Isidora Cortés-Monroy Gazitúa

PhD Student
isidora.cortesmonroygazitua@mail.utoronto.ca

Campus

  • Downtown Toronto (St. George)

Fields of Study

  • Modern and Contemporary Hispanic Literatures and Cultures

Areas of Interest

Environmental Humanities; Mining literature; 20th Century Latin American literature; Latin American Film; Creative Writing

Working Dissertation

Title

Extractivist Literatures and Films: Mining in Chile and Bolivia During the 20th and 21st Century

Supervisors

Prof. Eva-Lynn Jagoe

Description

My thesis traces the lineage of extractivist narratives in Chilean and Bolivian mining literature and film produced throughout the 20th and 21st century. In doing so, I aim to identify the narrative patterns that have posited nature in these spaces as a resource to be exploited, and how (if at all) these narratives have been historically resisted. The reason I have chosen to compare these two countries is not only because of their rich mining history, but because of their position in the “clean” energy transition as global suppliers of lithium. Given that it is only in recent years that artists have begun to protest the extraction of lithium, my work as an academic and writer aims to offer a historically founded cultural framework around which some of these new narratives of resistance can be constructed.

Biography

Isidora Cortés-Monroy's research focuses on ecocriticism and the literature of extractivism in Latin America. She situates her research within the wider field of environemental humanities and the ways in which we narrativize our current climate disaster.
She is currently a Jackman Humanities Junior Fellow (2022-2023) and she holds the Connaught International Award (2021-2025 expected).
In addition to her academic work, Isidora dedicates a portion of her time to her creative writing. In 2021 she won the Bristol Short Story Prize with her story "Cake for the Disappeared" and was published in the organization's anthology. Her story, "His Back," has also been published as an Audible book through the Jane Austen Literary Foundation, after it secured its position as a runner up story for the 2021 competition. Most recently, in October 2022 her story, "The Scientific Method," was published in Leno & Bandini's anthology.

Education

BA, University of Manchester
MPhil, University of Cambridge

Presentations

"Rhizomatic Landscapes and Memory in Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia de la Luz." Envisioning the Earth: Exploring Eco-Criticism and Environmental Relations, LCTSU Academic Journal and Conference, July 2022.
"Dumping in the Desert: Invisible Extractions in the Atacama", Petrocultures Conference, Stavanger, Norway, August 2022.
"Landscapes of Extraction and the Promise of a Future in the Atacama Desert ", Asociación Canadiense de Hispanistas, Ottawa, Canada, June 2023.

Cohort

  • 2021-2022