Dr Cherilyn Elston
Responsibilities
Spanish Programme Director (Spring and Summer 2021)
Spanish Year Abroad Officer (Spring and Summer 2021)
Teaching
I co-teach on two first-year modules: ‘SP1I1: Icons of Spain and Latin America’ and ‘SP1SLAC: Introduction to Spanish and Latin American Culture’.
I convene and teach a second-year module on the relationship between literature and social change in Spain and Latin America in the twentieth century (SP2LS: Literature and Society in the Modern Hispanic World).
I convene and teach a final-year module on the Colombian armed conflict and how this has been narrated in historical and cultural texts (SP3NCC: Narrating the Colombian Conflict).
I also teach Spanish language classes and translation from Spanish to English.
Areas of Interest
I research Colombian history, literature and culture, with a particular focus on women’s writing, the feminist movement and the armed conflict. My PhD thesis analysed the history of women’s writing in Colombia and its relationship to feminist theory and activism, exploring poetry, novels and testimonio published by understudied Colombian women writers from the 1970s to the present. This formed the basis of my first monograph, Women’s Writing in Colombia – An Alternative History (Palgrave Macmillan 2016). Details of the book can be found here: https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319432601
I am also interested in the broader history of women’s writing and feminism in Latin America and Latin American feminist theory. I am currently working on a project exploring the cultural politics of memory, human rights and transitional justice in the context of recent peace processes in Colombia.
This project also incorporates the memory activism of the Colombian diaspora in the UK and explores the literary and cultural production of Colombian migrants and exiles.
My interests also include literary translation. My published translations include Southerly by Argentinean writer Jorge Consiglio (Charco Press 2017) and I am the editor of Palabras Errantes, an online journal that publishes Latin American and Spanish literature in translation.
Postgraduate supervision
I am co-supervising PhD student Phil Cioppa, whose doctoral thesis focuses on Chicana feminism and women’s writing. I welcome enquiries concerning research supervision in any of my areas of research interest.
Qualifications
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- PhD in Latin American Studies (Cambridge)
- MPhil in Latin American Studies (Cambridge)
- BA (Hons) in Modern History and English (Oxford)
Research groups / Centres
Publications
2021
- Elston, C. (2021) ‘almost/ you would/ have lived’: reading Paul Celan in Colombia. In: Paul Celan Today: A Companion. Companions to Contemporary German Culture (10). De Gruyter. ISBN 9783110653403 (In Press)
2020
- Elston, C. (2020) Nunca invisibles: insurgent memory and self-representation by female ex-combatants in Colombia. Wasafiri, 35 (4). pp. 70-78. ISSN 1747-1508 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02690055.2020.1800254
- Elston, C. (2020) Open wounds: commemorating the Colombian conflict. In: On commemoration: global reflections upon remembering war. Peter Lang, Oxford. ISBN 9781788749404 doi: https://doi.org/10.3726/b14904
2016
- Elston, C. (2016) Women's writing in Colombia: an alternative history. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783319432601
2015
- Elston, C. (2015) ‘Ni Engels, ni Freud, ni Reich’: narratives of modernity in Marvel Moreno’s 'En diciembre llegaban las brisas' (1987). Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 92 (7). pp. 805-824. ISSN 1475-3839 doi: https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2015.48