Uncanny Urodeles: The Case of Julio Cortazar's "Axolotl"
When and Where
Speakers
Description
We are pleased to welcome Ailén Cruz for a visit to our department.
About the Presentation:
Julio Cortázar’s writing, characterized by his mastery of circular narratives and magical realism, often include a shade of fearsome best categorized as “uncanny”. This presentation will draw from theory of the uncanny to outline the mechanisms through which Julio Cortázar’s “Axolotl” manages to unsettle his reader.
About the Presenter:
Ailén Cruz is a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for Early Medieval Visual Culture at Mount Allison University, who received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2020. She previously worked as an Assistant Professor at the Australian National University, where she taught literature and translation. Her main research stream focuses on the evolution of the bestiary genre from its medieval origins to contemporary Hispanic literature (book forthcoming with McGill-Queen’s University Press). Her peer-reviewed publications include “Nicolás Guillén’s El gran zoo and his Biopolitical Legacy in Three Contemporary Bestiaries” (Hispania, 2022) and “Roque Larraquy’s Informe sobre ectoplasma animal in English Translation” (The AALITRA Review, 2023). She is also interested in questions of the uncanny in Latin American literature, and has published on this matter in Romance Notes.