Rice University’s Center for Environmental Studies, and to plan future joint publications and grant applications. These activities build on the already launched series of conversations on Latin American environmental thought, hosted jointly by Bristol and Rice.

Professor Heffes will be hosted by Dr Paul Merchant in the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies.

The following lectures and seminars are planned for her visit, gull details will be posted in due course:

• Environmental Humanities Annual Lecture, 4.30-6pm, 10th May, B.HO5 Lecture Theatre, Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road
  
  The Aesthetics of Toxicity in Contemporary Latin America: Flows and Disruptions
  
  This lecture will address the convergence of toxic matters and matters of toxicity at the intersections of space, time, politics and affect through three material paradigms, which are defined, in turn, by three distinct conceptual frames. Professor Heffes will argue that these three figures catalyse an aesthetics of toxicity grounded in discourses on exposure, environmental (in)justice, bodily experiences, and material entanglements. Refreshments will be available after the event. 
  
  Book your ticket here
  
  

• Departmental lecture (CEH / HiPLA), 1 pm, 31st May, G.HO1, Arts Complex, 7 Woodland Road
  
  Contaminated Bodies in Argentine Literature
  
  This lecture will focus on how contemporary Argentine authors (e.g. Samanta Schweblin) are providing challenging and novel depictions of contamination in their writing, and will consider how contemporary literature can act as a stimulus for social and political change. 
  
  
• Graduate student seminar (Faculty of Arts)
  
  Toxicity in Latin American cultural production
  
  As environmental concerns grow, questions about climate change, environmental justice and the power of literature and art to address these problems have also become more pressing. This course will help students to engage with the problems of interpreting and producing toxic narratives from the distinct standpoint of Latin America (including non-hegemonic/Western perspectives). Outcomes: to improve critical thinking/reading and writing methodologies; to introduce students to a corpus of literary, cultural, historical, and critical/theoretical works from Latin America; to develop a problem-solving mindset that will help students find solutions to urgent problems of environmental inequality/injustice. 
  
  

• Creative Writing MA students (workshop), 4-6 pm, 17th and 23rd May, location to be confirmed
  
  Creative Writing in the Anthropocene 

  In this workshop we will explore different forms of writing and poeticize the environmental crisis. Through an experimental approach, we will inquire into what it is like to narrate climate change and the current undergoing ecological devastation. We will pay close attention to the materiality of objects and will connect these artifacts to the deep time of the Anthropocene. Participants will be invited to attend two interconnected workshops. For the first one, you will receive an assignment prior to the meeting day. Please register, and come and join us!

  Please register your interest by emailing paul.merchant@bristol.ac.uk by Friday 12 May