Tess Renker

@tessrenker.bsky.social

Assistant Professor of Spanish at Georgetown | literature & film of the Andes & Latin America | race, political violence, migration | she/her/ella 🌈

I'm happy to share that my article on Cuban filmmaker Camila Guzmán Urzúa's "El telón de azúcar" (2006) is out in the Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos. For years I've been obsessed with this film and its dialogue with Patricio Guzmán's cinematic response to Chile's military dictatorship.

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Please consider submitting an abstract for a panel I'm looking to organize for MLA 2026 on Latin American literatures of internal migrations. Feel free to share with any colleagues or graduate students who might be interested in participating. Thanks!

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Interested in collaborating? If you would like to workshop an essay or book chapter, present research in progress, share a CfP or conference session, celebrate a publication, or just say hi, you can get in touch with us at msrc [at] mexicanists [dot] org

Excited to participate in these two MLA events! One is a panel on landscape and ecology in Latin American aesthetics, and the other is a round table I organized with Regina Pieck on Hemispheric Indigeneities. See you all in New Orleans!

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I’m trying to write something on the figure of “el pongo” in Arguedas’s Los ríos profundos and I’m wondering if anyone could recommend bibliography related to conditions of Indigenous servitude on the mid-century Peruvian hacienda. Many thanks in advance!

The 1522 Christmas Day rebellion on Diego Columbus’s sugar plantation is another example. It is the first large-scale revolt of enslaved people. Festive! #merrychristmas #tistheseasonforrebellion

Ana Lucia Araujo@araujohistorian.bsky.social · 2y ago

Enslaved people planned rebellions between #Christmas and #NewYear. Two examples: the Aponte Rebellion in #Cuba in 1812 and the Christmas Rebellion – or Baptist War in 1832 in #Jamaica. More in my The Conversation US article #slaveryarchive theconversation.com/for-enslaved...

BREAKING: 8 MLA past presidents--incl Judith Butler and Chris Newfield--publicly call on the MLA Executive Council NOT to block a vote on a BDS Resolution. Please read and share their letter today in LitHub. Members deserve to debate and VOTE. lithub.com/8-former-mod...

Former Modern Language Association Presidents Call for BDS Vote

In late October, the leadership of the Modern Language Association (MLA)—one of the largest and wealthiest US scholarly organizations in the humanities—refused to allow the organization’s Delegate …

lithub.com

Writing about Yuyachkani's "El bus de la fuga" post-election has been absolutely therapeutic. It's a brilliant work of performance/satire. "Fujimori" flips-off the gathered audience, performs a choreographed tecnocumbia with his cronies, and flaunts fake bars of gold. hdl.handle.net/2333.1/bvq83...

Video: El bus de la fuga.

Street action created by Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani in May 2002 and performed during the 'Semana Anticorrupción' (AntiCorruption week) in Lima, Peru. After the fall of the Fujimori Presidency in 2001, ...

hdl.handle.net

Grading distracted me from the book challenge; now I’m back! Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. Day 9:

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For the new colleagues following me here: this is one of my writings I am the most proud, an essay in the present and future of Mexicanist cultural studies. It was written for the centennial issue of Bulletin of Hispanic Studies and is fully open access: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Endless Proliferations of Signifiers: Mexican Cultural Studies in the Future Tense

This piece argues that Mexican literary and cultural studies are on the verge of a series of paradigm changes. The essay begins with an imagined walk through Mexico City to illustrate the ways in w...

tandfonline.com