ABOUT
Valeria
Meiller is an Assistant Professor
in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of
Texas, San Antonio. Her research addresses the question of what it means to
think about “Latin America” in an age of ecological collapse on a planetary scale. In this context, she is working towards two
research projects that examine how literature and art facilitate situated
relationships to land and territory. Her most recent book project, (In)Defense of the Land: Biodiversity and
Linguistic Diversity in 21st Poetry of Abiayala, examines how Indigenous and Afro-diasporic poetry from the
21st-century posits plurilinguism as a site of environmental preservation.
Her other book project, Necroterritories: Slaughterhouses and the Politics of Death, draws on her PhD dissertation to examine how the colonial introduction of cattle in the River Plate basin shaped a post-independence cultural narrative around slaughtering sites. This project has already yielded the LASA award-winning short film El caso de la carne and the digital exhibition Matadero Modelo, as well as several articles such as “Necroterritories” at the edited volume The Environment in Brazilian Culture.
Meiller is also the director of the public-facing initiative Ruge el bosque, which entails the preparation and publication of a series of anthologies of contemporary environmental poetry written in Colonial, Pidgin, Indigenous and Afro-diasporic languages from Abiayala/Afro/Latin America. Ruge el bosque has been awarded a 2024 NECLAS Best Digital Scholarship Award and a 2022 Ford-LASA Special Projects Grant. So far, the project has edited two volumes: Ruge el bosque. Volumen 1: Ecopoesía del Cono Sur (Caleta Olivia, 2023) and Ruge el bosque. Volumen 2: Ecopoesía de Mesoamérica (Caleta Olivia, 2024). Subsequent volumes will be devoted to the Amazon, the Guyanas and Caribbean, Andean States, and possibly Turtle Island. Companion pieces to this project are the research podcast Ecoteca and a future decolonial map that situate the poetry included in the anthologies in relation to the challenges faced by marginalized communities of Abiayala.
A poet herself, Meiller is the author of four poetry books in Spanish, including El libro de los caballitos (Caleta Olivia 2021), Tilos (La propia cartonera 2010), and El Recreo (El fin de la noche 2010). In 2024, her title El mes raro appeared in English translation as The Odd Month with Black Ocean.Described by translator Whitney DeVos as “ecologically engaged”, this book “charts a dystopian, lyrical landscape at the intersection of the twentieth-century agroindustry in Argentina and the devastating drought in the region from 2008 to 2009.” English excerpts of the manuscript have appeared in ISLE, Azonal, Denver Quarterly,The Chicago Review, The Massachusetts Review, and were awarded the 2021 Spring Contest in Translation at Columbia Review.
Her other book project, Necroterritories: Slaughterhouses and the Politics of Death, draws on her PhD dissertation to examine how the colonial introduction of cattle in the River Plate basin shaped a post-independence cultural narrative around slaughtering sites. This project has already yielded the LASA award-winning short film El caso de la carne and the digital exhibition Matadero Modelo, as well as several articles such as “Necroterritories” at the edited volume The Environment in Brazilian Culture.
Meiller is also the director of the public-facing initiative Ruge el bosque, which entails the preparation and publication of a series of anthologies of contemporary environmental poetry written in Colonial, Pidgin, Indigenous and Afro-diasporic languages from Abiayala/Afro/Latin America. Ruge el bosque has been awarded a 2024 NECLAS Best Digital Scholarship Award and a 2022 Ford-LASA Special Projects Grant. So far, the project has edited two volumes: Ruge el bosque. Volumen 1: Ecopoesía del Cono Sur (Caleta Olivia, 2023) and Ruge el bosque. Volumen 2: Ecopoesía de Mesoamérica (Caleta Olivia, 2024). Subsequent volumes will be devoted to the Amazon, the Guyanas and Caribbean, Andean States, and possibly Turtle Island. Companion pieces to this project are the research podcast Ecoteca and a future decolonial map that situate the poetry included in the anthologies in relation to the challenges faced by marginalized communities of Abiayala.
A poet herself, Meiller is the author of four poetry books in Spanish, including El libro de los caballitos (Caleta Olivia 2021), Tilos (La propia cartonera 2010), and El Recreo (El fin de la noche 2010). In 2024, her title El mes raro appeared in English translation as The Odd Month with Black Ocean.Described by translator Whitney DeVos as “ecologically engaged”, this book “charts a dystopian, lyrical landscape at the intersection of the twentieth-century agroindustry in Argentina and the devastating drought in the region from 2008 to 2009.” English excerpts of the manuscript have appeared in ISLE, Azonal, Denver Quarterly,The Chicago Review, The Massachusetts Review, and were awarded the 2021 Spring Contest in Translation at Columbia Review.