Research Expertise and Interest

Latin America, Jewish Latin America, Andes, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, Guatemala, Holocaust, genocide, race, nationalism, Spanish, mestizaje, indigeneity, Quechua

Research Description

Estelle Tarica is a Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture. Her research and teaching examines colonial legacies in modern Latin America, Indigenous and Jewish memory cultures, and the transformative power of narrative and poetry. Her first book, The Inner Life of Mestizo Nationalism (University of Minnesota Press, 2008), explores the subjective effects of racialized national identity formations in Mexico, Bolivia and Peru. Her second book, Holocaust Consciousness and Cold War Violence in Latin America (SUNY Press, 2022), is about the impact of Holocaust memories and terminologies as reference points for authors and activists confronting state violence in Argentina, Mexico and Guatemala from the 1960s to the present. She is affiliated with the Center for Latin American Studies, the Center for Race and Gender, and the Center for Jewish Studies.