Romance Languages and Literatures
Ali Kulez
Assistant Professor, Hispanic Studies
Ali Kulez
Ph.D.
Contact
Lyons Hall 311D
Telephone: 617-552-1447
Email: ali.kulez@bc.edu
ORCID 0000-0002-4922-5169
Education
- Ph.D., University of Southern California
- M.A., University of Warwick
- B.A., Bogazici University
Research Interests
20th-21st Century Latin American Literatures and Cultures, Food Studies, Global South Studies, Diaspora/Border Studies, Critical Theory, Digital Humanities
Department
Biography
Ali Kulez’s research focuses on 20th- and 21st-century Latin American literatures and cultures. His work examines the relationship between the body, identity, and politics with a particular focus on Cuban, Brazilian, and Argentine cultural production. His current book project, Gastropoetics: Cultural Figurations of Eating in Modern Cuba and Brazil, approaches consumption as a site of critical reflection on biopolitics, cosmopolitanism, and sovereignty. Before joining Boston College, Dr. Kulez was a Harper-Schmidt Fellow at the University of Chicago.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Journal Articles
“Other Foods: Consumption, Biopolitics, and Identity in Orhan Pamuk’s A Strangeness in My Mind.” In Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık Üzerine Yazılar, edited by Pelin Kıvrak. Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları (forthcoming Fall 2023).
“Narrating Hemispheric Performance: The Repertoire in Daniel Alarcón's Fiction.” Chasqui 57.1 (2022): 51-72.
“An Early Encounter in the Global South: ‘Abd Al-Rahman Al-Baghdadi’s Journey to the Brazilian Empire.” Luso-Brazilian Review 58.2 (2022): 196-220.
“Eating (by) Oneself: The Wasteful Pleasures of Self-Cannibalism in Virgilio Piñera’s ‘La carne’,” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 53.3 (2019): 879-898.
“Unburying the Specter: Post-Dictatorship Memory in Ricardo Piglia’s The Absent City (La ciudad ausente).” CR: The New Centennial Review 18.1 (2018): 85-103.
“Disciplinary Surveillance and Simulation in Ahmet Midhat Efendi’s Esrar-ı Cinayat, the First Detective Novel in Turkish Literature.” Middle Eastern Literatures 19.3 (2016): 298-315.
Book Reviews
Demasiada luz para hacer poesía, by Paula Cucurella. Ficción de la razón (2021): n.p.
Soberanías en suspenso: Imaginación y violencia en América Latina, by Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott. Archivos: Revista de filosofía. N°9-10 (2004): 381-384.
Translations
“Clarice Lispector in the Foreign Legion, Vicissitudes of a Reception,” by Gonzalo Aguilar. The Journal of World Literature 2.1 (2017): 80-91.
SELECTED LECTURES & CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“Southern Silences: Ottoman Empire through a Brazilian Lens.” American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, 2023.
“Narrating the Failures of the South: Aslı Erdoğan’s The City in Crimson Cloak.” American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Conference, University of Taipei (online), 2022.
“Tropical Hunger: Scarcity, Crisis, and Melancholy in Antonio José Ponte’s Las comidas profundas.” International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, San Francisco, CA (online), 2022.
“Transcolonial Intimacies: The Case of Abd Al-Rahman Al-Baghdadi,” Barrett Honors College Lecture Series, Arizona State University,” 2020.
“Ethics and Abjection: The Fiction of Osvaldo Lamborghini.” Latinoamérica en perspectiva: Representación, narrativas y modos de vida, Harvard University, 2019.
“Between Melancholy and Critique: The Sugar Industry in Contemporary Cuban Art.” XXXVIII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), Boston, MA, 2019.
“Translatability of Islam: An Ottoman Imam in the Brazilian Empire.” Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, Chicago, IL, 2019.
“The Morals of Antropofagia: Utopia, Androcentrism, and Women Drawing Back.” XXXV International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), Lima, Peru, 2017.
“Afectos fríos: La ausencia de afectos en la cuentística de Virgilio Piñera.” III Seminario Crítico Transnacional, Real Academia Conquense de Artes y Letras, Cuenca, Spain, 2016.
“Eating, Animality, and Biopolitics in Osvaldo Lamborghini’s Tadeys.” XXXIV International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), New York, NY, 2016.
“Auto-cannibalism and the Ethics of Introjection in Virgilio Piñera’s ‘La carne.’” American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Conference, Harvard University, 2016.
“El animal que luego estoy as(esin)ando: Nadie nada nunca de Juan José Saer o hacia una infrapolítica de lo animal.” Seminario Crítico Transnacional, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2015.
“Playing the Game of Fort and Da: The Disappeared in Recent Argentine Cinema.” XXXIII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2015.
“Disciplinary Power and Parodic Simulation in Ahmet Mithat Efendi’s Esrar-ı Cinayat, the First Detective Novel in Turkish Literature.” American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, 2015.