People

Amir Effat

Amir received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Language and Literature from Boston University in 2020. His dissertation On the Edge: Liminal Space in the Novels of Benito Pérez Galdós was honored with the award for Best Doctoral Thesis in 2020 by the Asociación Internacional de Galdosistas (AIG). After working as a lecturer in Northeastern University and Boston College, Amir is excited to start this new chapter of his life in California.

Anahit Manoukian

5115 Dwinelle

amanoukian@berkeley.edu

Office Hours: T 11-12, W 9-10 am

Daylet Domínguez

Daylet Domínguez (PhD Princeton University) is an Associate Professor in the Spanish and Portuguese Department of UC Berkeley. She is a scholar of Caribbean and Latin American literature and culture, with special emphasis on travel cultures and costumbrismo; empire, nation and revolution; slavery, race and colonialism, among other topics. Her book, Ficciones etnográficas: literatura, ciencias sociales y proyectos nacionales en el Caribe hispano del siglo XIX (Iberoamericana 2021), studies the interplay of literature and science in nineteenth century Hispanic Caribbean. It...

Ana Claudia Lopes

Ana Claudia Simão de Oliveira Lopes is a Ph.D. student in Spanish and Portuguese Literatures and in the Critical Theory Program. She completed a B.A. in Comparative Literature at Berkeley, graduating with Highest Distinction in General Scholarship, and was awarded the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Fellowship for outstanding academic achievements. While completing her degree, she worked as a Research Apprentice on a project about pilgrimages in the Northeast of Brazil and wrote a thesis on comparative language structures in the works of Brazilian authors Osman Lins and Clarice Lispector. During the...

Luis Barco

5115 Dwinelle Hall lbarco@berkeley.edu Office Hours: T 10-11, W 11:30-12:30

Luis Enrique Barco (him, his, él) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Berkeley. He holds an M.A. in Hispanic Languages & Literatures from UC Berkeley, a B.A in Spanish and a BA in Latin American Studies from the University of California, San Diego. His research interests include 20th and 21st century Latin American narrative, performance, and visual art; historical memory, truth...

Yesenia Blanco

yeseblanco@berkeley.edu

Alex Saum-Pascual

Alex Saum-Pascual is a (digital) poet, and professor. She is author of #Postweb! Crear con la máquina y en la red (Iberoamericana-Vervuert 2018) and numerous articles, special issues, and book chapters on digital media and literature in the Spanish-speaking world, being featured in The Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, The Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature Studies, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, and Digital Humanities Quarterly, among others. Her work has been supported by fellowships and grants from UC Berkeley...

Nasser Meerkhan

Education
Ph.D., Spanish Literature, University of Virginia (2017)
M.A., Hispanic Studies, Villanova University (2013)
B.A., Spanish Literature, Damascus University, Syria (2011)

Research Interests
Medieval & Early Modern Iberian literature
Women writers of Medieval Iberia and the Middle East
Historiography in Medieval Iberia
Semitic maqamat
Don Quixote

Publications
“False Hopes and Flawed Sainthood in Don Quixote: Khiḍr, Al-Mahdī, and the Knight of the Green Coat.” Hispanic...

Jair Jáuregui Torres

Jair is a PhD student in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. He received his BA in Spanish and Art History, with a minor in Education, from the University of California, Davis in 2021, while also working as a tutor and peer advisor for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. His main research interest is the relationship between literature and the visual arts, including ekphrasis, iconicity, and art criticism, from Latin America mainly during the late 19th to the early 20th centuries.

Mônica Carvalho Gimenes

Mônica Carvalho Gimenes is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley. She holds an M.A. in Spanish and a B.A. in Multimedia Studies: Journalism from Florida Atlantic University. Her teaching and research interests include 20th and 21st century Latin American narrative, crime fiction, body politics, transnational feminisms, and decolonial theories. Her dissertation examines femicidal violence and feminist resistance in the Southern Cone (including Brazil). She has conducted pre-dissertation research in Brazil and in Portugal, and she has presented...