Profile

Alejandro Martinez is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Princeton University. His research interests include contemporary Latin American visual arts, cinema, and literature, as well as documentary theater.

His dissertation, Lo poético en expansión. Poesía, medios y participación en Chile durante la Guerra Fría (1952-1989), explores the expansion of poetry to other media and languages in the works of influential Chilean artists and writers whose interventions redefine the pact between poetry, the public sphere, and politics. Based on four chapters focused on Chilean poets and artists of notable relevance in Chile and throughout the continent, his dissertation studies different manifestations of expanded poetry and does so with intense archival work that reconstructs the relevant particularities of its context of production. His dissertation demonstrates how these poets and artists questioned the relationship between poetry and books to encourage audience participation and propose sophisticated relationships with the public sphere in the complex battlefield that constituted the Cold War.

He is also currently co-editing (with Thomas Matusiak) a book on the contemporary documentary turn across Latin American cultural production.

In 2020, Alejandro received the Graduate School Teaching Award. Since Fall 2020, he has also served as a Resident Graduate Student at Whitman College. Alejandro holds a master’s degree in ethics (summa cum laude) from the Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Chile), and a Licenciatura in Literature (summa cum laude) from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (Venezuela).

Peer-reviewed journal articles

• “Contiendas de archivo: sobre la reinvención de Roberto Bolaño.” Perífrasis. Revista de literatura, teoría y crítica. 2022. Forthcoming
• “Huellas de destrucción.” Cuadernos de música, artes visuales y artes escénicas Vol 16, no. 1: pp. 250–271. 2021. [https://revistas.javeriana.edu.co/index.php/cma/article/view/29137]
• “En este país no se mueve una hoja sin que yo lo sepa». Jardines, dictadura e intelectuales en Nocturno de Chile, de Roberto Bolaño.” América sin nombre Vol 24, no. 2: pp. 57-68. 2020. [https://americasinnombre.ua.es/article/view/2020-n24-2-en-este-pais-no-…]

Selected essays

• “Quebrar la ley. Poesía visual: proyecto para hacer un libro, de Guillermo Deisler.” Artishock, 2021. [https://artishockrevista.com/2021/03/31/guillermo-deisler-poesia-visual/]
• “Apuntes sobre la gaveta de una cosmonauta.” Papel Literario, 2021. [https://www.elnacional.com/papel-literario/apuntes-sobre-la-gaveta-de-u…]
• “Diez tesis sobre el libro de artista.” Artishock, 2020. [https://artishockrevista.com/2020/08/02/diez-tesis-sobre-el-libro-de-ar…]

Courses taught

• SPA 250 / LAS 250 / HUM 251 - Identity in the Hispanic World (Co-taught with Professor Christina Lee through the Collaborative Teaching Initiative) (Fall 2020)
• SPA 107 – Intermediate/Advanced Level (Fall 2019)
• SPA 319 / LAS 354 - Topics in Cinema and Culture: Latin American Film - Poetics and Politics of the Third World (Preceptor for Professor Javier Guerrero) (Fall 2018)