REFEREED
ARTICLE
“Animal Rites: Politics of Life and Death at the Brazilian Slaughterhouse”
Florida University Press — Forthcoming
This chapter delves into Ana Paula Maia’s O gado e homens (Editora Record 2011) through the lenses of biopolitics and animal studies. It argues that Maia’s portrayal of animal killing in contemporary Brazil challenges traditional Euro-Western understandings of the slaughterhouse. Rather than presenting the slaughterhouse as an enclosed space of surveillance and concealment, Maia portrays it as a fluid territory that blurs the boundaries between human and animal, life and death, as well as inside and outside of infrastructural space. Drawing inspiration from Aquiles Mbembe concept of “necropolitics,” the chapter proposes the term necroterritories to describe Maia’s take on slaughtering sites—biopolitical arenas of mobile territorial boundaries where animal death is explicitly enacted, and where both human and animal life are continuously negotiated amidst the backdrop of the ongoing environmental crisis.
“Animal Rites: Politics of Life and Death at the Brazilian Slaughterhouse”
Florida University Press — Forthcoming
This chapter delves into Ana Paula Maia’s O gado e homens (Editora Record 2011) through the lenses of biopolitics and animal studies. It argues that Maia’s portrayal of animal killing in contemporary Brazil challenges traditional Euro-Western understandings of the slaughterhouse. Rather than presenting the slaughterhouse as an enclosed space of surveillance and concealment, Maia portrays it as a fluid territory that blurs the boundaries between human and animal, life and death, as well as inside and outside of infrastructural space. Drawing inspiration from Aquiles Mbembe concept of “necropolitics,” the chapter proposes the term necroterritories to describe Maia’s take on slaughtering sites—biopolitical arenas of mobile territorial boundaries where animal death is explicitly enacted, and where both human and animal life are continuously negotiated amidst the backdrop of the ongoing environmental crisis.
REFEREED
ARTICLE
“La respiración de las plantas: respiración vegetal en la poesía de Marosa di Giorgio”
Brill – Forthcoming
“La respiración de las plantas: respiración vegetal en la poesía de Marosa di Giorgio”
Brill – Forthcoming
REFEREED
ARTICLE
“The Material Turn in Latin América.” New Approaches to Latin American Studies. Volumen 2. With Héctor Hoyos. Ed. Juan Poblete. Routledge, 2025.
Routledge – Forthcoming
This chapter interprets the Latin American ‘material turn’ as a historically-situated critical trend in four movements and a critique. First, it historicizes the reaction away from an idealist moment in Latin American thought aligned with ideas of cosmopolitanism, modernism, and classic paradigms of Western philosophy. The ‘material turn’ breaks away from the ‘linguistic turn’, which subsumed many lines of inquiry under a consideration of language’s recursiveness and multiplicity. Second, the article argues that contemporary developments are indebted to materialists avant la lettre who tackled cultural phenomena by querying the entanglement between material and ideological aspects. Such authors were bound, for the most part, to ideas of transculturation (Ortiz and Rama), which interweave politics and aesthetics. Third, the article explores the emergence of critical voices that read literature as explicitly situated within the social, material, and political conditions of their time (Esch, Gallo, McEnany, Hernández, Hoyos, and McKay). By focusing on the drifts of concrete ‘things’ such as radios, cameras and guns, these object-oriented analyses explore forms of hemispheric exchange in the context of modernity to retie the knot between objects, labor, nonhuman agency and intellectual history. Fourth, this chapter explores the theoretical and methodological overlaps of the ‘material turn’ with other critical trends of the present which are also oriented to matter, nonhumans, territories, and infrastructure, such as animal studies, biopolitics, energy humanities, and ecocriticism. In the final section, the chapter offers a critique of the potential pitfalls of materialist readings, including ontological flatness and backdoor returns to idealism by animistically infusing matter with transcendental powers.
“The Material Turn in Latin América.” New Approaches to Latin American Studies. Volumen 2. With Héctor Hoyos. Ed. Juan Poblete. Routledge, 2025.
Routledge – Forthcoming
This chapter interprets the Latin American ‘material turn’ as a historically-situated critical trend in four movements and a critique. First, it historicizes the reaction away from an idealist moment in Latin American thought aligned with ideas of cosmopolitanism, modernism, and classic paradigms of Western philosophy. The ‘material turn’ breaks away from the ‘linguistic turn’, which subsumed many lines of inquiry under a consideration of language’s recursiveness and multiplicity. Second, the article argues that contemporary developments are indebted to materialists avant la lettre who tackled cultural phenomena by querying the entanglement between material and ideological aspects. Such authors were bound, for the most part, to ideas of transculturation (Ortiz and Rama), which interweave politics and aesthetics. Third, the article explores the emergence of critical voices that read literature as explicitly situated within the social, material, and political conditions of their time (Esch, Gallo, McEnany, Hernández, Hoyos, and McKay). By focusing on the drifts of concrete ‘things’ such as radios, cameras and guns, these object-oriented analyses explore forms of hemispheric exchange in the context of modernity to retie the knot between objects, labor, nonhuman agency and intellectual history. Fourth, this chapter explores the theoretical and methodological overlaps of the ‘material turn’ with other critical trends of the present which are also oriented to matter, nonhumans, territories, and infrastructure, such as animal studies, biopolitics, energy humanities, and ecocriticism. In the final section, the chapter offers a critique of the potential pitfalls of materialist readings, including ontological flatness and backdoor returns to idealism by animistically infusing matter with transcendental powers.
REFEREED
ARTICLE
“Exhibitions in the Face of the Climate Crisis: How is the Anthropocene Shaping Hemispheric Aesthetics?” The Boom of Natural History in Latin American Culture. Eds. Nicolás Campisi, and Lucas Mertehikian. University of Florida Press.
University of Florida Press – Forthcoming
During the current decade, we have seen environmental discourses emerge more explicitly as part of art institutions’ agendas, curatorial discourses, and art practices. This article focuses on exhibitions from the 2020s that serve as examples of how art institutions are engaging with academic, political, and activist discourses on the environmental crisis. The first section tackles Simbología: prácticas artísticas en un planeta en emergencia, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2021-2022) to explore how contemporary curatorial narratives incorporate theoretical ecological frameworks to shed new light on art materials from the past and present. In the second section, I analyze El Dorado, a series of exhibitions that follow the hemispheric routes of gold to underscore how matter can convey histories of colonial and environmental violence while, at the same time, becoming carriers of political resistance. Then, I turn to no existe un mundo posthuracán, a show held at the New Museum (2022-2023) that tackled the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico from a geopolitical perspective. Finally, I engage with notions of communal resistance and vegetable resilience to explore the work and public program of In Between Walls, an exhibition at MoMA PS1 (2022-2023). I conclude that these exhibitions serve as archival devices of this particular moment in ecological discourse while raising questions about the autonomy of artistic discourse and the economic dynamics at play behind environmental efforts.
“Exhibitions in the Face of the Climate Crisis: How is the Anthropocene Shaping Hemispheric Aesthetics?” The Boom of Natural History in Latin American Culture. Eds. Nicolás Campisi, and Lucas Mertehikian. University of Florida Press.
University of Florida Press – Forthcoming
During the current decade, we have seen environmental discourses emerge more explicitly as part of art institutions’ agendas, curatorial discourses, and art practices. This article focuses on exhibitions from the 2020s that serve as examples of how art institutions are engaging with academic, political, and activist discourses on the environmental crisis. The first section tackles Simbología: prácticas artísticas en un planeta en emergencia, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2021-2022) to explore how contemporary curatorial narratives incorporate theoretical ecological frameworks to shed new light on art materials from the past and present. In the second section, I analyze El Dorado, a series of exhibitions that follow the hemispheric routes of gold to underscore how matter can convey histories of colonial and environmental violence while, at the same time, becoming carriers of political resistance. Then, I turn to no existe un mundo posthuracán, a show held at the New Museum (2022-2023) that tackled the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico from a geopolitical perspective. Finally, I engage with notions of communal resistance and vegetable resilience to explore the work and public program of In Between Walls, an exhibition at MoMA PS1 (2022-2023). I conclude that these exhibitions serve as archival devices of this particular moment in ecological discourse while raising questions about the autonomy of artistic discourse and the economic dynamics at play behind environmental efforts.
REFEREED ARTICLE
“Memoria vegetal: articulaciones de la memoria subalterna en la poesía Latinoamericana contemporánea.” With Stefanie Naoun. Revista Hispánica Moderna 77.2 (2024): 220-238.
Revista Hispánica Moderna – 2024 NCCLA Best Research Collaboration Award – 2024
In recent decades, critical plant studies have proliferated as part of a theoretical effort to contest the invisibilization of the vegetal world in Western philosophy and signal plants’ fundamental role in fighting climate change. This revitalization has given rise to Latin American poetic expressions that articulate anthropodecentric forms of historical memory through discursive strategies related to plant life. Through the concept of “vegetal memory”, this article analyzes these aesthetic and political strategies in two contemporary Latin American books, La mata (Laguna Libros, 2020) by Eliana Hernández Pachón and El sueño de toda célula (Ediciones Antílope, 2018) by Maricela Guerrero. These poetic expressions undermine official historiographies to offer subaltern historical vantage points, that underscore marginalized historical voices and contest forms of colonial oppression in Latin America through discursive strategies related to plants.
“Memoria vegetal: articulaciones de la memoria subalterna en la poesía Latinoamericana contemporánea.” With Stefanie Naoun. Revista Hispánica Moderna 77.2 (2024): 220-238.
Revista Hispánica Moderna – 2024 NCCLA Best Research Collaboration Award – 2024
In recent decades, critical plant studies have proliferated as part of a theoretical effort to contest the invisibilization of the vegetal world in Western philosophy and signal plants’ fundamental role in fighting climate change. This revitalization has given rise to Latin American poetic expressions that articulate anthropodecentric forms of historical memory through discursive strategies related to plant life. Through the concept of “vegetal memory”, this article analyzes these aesthetic and political strategies in two contemporary Latin American books, La mata (Laguna Libros, 2020) by Eliana Hernández Pachón and El sueño de toda célula (Ediciones Antílope, 2018) by Maricela Guerrero. These poetic expressions undermine official historiographies to offer subaltern historical vantage points, that underscore marginalized historical voices and contest forms of colonial oppression in Latin America through discursive strategies related to plants.
REFEREED ARTICLE
“Wetland Poetics: Regional Situatedness as Planetary Practice.” With Whitney DeVos. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature and the Environment 31.3 (2024): 605-629.
ISLE – 2024 COLFA Nomine for High Impact Paper Award at UTSA – 2024
Through the notion of “wetland poetics,” we analyze contemporary poetry emerging from Argentine wetlands environments as a regionally-situated and planetary practice. We argue the work of Valeria Mussio and Natalia Garay in Spanish, and Mario Castells in Guaraní and Spanish, maps spaces of preservation from wetlands ecosystems receding due to state neglect and corporate extractivism. Situating these poetics within the context of the “revolution of the capybaras,” our paper inquires into the political functions of literary discourse amidst public protests demanding a Wetlands Protection Law that has repeatedly lost parliamentary status because of lobbyists affiliated with mining and corporate agribusiness.
“Wetland Poetics: Regional Situatedness as Planetary Practice.” With Whitney DeVos. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature and the Environment 31.3 (2024): 605-629.
ISLE – 2024 COLFA Nomine for High Impact Paper Award at UTSA – 2024
Through the notion of “wetland poetics,” we analyze contemporary poetry emerging from Argentine wetlands environments as a regionally-situated and planetary practice. We argue the work of Valeria Mussio and Natalia Garay in Spanish, and Mario Castells in Guaraní and Spanish, maps spaces of preservation from wetlands ecosystems receding due to state neglect and corporate extractivism. Situating these poetics within the context of the “revolution of the capybaras,” our paper inquires into the political functions of literary discourse amidst public protests demanding a Wetlands Protection Law that has repeatedly lost parliamentary status because of lobbyists affiliated with mining and corporate agribusiness.
REFEREED ARTICLE
“El caso de la carne: sacrificio e identidad en El matadero de Esteban Echeverría.” Sujetos del latinoamericanismo. Ed. Romina Wainberg, Florencia Garramuño and Héctor Hoyos. Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 2023: 143-156.
Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana – 2023
“El caso de la carne: sacrificio e identidad en El matadero de Esteban Echeverría.” Sujetos del latinoamericanismo. Ed. Romina Wainberg, Florencia Garramuño and Héctor Hoyos. Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 2023: 143-156.
Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana – 2023
REFEREED ARTICLE
“Continuidad y reinscripción: derivas de lo viviente en las performances Los caballos no mienten de Eduardo Navarro y Que le cheval vive en moi de Marion Laval-Jeantet.” Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Críticos Animales, 7 (2019): 74-90.
Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Críticos Animales – 2019
This article reflects on the performances Los Caballos no mienten by Eduardo Navarro and Que le cheval vive en moi by Marion Laval-Jeantet as artistic interventions that question the ontological limits of human and animal bodies. This analysis proposes that both artists establish a relationship with the horse that subverts the separation between the human and the animal to display a space of indeterminacy of the living. After considering each performance separately, I carry out a comparative work around them in order to understand to what extent they give rise to positive epistemologies, which allow us to think about the lines of continuity between one and the other way of life. Then, I reflect on the limits of such interventions as artistic objects to conclude the article with a reflection on the biopolitical potential of the referred works.
“Continuidad y reinscripción: derivas de lo viviente en las performances Los caballos no mienten de Eduardo Navarro y Que le cheval vive en moi de Marion Laval-Jeantet.” Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Críticos Animales, 7 (2019): 74-90.
Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Críticos Animales – 2019
This article reflects on the performances Los Caballos no mienten by Eduardo Navarro and Que le cheval vive en moi by Marion Laval-Jeantet as artistic interventions that question the ontological limits of human and animal bodies. This analysis proposes that both artists establish a relationship with the horse that subverts the separation between the human and the animal to display a space of indeterminacy of the living. After considering each performance separately, I carry out a comparative work around them in order to understand to what extent they give rise to positive epistemologies, which allow us to think about the lines of continuity between one and the other way of life. Then, I reflect on the limits of such interventions as artistic objects to conclude the article with a reflection on the biopolitical potential of the referred works.
REFEREED ARTICLE
“Una nación en carne viva: representaciones del ganado y de la carne argentinas post 2001.”Tabula Rasa, 3 (2019): 185-200.
Tabula Rasa – 2019
This article analyses the inscription of cattle and meat in argentinean post 2001 cultural representations. My main argument is that, despite the statement that says that modernity and then capitalism have stripped animals of every form of agency (Berger 1980), instances in which those paradigmes enter a crisis allow the animal to re-enter historical and cultural networks in a significant way. In order to prove this, in the first section, I briefly analyze the foundational piece The Slaughterhouse by Esteban Echeverría in relationship to the convoluted times at the beginning of the nation. I then turn to literary text and visual representations post 2001 to see how, following Echeverría’s model of representation, the nation continued to reflect upon its identity through the inscription of animals in moments of social, economic, and political instability.
“Una nación en carne viva: representaciones del ganado y de la carne argentinas post 2001.”Tabula Rasa, 3 (2019): 185-200.
Tabula Rasa – 2019
This article analyses the inscription of cattle and meat in argentinean post 2001 cultural representations. My main argument is that, despite the statement that says that modernity and then capitalism have stripped animals of every form of agency (Berger 1980), instances in which those paradigmes enter a crisis allow the animal to re-enter historical and cultural networks in a significant way. In order to prove this, in the first section, I briefly analyze the foundational piece The Slaughterhouse by Esteban Echeverría in relationship to the convoluted times at the beginning of the nation. I then turn to literary text and visual representations post 2001 to see how, following Echeverría’s model of representation, the nation continued to reflect upon its identity through the inscription of animals in moments of social, economic, and political instability.
REFEREED ARTICLE
“El trazo animal: los márgenes no-humanos de la filosofía en los estudios culturales,” Revista Logoi, 3 (2019): 30-37.
Revista Logoi – 2019
This essay analyzes the way philosophical thought about the animal has informed the field of Animal Studies. I argue that Descartes examination of the animal as automaton, and later protectionist standpoints as Jeremy Bentham’s shaped the fundamental modern binary pairs —Nature/Culture, Animal/Human, Rational/Sentient— that have fostered the ontological consideration of the animal in philosophical discourses. I then turn to discuss how the field of Animal Studies surpases these binary oppositions to engage with the larger historical question of the environmental crisis and the need for a new ecological ethos in the era of the anthropocene.
“El trazo animal: los márgenes no-humanos de la filosofía en los estudios culturales,” Revista Logoi, 3 (2019): 30-37.
Revista Logoi – 2019
This essay analyzes the way philosophical thought about the animal has informed the field of Animal Studies. I argue that Descartes examination of the animal as automaton, and later protectionist standpoints as Jeremy Bentham’s shaped the fundamental modern binary pairs —Nature/Culture, Animal/Human, Rational/Sentient— that have fostered the ontological consideration of the animal in philosophical discourses. I then turn to discuss how the field of Animal Studies surpases these binary oppositions to engage with the larger historical question of the environmental crisis and the need for a new ecological ethos in the era of the anthropocene.
OP-ED
“Dog Lady: Companion Species Utopias in Dystopian Landscapes.” Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema Series. Program in Environmental Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. May 2019.
Program in Environmental Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania – 2019
“Dog Lady: Companion Species Utopias in Dystopian Landscapes.” Reframing Humans, Animals and Land in Contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian Cinema Series. Program in Environmental Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. May 2019.
Program in Environmental Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania – 2019
REVIEW
“Ciencia ficción capitalista. Cómo los millonarios nos salvarán del fin del mundo de Michel Nieva.” Otra Parte — Forthcoming
Otra parte — 2024
“Ciencia ficción capitalista. Cómo los millonarios nos salvarán del fin del mundo de Michel Nieva.” Otra Parte — Forthcoming
Otra parte — 2024
REVIEW
“De lo global a lo planetario. Planetary Longings de Mary Louise Pratt.” Cuadernos de Literatura, vol. 28 (2024): 352-355.
Cuardernos de Literatura – 2024
“De lo global a lo planetario. Planetary Longings de Mary Louise Pratt.” Cuadernos de Literatura, vol. 28 (2024): 352-355.
Cuardernos de Literatura – 2024
REVIEW
“Handbook of Latin American Environmental Aesthetics.” Ed. Jens Andermann, Gabriel Giorgi, and Victoria Saramago.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Journal of Literature and the Environment (2024): 1-2.
ISLE – 2024
“Handbook of Latin American Environmental Aesthetics.” Ed. Jens Andermann, Gabriel Giorgi, and Victoria Saramago.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Journal of Literature and the Environment (2024): 1-2.
ISLE – 2024
REVIEW
“MEAT! A Transnational Analysis, edited by Sushmita Chatterjee and Banu Subramaniam.” Ed. Sushmita Chatterjee and Banu Subramaniam. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Journal of Literature and the Environment 28 (Fall 2021): 1-2
ISLE – 2021
“MEAT! A Transnational Analysis, edited by Sushmita Chatterjee and Banu Subramaniam.” Ed. Sushmita Chatterjee and Banu Subramaniam. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Journal of Literature and the Environment 28 (Fall 2021): 1-2
ISLE – 2021
REVIEW
Crosby, S., Brewster, S., and Meiller, V. Bong Joon-ho, Parasite: A Review Cluster.Gothic Nature. 2 (2021): 262-271.
Gothic Nature Journal – 2021
Crosby, S., Brewster, S., and Meiller, V. Bong Joon-ho, Parasite: A Review Cluster.Gothic Nature. 2 (2021): 262-271.
Gothic Nature Journal – 2021
REVIEW
“Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America by Héctor Hoyos.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE). 27 (Spring 2020): 676-678.
Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment – 2020
“Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America by Héctor Hoyos.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE). 27 (Spring 2020): 676-678.
Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment – 2020
© 2024 Valeria Meiller