Inela Selimovic
Associate Professor of Spanish
Research and teaching center on 20th and 21st century Latin American literature and cinema.
Much of my recent research deals with contemporary Argentine literature and cinema while engaging with affect, cultural memory, gender, political dissent, and intermediality.
My first book, Affective Moments in the Films of Martel, Carri, and Puenzo (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), studies the subtle tensions between affect and emotions as terrains of sociopolitical significance in several prominent Argentine women filmmakers’ aesthetically heterogeneous films. Such tensions significantly relate to the films’ core arguments, signaling these directors’ novel insights into complex manifestations of memory, desire, and violence.
My second book studies the intersection between marginality and sensescapes in Paula Markovitch’s films. The Cinema of Paula Markovitch: Contested Marginality (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming) probes the director’s explorations of differently marginalized dwellers and their sensescapes as a vital feature of her oeuvre. By inviting the viewer into the socioemotional layers of homeless sites, hospice-like spaces, assisted-suicide intersubjectivities, and political displacements, Markovitch revitalizes the complexity of the margins in novel and expansive ways. Such aesthetic considerations of the margins also bring to light fecund modes for broader sociocultural critiques in Markovitch’s films.
Working on my first two books inspired additional collaborations with my colleagues from Latin America, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. I have co-edited (with Philippa Page and Camilla Sutherland) The Feeling Child: Affect and Politics in Latin American Literature and Film (Lexington Books Press, 2018) and (with Jorge González del Pozo) Inusuales. hogar, sexualidad y política en el cine hispano (Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2020), and Encuentros fortuitos. Agencialidad en conflicto y poder en movimiento en el cine hispano (Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2023).
I also recently co-edited a special issue (with Camilla Sutherland), “Interrupted Frames: Gender and Intermediality,” for Mistral: Journal of Latin American Women’s Intellectual & Cultural History (Fall 2023). The issue explores the ways in which Latin American women artists have generated singular intermedial relations with other artforms, particularly literature, photography, sculpture, painting, audio recordings, and video.
I have published articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Chasqui: Revista de litaratura y cultura latinoamericana e indígena, Mistral: Journal of Latin American Women’s Intellectual & Cultural History, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, and Revista Hispánica Moderna. Some of my book and film reviews have appeared in Human Rights Quarterly, World Literature Today, and La Jornada Zacatecas.
My research and teaching are coupled with service to the Spanish Department and the College in general. I served as the Intermediate Spanish Coordinator from 2016 to 2018 and have served as the Casa Cervantes Faculty Advisor and Director (2019-2021). In addition to service in the Spanish Department, I have been part of the International Study Committee (2016-2018; 2019-2021; 2023-present) and the Agenda Committee (2017-2018 and 2022-2023).
Beyond my academic pursuits, I have conducted, and published on, several human rights-related projects at home and abroad. I have also been seconded to work at The United Nations Security Council, The International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I have participated in the Albright Institute on several occasions. These undertakings have remained an inspirational force for my interdisciplinary research and teaching efforts.
I believe in pedagogical dynamism that encourages critical thinking, academic rigor, and meaningful creativity in and among my students. My teaching focuses on Spanish language courses and Latin American literature, culture, and cinema.
Research: https://selimovic09.wixsite.com/inelaselimovic
Education
- B.A., University of the South
- M.A., University of Kentucky
- Ph.D, University of Kentucky
Current and upcoming courses
Practice in oral and written Spanish at the advanced level. Designed to enhance communicative competence, this course will provide an intensive review of advanced grammatical structures within cultural contexts of the Spanish-speaking world. Each section will explore a specific theme through the examination of Hispanic literary texts and the arts, as well as other cultural phenomena. Varied oral interactions, technological applications, and critical writing will be stressed.
Culture, Politics, and Creativity
This course studies cultural expressions as invigorating glimpses into socio-political realities of Latin America and Spain. We will explore how writers, film directors, poets, and artists respond to social demands, political changes, and cultural shifts in particular times, places, and communities. Selected works engage students with diverse cultural repertoires of the Hispanic world in interdisciplinary ways. We will spotlight the relationship between political violence and literature in Argentina and Chile; displacement and photography in Spain and Uruguay; domestic workers and film in Mexico and Peru; education and artistic activism in El Salvador and Nicaragua; and exile and poetry in Cuba and Paraguay.
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This course studies cultural expressions as invigorating glimpses into socio-political realities of Latin America and Spain. We will explore how writers, film directors, poets, and artists respond to social demands, political changes, and cultural shifts in particular times, places, and communities. Selected works engage students with diverse cultural repertoires of the Hispanic world in interdisciplinary ways. We will spotlight the relationship between political violence and literature in Argentina and Chile; displacement and photography in Spain and Uruguay; domestic workers and film in Mexico and Peru; education and artistic activism in El Salvador and Nicaragua; and exile and poetry in Cuba and Paraguay.
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This course explores the construction of the child and adolescent voices in Argentine contemporary fiction and film. We will consider how young protagonists’ curiosities, trepidations, and transgressions in adult-regimented worlds have critical implications for class, gender, sexual and racial politics. Our discussions will center on diverse portrayals of children and adolescents as navigators of their settings, which range from shantytowns to country clubs, rural provinces to urban centers, homeless shelters to sheltered existences. Short stories, films, novels, and flash fiction by Ariel Magnus, Lucrecia Martel, Mariana Enríquez, Daniela Seggiaro, Paula Markovitch, Andrés Neuman, and Agustina Bazterrica will be considered.