About

Maria Rosa Olivera-Williams is Professor of Latin American Literature at the University of Notre Dame. Her research interests center on the representations of subjectivities and national identities in modern and contemporary Latin American cultural production; artistic projects from the Southern Cone; and issues of dictatorship, democratic transition, and traumatic memory. Olivera-Williams has been a Kellogg Institute faculty fellow since 1988.

Olivera-Williams received a J. William Fulbright Research Award for her current work “The Rhythms of Modernization: Tango, Ruin, and Historical Memory in the Rio de la Plata Countries." This book-length monograph studies tango as music, poetry, dance, and interpretation and as a symbol of Argentina’ and Uruguay’s uneven processes of modernization. 

Thematic Interests

Representations of subjectivities and national identities in modern and contemporary Latin American cultural production; artistic projects from the Southern Cone; issues of dictatorship, democratic transition and traumatic memory

Current Research

“The Rhythms of Modernization: Tango, Ruin, and Historical Memory in the Rio de la Plata Countries,” funded by a J. William Fulbright Research Award. This new project questions how tango, the popular Rio de la Plataphenomenon that encompasses music, dance, and lyrics, became the embodiment of modernization and a strong national symbol of Argentina and Uruguay.

Research Sub-Discipline
Countries
Regions
Research Tags

Journal Articles

Books

Book Chapters

Other Accomplishments & Recognitions
  • Luksic Family Collaboration Grant (2017-18): "niversity and Catholicism: Memory Studies as a Project of Cultural Politics"
lasa
May 27 to 28, 2021
Kellogg Reunión 2021
Special Event
Juan Guillermo Albarracín Dierolf, Edward (Ted) Beatty, Abby Córdova, Tomás Gold, Karen B. Graubart, Magdalena López, Vanesa Miseres, Maria Rosa Olivera-Williams, Jaime M. Pensado, Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, Ann Mische, Lucia Tiscornia, Guillermo Trejo
May 13 to 16, 2020
Kellogg at LASA 2020
Luis Leandro Schenoni, Maria Rosa Olivera-Williams, Karen E. Richman, Omar Coronel Cuadros, Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, Jorge Ivan Puma Crespo, Edward (Ted) Beatty, Ruth Solarte