On January 4th, Oriele Benavides, a fifth-year Ph.D. student at SPO, presented her paper “The Insubordination of Signs: 'Lumpérica' by Diamela Eltit and the 1st International Conference of Women's Literature”, at the 134th convention of the Modern Language Association Annual Conference, held in Philadelphia, PA. There, Oriele asked if Eltit’s avant-garde, bold, and challenging first novel could be connected to that episode of cultural activism in which Eltit was, to a large extent, one of its main protagonists.

The presentation was read in the special session “Overflows of the Lettered City: Enjoying Collective Reading and Revaluing the Literary”, presided by the author, and part of the presidential theme of this year’s Conference, “Celebration: Joy and Sorrow”.