| Giovanna Montenegro, PhD. Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish Email: gmontene@binghamton.edu http://www.giovannamontenegro.com/ Department of Comparative Literature Binghamton University 4400 Vestal Parkway East Binghamton, NY 13902-6000 (607) 777-6566 |
EDUCATION
2013 Ph.D. Comparative Literature University of California, Davis, CA
Designated Emphasis: Critical Theory
2007 MA Comparative Literature San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
2002 BFA Photography San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
2021- Current Associate Professor of Comparative Literature; Courtesy Title in Spanish
2015- 2021 Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish, Binghamton University
2014-2015 Lecturer, German; Women & Gender Studies, University of California, Davis
PUBLICATIONS
Book Manuscript: “German Conquistadors in Venezuela: The Welsers’ Colony, Racialized Capitalism, and Cultural Memory.” Under contract with Notre Dame University Press.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
“Water in the Peruvian Andes: Ecojusticia and José María Arguedas’ “Agua” (1935).” In Chicana/Latina Studies. 20.2 (2021):60-94.
“La representación de los Welser en la historiografía colonial venezolana.” Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia CII, no. 408 (2019):190-220. https://www.anhvenezuela.org.ve/bo-letinesanh/
“The Welser Phantom”: Apparitions of the Welser Venezuela Colony in Nineteenth and Twentieth-century German Cultural Memory.” Transit: A Journal of Travel, Migration, and Multiculturalism in the German-speaking World.11.2 (2018): 21-53. http://transit.berkeley.edu/2018/montenegro/
(Published in Spanish as): “El fantasma de los Welser:” apariciones de la colonial Welser de Venezuela en la memoria cultural alemana de los siglos XIX y XX. October 10, 2020. Trópico Absoluto. http://tropicoabsoluto.com/2020/10/10/el-fantasma-de-los-welser-apariciones-de-la-colonia-welser-de-venezuela-en-la-memoria-cultural-alemana-de-los-siglos-xix-y-xx/
“Venezuela.” Handbook of International Futurism. Ed. Gunther Berghaus. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018. 894-904.
“Conquistadors and Indians ‘Fail’ at Gift Exchange: An Analysis of Nikolaus Federmann’s Indianische Historia (Haguenau, 1557).” MLN, 132 (2017): 272-290.
“Indigenismo and Futurism in Latin America: José Carlos Mariátegui and the Peruvian Avant-Garde.” International Yearbook of Futurism Studies: Special Issue: Futurism in Latin America 7 (2017): 29-59.
“Futurism in Venezuela: Arturo Uslar Pietri and the Reviews Indice and válvula.” In Günter Berghaus, Ed. International Yearbook of Futurism Studies 2 (2012): 286-303.
Pedagogy Short Article
“Encuentros cinematográficos y tecnológicos en el aula.” With Consuelo Cervantes and Valentina Velázquez-Zvierkova. Brújula. 8 (2010):103-104.
Book Chapters
(In Press- expected January 2022). “Teaching El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s Royal Commentaries along with Visual Representations of the Exploration, Conquest & Colonization of Peru.” Approaches to Teaching the Works of Inca Garcilaso. Eds. Christian Fernandez and José Antonio Mazzotti.
“Venezuelan Avant-Garde: María Calcaño’s Erotic Poetry.” In Renée Silverman, Ed. The Popular Avant-Garde. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. pp. 271-283.
Encyclopedia Entries
“Early Native Voices from the Spanish Colonies.” Gale Researcher: American Literature. Cengage Learning. <http://solutions.cengage.com/gale-researcher/american-literature/> Published in 2016.
“Literature from the Discovery and Conquest of Florida.” Gale Researcher: American Literature. Cengage Learning. <http://solutions.cengage.com/gale-researcher/american-literature/> Published in 2016.
Book Reviews
Review of The Formation of Latin American Nations, by Thomas Ward, Sixteenth Century Studies 52 (2021):205-208.
Review of Beauty, Virtue, Power, and Success in Venezuela 1850-2015, by Elizabeth Gackstetter- Nichols, Chasquí47.1(May 2018): R20-21.
Review of Autobiographical Writing by Early Modern Women, by Elizabeth Teresa Howe, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 95.1 (2018): 113-114.
Review of The Black Doctors of Colonial Lima: Science, Race, and Writing in Colonial and Early Republican Peru, by José R. Jouve Martín, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 94.9 (2017):1040-1041.
Review of Murder & Counterrevolution in Mexico: The Eyewitness Account of German Ambassador Paul Von Hintze, 1912–1914. Ed. by Friedrich E. Schuler. German Studies Review, 40 (2017): pp. 206-208.
Review of Phronesis-Prudentia-Klugheit: Das Wissen des Klugen in Mittelalter, Renaissance und Neuzeit; Il sapere del saggio nel Medioevo, nel Rinascimento e nell’età moderna, eds. A. Fidora, A. Niederberger, and M. Scattola. Comitatus 45 (2014):306-308.
Review of Aguirre o La posteridad arbitraria: La rebelión del conquistador vasco Lope de Aguirre en historiografía y ficción histórica (1561-1992), by Ingrid Galster. Nuevo Mundo: Mundos Nuevoshttp://nuevomundo.revues.org/62363 . Jan. 2012.
Review of Eyes, Lies and Illusions: The Art of Deception by Laurent Mannoni, Werner Nekes, and Marina Werner. German Studies Review 12 (2006): 623-25.
DISTINCTIONS & AWARDS
External- National & International
2020-Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture 2020 Scholars’ Workshop
2019-Latin American Studies Association-Venezuela Section- Best Article- Humanities
For: “The Welser Phantom”: Apparitions of the Welser Venezuela Colony in Nineteenth and Twentieth-century German Cultural Memory.” (See above for complete citation).
2018-American Association of University Women Publication Grant
2017-Huntington Library Short-Term Grant
2017-Newberry Library & Herzog August Bibliothek Short-Term Grant
2014-NEH Fellowship “Mapping Nature in the Americas”- Newberry Library
2011-2012-Fulbright Fellowship, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany
2012-Critical Language Scholarship Alumni Development Fund for Russian Course
2011-CAORC Critical Language Scholarship in Kazan, Russia-Declined
2008-CAORC Critical Language Scholarship in Astrakhan, Russia
Internal
Fall 2021-Binghamton University (BU) -Sabbatical Leave
Spring 2021-BU Harpur College Faculty Research Award for “The Many Pasts and Futures of Guiana and El Dorado: Colonial Fantasies and Environmental Resistance.”
2020-State University of New York Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Semester Leave
2019-Binghamton University Digital Humanities Research Institute Participant
Spring 2019-Presidential Diversity Research Grant, Binghamton University
2018-19-Institute of Genocide & Mass Atrocity Prevention Curriculum Development Award
Fall 2017- Harpur College Dean’s Research Leave, Binghamton University
Spring 2017- IASH Fellowship, Binghamton University
2012-2013-Mellon Research Initiative in Early Modern Studies Fellow, UC Davis
2011- Tinker Foundation Pre-Dissertation Travel Grant for Venezuela, UC Davis
2011-Humanities Institute Summer Travel Grant, UC Davis
2007-2011 President’s Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, UC Davis
2006-Sally Casanova Summer Research Fellowship, Freie Universität Berlin
2005-2006 Sally Casanova CSU Pre-Doctoral Program Scholar-San Francisco State Univ.
Collaborative
- 2020-2021-Material and Visual Worlds Transdisciplinary Area of Excellence $4KGrant: “Smaller Narratives for a Larger World.”PI w/ faculty collaborators Jeroen Gerrits (Comparative Literature) as well as Lubna Omar and Joshua Reno (Anthropology). Graduate student hosts from Comparative Literature, Anthropology, Creative Writing, English/Spanish have produced an interdisciplinary public humanities and social sciences podcast available on Itunes. The current series of SNLW investigates how the human story, the myths of humanity, have shaped who we believe we are as a species. https://smallernarratives.com Organized speaker series: Nancy Um “Small Digital Humanities”, Jamie King “How to Make your Own Podcast,” Irma Alvarez Ccoscco “Quechua Poetry and Software.”
- 2018-2022. IASH Public Humanities Grant: “Broadcasting World Literature” PI w/ Jeroen Gerrits. Secured $16K. Collaborated with WHRW, Binghamton University’s community radio, to host a Public Affairs talk show hosted by graduate students in the Comparative Literature program. Episodes available at https://orb.binghamton.edu/broadcasting_world_literature/ Organized speaker series: Mack Hagood, “Sonic Self Control,” “Doing Scholarship Out Loud,” Juan Miranda “Community Radio en Español.”
- 2019. SUNY Conversations in the Disciplines 2K Grant for Public Humanities Symposium
INVITED TALKS
“The Welsers’ Colonization of Venezuela.” Pro-Venezuela e.V. Alemania. Lecture Series “Venezuela und Deutschland: die gemeinsame Geschichte.” (Virtual Lecture) July 7, 2021
“Sixteenth-Century Venezuela Displayed in European Cartography and Genealogy.” Medieval/ Renaissance Studies Colloquium. Ithaca College. November 8, 2019
CONFERENCE PAPERS
Presenter: “Rethinking Global Germans: The Welsers’ Venezuela Colony and Racialized Capitalism.” Comparative, Cooperative or Competitive: Germany and the Americas, Imperialism and Colonialism Panel. German Studies Association. 1 October 2021.
Presenter: “From Taki Onqoy to the Scissors Dance: Cultural Heritage as Environmental Resistance.” Decolonial Ecocriticisms in Latin America and the Caribbean Panel. Association for the Study of Literature of the Environment . EmergencE/Y Conference. Eco-Theory Stream. Discussion 6 August 2021.
Presenter: “Environmental Hazards in the Venezuela/ Guyana/ Brazil Borderlands.” Caribbean Studies Association. (Virtual). 1 June 2021.
Presenter: “Foreign Governors in Juan de Castellanos’s Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias [Elegies of Famous Gentlemen of the Indies].” The Early Modern Epic. Imperial, Providential or Otherwise? CLCS Renaissance and Early Modern Forum. Modern Language Association, Seattle, WA. 12 January 2020.
Presenter: “Rethinking Race in the Colony through Netflix: An Analysis of Siempre Bruja [Always A Witch].” Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social Summer Institute. University of Massachusetts. Amherst, MA. 20 July 2019.
Presenter: “Biomedical Technology: The Extraction of Balsam and the Welsers’ Secret Lab in the Province of Venezuela.” Colonial Technologies and the Emergence of Latin America Panel. Latin American Studies Association, Boston. 20 May 2019.
Presenter: “Nuevas tendencias en el estudio de la piratería en la Edad Moderna Temprana.” Latin American Studies Association, Boston, MA. 19 May 2019.
Presenter: “La preocupación de Humboldt por sus instrumentos científicos en su Relation historique du Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent.” Congreso Internacional Alexander Von Humboldt. Mérida, Mexico. 21 November 2018.
Presenter: “The Nuremberg Merchant-Humanist Circle in the 1500s and their Perspective of “Home and the World.” Presenter in Medieval and Early Modern Encounters Seminar. American Comparative Literature Association. 1 April 2018.
Presenter: “German Heretics as Governors of the Colonies? Emperor Charles V and the Welsers in Venezuela.” Presenter in “Iberian Sovereignties Panel.” Latin American Studies Association Conference, Lima. 30 April 2017.
Presenter: “The Trope of Ethnography in Spanish Colonial Texts through Current Ethnographic Discourse.” Presenter in “Colonial Ethnographies Panel.” Modern Language Association, Philadelphia. 6 January 2017.
Presenter: “La representación de los Welser en la historiografía colonial venezolana.” Presenter in “Historia I. Representaciones, celebraciones, y estatuas ” IV Jornadas de la Sección de Estudios Venezonlanos (LASA), Caracas. 17 November 2017.
Presenter: “The De Soto Expedition in Text and Map: Indigenous Actors in El Inca Garcilaso De La Vega’s Florida of the Inca (1605).” Presenter in “Reconsidering Narratives of Discovery and Conquest” Panel. American Society for Ethnohistory Conference. Nashville, November 9-12, 2016.
Presenter: “The Essequibo & El Dorado: A Cartographic Exercise in Mapping Fantasy in Nineteenth-Century South American Boundary Disputes.”Hemispheric Approaches to Literature and Cartography in the Americas Stream. American Comparative Literature Association. March 19, 2016. Harvard University.
Presenter: “Connecting Habsburg Spanish and Portuguese Empires During the Age of Discovery: Nuremberg and Augsburg.” Presenter in “Connecting Spanish and Portuguese Empires” Panel. Modern Language Association Conference. January 9, 2015. Vancouver, BC.
Presenter: “Captivity Narratives, or The Desire to Escape from and in the New World: A Look at Hans Staden’s Wahrhafftige Historia (1557) and Werner Herzog’s Aguirre Der Zorn Gottes (1972).” Presenter in “Germans and ‘Others’ in Early Modern Literature” panel. German Studies Association Conference. Saturday, September 20, 2014. Kansas City, MO.
Presenter: “Praying Against the Sights and Sounds of New World Paganism: Jean de Léry and Hans Staden amongst the Tupis in Sixteenth-Century Brazil.” Presenter in “Panel 2: Ancient, Medieval, and Pre-Modern Iterations of Religion and Literature.” Faultlines of Modernity Conference: New Contexts for Religion, Ethics, and Literature. June 2, 2014. San Francisco State University.
Presenter: “Mandeville and Marco Polo in German Fifteenth and Sixteenth-Century Cosmography and Cartography.” California Medieval History Seminar. May 3, 2014. Huntington Library.
Presenter: “Do Mediterranean Studies Speak to Latin American Colonial Studies?: A Suspected German Lutheran Conquers A Suspected ‘Morisco’ in the Canaries Before Taking On the New World.” The Mediterranean Seminar/ University of California Multi-Campus Research Project. “Minorities in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean.” Winter Workshop March 8, 2014. San Francisco State University.
Presenter: “The Identity Crisis of Comparative Literature in North America and Europe.” XXe Congrès de l’Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée (AILC). 18-24 July 2013. Paris, France.
Presenter: “The Sublime in Sixteenth-Century Travel Narratives and Images. Textual and Visual Representations of Encounters in South America.” Junges Forum, Gesellschaft für Überseegeschichte. 8-10 June 2012. University of Vienna, Austria.
Presenter: “Hübsch oder hässlich? Légendes dans l’Indianische Historia (1557) de Niklaus Federmann.” Journée d’Etudes “Aufklärung, visions et spectres, entre traditions et nouveaux défis.” University of Toulouse Le Mirail. December 16, 2011.
Presenter: “The Cartographer’s and the Adventurer’s Narrative: Depiction of the New World and Reading Practices in the Early Modern Period.” Alexander Von Humboldt & Ibn Batouta Conference. Rabat and Kenitra, Morocco. November 21-24, 2011.
Presenter: “German Conquistador and the Native Other: Niklaus Federmann and the German Colonization of Venezuela.” Fifth International Alexander von Humboldt Conference: Travels Between Europe and the Americas. Freie Universität, Berlin. July, 2009.
Presenter: “Interpretations of Natural Beauty in Kant’s Critique of Judgment, Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory, and Derrida’s Truth in Painting.” Modes of Transgression: Graduate Student Colloquium in Early Modern and Eighteenth-Century Studies. UC Davis. April 18, 2009.
Participant: “Decolonizing Water in the Peruvian Andes through José María Arguedas’ “Agua” (1935) and Joseph Neyra and Marco González’s Documentary Danzay Yakupak (2015).” Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social Summer Institute- Academic Writing Workshop. University of Massachusetts. Amherst, MA. 19-20 July 2019.
Participant & Presenter: “Ethnography in Sixteenth-Century German Travel Narratives.” In “The Challenge of Ethnography in German Studies” Seminar. German Studies Association Conference. October, 2013. Denver, CO.
Panels Organized
Organizer: “Re-Mapping/Re-Reading Pre-Modern Travel Narratives and Maps” a session sponsored by Mediaevalia: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Medieval Studies Worldwide. 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies. Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo,MI. 9 May 2019.
Presenter and Co-Organizer: “The De Soto Expedition:Indigenous Actors in El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s: La Florida del Inca (1605).” Early De-Colonials: Resistances and Rereadings of the Pre-Modern and Early-Modern Panel. American Comparative Literature Association, Washington, D.C. 8 March 2019.
Presenter and Co-Organizer: “German Capital in the Atlantic as Precursor to the Welser Governance of Venezuela.” Financing Conquest and Empire in Latin America: New Perspectives Panel. Latin American Studies Association, Barcelona. 26 May 2018.
Co-Organizer: “Hemispheric Approaches to Literature and Cartography in the Americas.” American Comparative Literature Association. March 17-20, 2016. Harvard University.
Discussant:
Discussant: “Nation and Race in the Visual Culture of Latin America.” Latin American Studies Association Conference. May 29, 2015. San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Commentator: “Agency and Transformation in German Women’s Travel Narratives.” German Studies Association Conference. Saturday, September 20, 2014. Kansas City, MO.
Conference Papers on Professional Topics
Organizer Special Session: “Strategies for Advocacy, Lobbying, and Activism in the Humanities: A Roundtable.” With Sasha Colby; Bruce Krajewski (Univ. of Texas, Arlington); Teresa Mangum (Univ. of Iowa); Juan Miranda (UC Davis); Fei Shi (Quest Univ.); Julie Ziegler (Humanities Washington). Modern Language Association Conference. January 10, 2015.
Co-Organizer: “Terminal: Examining Master’s Degrees.” Roundtable at the Modern Language Association Conference, Boston, MA. January 2013.
Co-Organizer: “Colonial Latin America” Forum. University of California, Davis, May 2011.
Co-Organizer: “Graduate Student Colloquium.” Department of Comparative Literature. Davis, CA. May 2011.
Presenter: “Students of Color and Graduate School- ‘Just Don’t Go’ and Recent Debates in Perspective.” Women of Color Conference, UC Davis. May 10, 2014.
Presenter: “Class, Women of Color, and the Graduate Student Experience.” Women of Color Conference, UC Davis. May 11, 2013.
Moderator: “International Graduate Students and Junior Faculty Members: Shaping Our Professional Landscape.” Roundtable. Modern Language Association Conference. Los Angeles. January 2011.
Workshop Speaker: “Graduate Students of Color: Strategies for Success.” Modern Language Association Conference. Los Angeles. January 2011.
Roundtable Leader for the 2008 ACLA meeting in Long Beach, CA: “The Terminal MA in Comparative Literature – Gateway to the PhD? or a Career in the High-School or Community College?” April 2008.
CAMPUS TALKS
“The German Conquest of Venezuela & Cultural Memory: Maps, Genealogy and Monuments.” VizCult Series. April 18, 2018.
“German Bankers and the Conquest of Venezuela: Cultural Memory of ‘Heretic’ Capital and Colonization.” Institute for the Advanced Study of the Humanities (IASH). March 1, 2017.
“Teaching with Maps.” Bartle Library Special Collections. June 23, 2015.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Assistant Professor Comparative Literature & Spanish, Binghamton Univ. 2015- 2021
Graduate Seminars: Travel & Exploration; Enlightenment and Empire; Colonization and Genocide.
Undergraduate: Introduction to World Literature; Methods and Masterpieces.
Spanish: Perspectivas de la naturaleza en la época colonial; Cultura Hispana; España Contemporanea; Advanced Reading and Interpretation; Spanish Grammar.
Cuzco, Peru Study Abroad Program- Faculty Director- Binghamton University:
Sustainability in an Era of Globalization:History, Culture and Literature of the Andes Summer 2016; Summer 2017
Worked with community partner organizations (Abre Puertas, Corazón de Dahlia and the Municipality of Cuzco).
Lecturer German and Russian Department, University of California, Davis 2014-2015
First Year German
Lecturer Women and Gender Studies Department, UC Davis Spring 2015
Intro to Women and Gender Studies
Instructor UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine: Continuing Education Spring 2015
Spanish for Veterinary Professionals
Instructor Davis Adult Education 2014-2015
Italian Conversation for Travelers
Associate Instructor, University of California, Davis 2010-2013
Comparative Literature 1:
Great Books of Western Civilization “The Ancient World.”
Comparative Literature 2:
Great Books of Western Civilization “The Middle Ages to Enlightenment.”
Comparative Literature 3:
Great Books of Western Civilization: “Modern Crisis.”
Spanish 1
Italian 2 Substitute;
Reader Spanish Department, Introduction to Latin American Culture and Poesía y artes visuales (Prof. Ana Peluffo) 2011
English as a Second Language (ESL) Instructor, Communication & Culture Program, UC Davis Extension 2010-2013
Intercultural Research Project; US Culture & Society; Everyday Expressions and Idioms; Composition Intermediate; Grammar-Intermediate; Reading and Vocabulary- Intermediate and Advanced
Teaching Assistant, University Of California, Davis, 2008-2009
Comparative Literature 6 “Myth and Legend”
Comparative Literature 5 “Literature of Fantasy and the Supernatural”
OTHER TEACHING ACTIVITIES
Chaperone for High School Teens, Salamanca, Spain, Edu-Culture Int. Summer 2010
Bilingual Educational Administrator, Embassy of Spain, Ministry of Education 2006-2007
SERVICE TO THE PROFESSION
Evaluator for Badebec, Latin Americanist academic journals; Penn State Univ. Press and Routledge 2015, 2016, 2020
Delegate Assembly Member, Regional Delegate, Western United States and Canada, Modern Language Association 2011-2013
Graduate Student Representative, Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession, Modern Language Association 2009-2011
Managing Editor, Peer Review Editor, Copyeditor:
Brújula: revista interdisciplinaria sobre estudios latinoamericanos 2007-2011
Student Representative, Graduate Student Association, UC Davis 2008
Grad. Student Rep. American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) 2007-2009
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Comparative Literature Association
Latin American Studies Association: Colonial Studies and Venezuelan Studies Section
Modern Language Association
LANGUAGES
Spanish: Native Proficiency.
English: Native Proficiency.
German: Advanced Proficiency.
French: Advanced Proficiency.
Italian: Advanced Proficiency.
Russian: Intermediate Proficiency.
Portuguese: Beginning Proficiency.
Quechua: Beginning Proficiency.
