Research Interests
20th and 21st century Latin American and Latinx literature and culture.
- Mexican Literature
- Latinx Studies
- Migration and Diaspora
- Transnational and Hemispheric Studies
- Border Studies
- Urban and Digital Humanities
Research Description
My ongoing research examines migration and diaspora in literature and culture in Mexico, Latin America, and U.S. Latinx communities in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I scrutinize how different cultural expressions (literature, graphic novels, films, music, and public art) portray migratory flows of people and ideas that crisscross the political limits of nation-states, creating transnational geographies and cross-border environments in the historical period of global neoliberalism. I situate these narratives within the larger tradition of literary production in the continent, showing the circulation of Latin American culture across the U.S.-Mexico border, initiating a hemispheric conversation between the Global North and the Global South that pays special attention to gender, ethnicity, and social justice.
Education
PhD Hispanic Languages and Literatures. University of California Los Angeles. 2018.
MA Literary Studies/Literatuurwetenschap. Leiden University (Leiden, The Netherlands). 2010.
BA Literature and Language Sciences. Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juan (Mexico City, Mexico). 2007.
Courses Taught
SPAN 316 - Somos Sur: Identity and Ethnicity in Latin American Literature and Culture
SPAN 326 - Mapping the Borderlands: Border Culture and Migration in the U.S. and the Americas
SPAN 535 - "Tan cerca de los Estados Unidos": US Interventions in Latin America Through Art and Visual Culture
Additional Campus Affiliations
Assistant Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Highlighted Publications
Ramírez, Alejandro. “Strangers in the City: Cosmopolitan Strangers and Transnational Urbanism in the Literary Imagination of Valeria Luiselli,” in Cosmopolitan Strangers in Latinx Literature and Culture: Building Bridges, Not Walls, edited by Esther Álvarez López and Andrea Fernández García. New York: Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group. 2023. (ISBN 9781032231600) https://www.routledge.com/Cosmopolitan-Strangers-in-Latinx-Literature-and-Culture-Building-Bridges/Lopez-Fernandez-Garcia/p/book/9781032231600
Ramírez, Alejandro. “«Zumbaron las balas hasta que nos mataron»: suspenso en la frontera y violencia binacional en “Paso del Norte” de Juan Rulfo / “«Zumbaron las balas hasta que nos mataron»: Border Thrillers and Binational Violence in Juan Rulfo’s ‘Paso del Norte’.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos. 9.1 (2023). https://revistas.upr.edu/index.php/reh/article/view/21308
Ramírez, Alejandro. “La historia que nos ha sido arrebatada: Rethinking the Representation of Memory and History in Carlos Monsiváis’ Entrada Libre.” Romanica Silesiana. 22.2 (2024). https://www.journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/RS/article/view/15417
Ramírez Alejandro. “Towards a Hyper-Aesthetics of Migration: Transnational Identities, Hyperborders, and Hypermediacy in the Visual Narratives of Alex Rivera,” in Digital Rhetoric and Borders: Human Mobility Between Maexico and the United States, edited by Rubria Rocha de Luna, Paloma Vargas Montes, Miracruz Castro Ricalde. 2024. Forthcoming
Ramírez, Alejandro. “De Ángeles y Nahuales: Transnational Mythology, Neoliberal Trafficking, and Decolonial Representation of Supernatural Beings in Edgar Clément’s Operación Bolívar,” in Fantastic, Mythical, and Legendary Beasts of the Hispanic World, edited by Lauren Beck and Samantha Ruckenstein. Rochester, NY: Tamesis, an imprint of Boydell & Brewer. 2024. Forthcoming
Recent Publications
Ramírez-Méndez, A. (2023). Strangers in the City: Cosmopolitan Strangers and Transnational Urbanism in the Literary Imagination of Valeria Luiselli. In E. Álvarez-López, & A. Fernández-García (Eds.), Cosmopolitan Strangers in US Latinx Literature and Culture: Building Bridges, Not Walls (pp. 115-133). (Narrative Theory and Culture). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003276043-7