Amanda Holmes
Associate Professor
Amanda Holmes
Associate Professor, Hispanic Studies
Director of Latin American and Caribbean Studies
amanda.holmes [at] mcgill.ca
Amanda Holmes received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Oregon in 2001. She has held a faculty position at McGill since then, served as chair of Hispanic Studies from 2008 to 2011, and is currently the director of graduate studies. Professor Holmes’s research considers literature and film through the lens of spatial theory and, particularly, urban studies. Her books have examined the image of the Latin American city in literature and culture, as well as national and transnational identities in Latin American film.
Selected publications:
Books
Latin American Literature in Transition: 1930-1980. Co-editor with Parvathi Kumaraswami. Cambridge University Press, 2022.
The Politics of Architecture in Contemporary Argentine Cinema. Palgrave/Macmillan, 2017. 162 pp.
Cruzando fronteras e identidades en los cines hispánicos. Guest editor for special edition of Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 37.1 (2012). 232 pages.
Cultures of the City: Mediating Identities in Urban Latin/o America. Co-edited with Richard Young. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010. 264 pages.
See Cultures of the City on JSTOR
City Fictions: Language, Body and Spanish American Urban Space. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2007. 212 pages.
Recent articles (selected)
“Femininity in Flux: Gabriela Mistral’s Madwomen.” Transitions in Latin American Literature: 1930-1980. Ed. Amanda Holmes and Parvathi Kumaraswami. Cambridge University Press, 2022. 198-210.
“Architectural Symbolism in Latin American Cinema.” Routledge Companion to Media and the City. Ed. Erica Stein, Germaine R. Halegoua and Brendan Kredell. Routledge, 2022. 68-76.
“Memory Islands: Repeating Traumas in Patricio Guzmán’s Documentary Films.” The Film Archipelago. Ed. Antonio Gómez and Francisco-J. Hernández Adrián. London: Bloomsbury, 2022. 73-88.
“El cine comprometido de Pablo Trapero: en busca de soluciones para Buenos Aires.” Cine y megalópolis. Ed. Gina Cebey. Mexico: UNAM, 2021. 40-65.
“Mapas transnacionales del cine hispánico.” Transnacionalidad, cine y audiovisual en América Latina. Ed. Elvira Antón-Carrillo, Enrique Camacho Navarro y Geovanny Narváez. UNAM, 2020. 111-132.
“Las propiedades del cristal en Nueve reinas,” Perspectivas multidisciplinarias sobre la Argentina contemporánea, edited by Jorge Carlos Guerrero, Editorial Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Editorial Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Editorial Universidad Nacional de la Plata (University Presses), 2019, 279-296. Traducción de Jorge Jiménez-Bellver.
“Replicating Home: Inside the Gated Communities of Argentina.” Hispanic Studies Review 3.2 (2018): 20-29.
“Filming the Buenos Aires Café: Memory and Community in Bolivia and Bar, el Chino.”
Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 20 (2016): 10-19.
“La mirada tras la muralla: la arquitectura del cine argentino en El hombre de al lado (2009) y Medianeras (2011).” Sujetos, espacios y temporalidades en el cine argentino reciente. A veinte años del NCA. Ed. Gastón Lillo. Ottawa: Legas, 2015. 57-70.
“Backstage Pass to the City: The Soundscape of Suite Habana.” Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas 12.2 (2015): 123-137.
“Regarding Gender and Nature in Madeinusa (2006).” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 37.1 (2012): 203-216. (Published in 2013)
Recent lectures and conferences (selected)
“Midcentury Literature in Transition.” LASA Boston. June 2019.
“Memory Islands: Repeating Traumas in Patricio Guzmán’s Documentary Films” Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, UQAM. May 2018.
“The Hyperreal in Argentine Cinema of the Gated Community” Annual Meeting of the Association of Canadian Hispanists, Ryerson University. June 2017.
Guest Speaker at V South By Midwest International Conference on Latin American Cultural Studies: “Divided Lives: Urban Spaces, Victimization, and Resistance in Latin America.” Washington University in St. Louis. Presented “Dangerously Secure: Inside the Gated Communities of Argentina.” October 21st, 2016.
Guest Speaker at Women, Film Culture, and Globalization: Issues and Contexts. Concordia University, Montreal. Presented “The Hotel Termas in La niña santa: Unstable Frames and Open Boundaries.” September 4th, 2016.
“Properties of Glass in Nueve reinas.” Annual Meeting of the Association of Canadian Hispanists, University of Ottawa. June 2015.
“Playing Woman in María Novaro’s Lola.” Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Puerto Rico. May 2015.
Guest Speaker at CLAHS Humanities Symposium: “Film and Phenomenology: Affect, Bodies, and Circulations in Contemporary Hispanic Cinema.” Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. October 21-22, 2015.
Keynote Speaker for IV Coloquio Internacional TRANSIT: Lo transnacional en la fotografía y el cine latinoamericanos (1900-2015). Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City. Presented “Arquitecturas del cine latinoamericano: identidad nacional versus políticas transnacionales.” April 22nd and 23rd, 2015.
Guest Speaker at Symposium: “Hispanic Cities and Cities of the Americas.” University of Vermont. Presented “Pizza birra faso: The Politics of Architecture in Neoliberal Buenos Aires.” October 16-17, 2014.
Invited speaker for Roundtable on the “Spatial Turn in Hispanic Cultures.” MLA, Chicago. January 2014.
“La mirada tras la muralla: la arquitectura del cine argentino en El hombre de al lado (2009) y Medianeras (2011).” Bishop’s University. November 12th, 2013.
Guest Speaker at Current Trends in Argentine Cinema. Twenty Years after the “New Cinema.” Presented “La mirada tras la muralla: la arquitectura en el cine argentino.” University of Ottawa. October 4, 2013.
“Mapping the Soundscape of Suite Habana” Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, D.C. May 2013.
Recent courses taught
Undergraduate
HISP 244: Survey of Latin American Literature 2
HISP 340: Latin American Cinema.
HISP 351: Latin American Novel
HISP 358: Gender and Textualities
HISP 453: Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry
Graduate
HISP 682: The Fantastic
HISP 683: Latin American Literary Geographies
HISP 688: The City in Latin American Literature and Film
HISP 690: Nuevo Cine Argentino
HISP 691: Displacements in Latin American Film