Leonor Arfuch
“Memoria, testimonio, autoficción. Narrativas de infancia en dictadura” “Memory, testimony and autofiction. Narratives of childhood under dictatorship”
Leonor Arfuch is professor of “political, new subjectivity and discourse” at the Social Sciences Department, University of Buenos Aires, and Researcher at the Gino Germani Institut. She is the author of El espacio biográfico. Dilemas de la subjetividad contemporánea (“Biographical Space: Dilemmas of Contemporary Subjectivity,” 2002), La entrevista, una invención dialógica (“The Interview: A Dialogic Invention,” 2nd ed., 2010), Crítica cultural entre política y poética (“Cultural Criticism Between Politics and Poetics,” 2008), Memoria y autobiografía. Exploraciones en los límites (“Memory and Autobiography: Explorations at the Limits,” 2013) and editor of Pensar este tiempo (“Thinking This Time,” 2005); Identidades, sujetos y subjetividades (“Identities, Subjects, and Subjectivities,” 2002), Pretérito Imperfecto. Lecturas críticas del acontecer (“Past Imperfect: Critical Readings of the Event,” with Gisela Catanzaro, 2008), and Visualidades sin fin (“Visuality without End,” with Verónica Devalle, 2009). Her recent honors include Thalmann Fellowship, University of Buenos Aires/Essex University (1998); British Academy Professorship Award (2004); Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2007); Tinker Visiting Professor at the Iberian and Latin American Cultures Department, Stanford University (2013).
Ruth Behar
“We Are All Somebody: Celebration of the Human Voice”
Ruth Behar is Victor Haim Perera Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Her books include Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 1993), The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart (1997), An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba (2007), and Traveling Heavy: A Memoir in between Journeys (2013). She is co-editor of Women Writing Culture (with Deborah A. Gordon, 1996), editor of Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba (1996), and co-editor of The Portable Island: Cubans at Home in the World (with Lucía M. Suárez, 2008). Her personal documentary, Adio Kerida/Goodbye Dear Love: A Cuban Sephardic Journey (2002), has been shown in festivals around the world. She is also known for her essays, poetry, and fiction. Her honors include a MacArthur “Genius” Award, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Fulbright Senior Fellowship.
Vincent Carretta
“Uncovering Lives: the Biographical Challenge of the Early Black Atlantic”
Vincent Carretta is professor of English at the University of Maryland. Among his notable scholarly editions are several that have become classroom staples, including Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings (2003), Philip Quaque’s Correspondence (2010), Quobna Ottobah Cugoano’s Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1999), Phillis Wheatley’s Writings (2001), and Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century (1996). Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (2005), Carretta’s investigation into the life of Olaudah Equiano, remapped the recent critical discourse for early African American writing. Carretta’s most recent book is Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage (2011). His recent honors include fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard University; and the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton.
Leigh Gilmore
“Rigoberta Menchú: Slow and Fast Time in the Testimonial Archive”
Leigh Gilmore is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School, having previously been professor of English at the Ohio State University and the first holder of an endowed chair in gender and women’s studies at Scripps College. She is the author of The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma and Testimony (2001) and Autobiographics: A Feminist Theory of Women’s Self-Representation (1994) and co-editor of Autobiography and Postmodernism (with Kathleen Ashley, 1994). She has published articles on autobiography and feminist theory in Feminist Studies, Signs, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Biography, American Imago, Genders, and numerous collections. She is currently finishing a book in Columbia U P’s Gender and Culture series titled Tainted Witness: Women’s Life Narrative in Neoliberal Times.
