Academic & Teaching staff

Dr Cara Levey

Teaching Fellow in Latin American Studies

Research interests

My doctoral research focused on contested commemorations of past human rights violations in Argentina and Uruguay, specifically the urban centres of Montevideo and Buenos Aires. The project aimed to deepen understanding of the ways in which such violations can be addressed by state and societal actors and explore the relationship between commemoration and justice. This involved extended periods of fieldwork in both Argentina and Uruguay where I conducted visits to urban commemorative sites and interviews with key actors.

My main research interests include Latin American human rights violations, political violence and transitional truth and justice, the politics of memory (particularly commemoration and protest) in the Southern Cone and Argentine and Uruguay political and social history and culture.

Publications

  • 'An Argentine Auschwitz? The Escuela de Suboficiales de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA) as Site of Trauma and Tourism' in Brigitte Sion (ed), Staging Violent Death: The Dark Performances of Thanatourism. Seagull Press, 2011, Forthcoming, Spring 2012, page numbers TBC.
  • 'Resistance in the Streets of Buenos Aires' in Ben Bollig and Arturo Casas (editors), Poetics of Resistance, Peter Lang, 2011, pp. 301-318
  • 'Chronicle of a Childhood in Captivity: Niños en Cautiverio Político and the (Re)construction of Memory in Contemporary Uruguay' in ACME : An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies. Vol. 9(3), 2010 pp. 368-376  
    http://www.acme-journal.org/vol9/Levey2010.pdf

Invited Lectures and Forthcoming Activities

  • 'Chronicle of a Childhood in Captivity: Post-memory in Post-dictatorial
    Uruguay', Visualising Violence: Art, Memory and Violence in Latin America, Cambridge, January 2012
  • 'Commemoration and Contestation: The Uncertain Future of Memory Initiatives in Latin America', (Panel chair, Convenor and Presenter), SLAS Conference, St.Andrews, April 2010.
  • 'Postmemory in the Post-transition: The (re)construction of Memory in Contemporary Uruguay', 'Between the past and the future: Challenging narratives of memory in Latin America' Conference, Institute for the Study of the Americas, London, November 2010.
  • 'Struggles for Memory: The Role of Commemorative Sites in Post-Transitional Uruguay', LASA Conference, Toronto, Canada, October 2010.
  • 'Control, Repression and Resistance in Contemporary Argentina', (Panel chair, Convenor and Presenter), SLAS Conference, Bristol, April 2010.
  • '¡A dónde vayan les iremos a buscar! The escrache and Resistance in Contemporary Buenos Aires', School of Geography, February 2010.
  • 'Impunity as Inequality: The Persistence of the Past and Commemoration in Uruguay', 'Rethinking inequality' Conference. LASA Conference, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 2009
  • 'Escrache: Performance as Protest in the Argentine Streets', School of Performance and Cultural Industries Seminar Series, University of Leeds, February 2009
  • 'The Colony that Never Was? Argentine-British Relations since Independence', PILAS Conference, Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, February 2009
  • 'Memory is the Weapon: Art and Resistance in Contemporary Buenos Aires'. 'Art and Power' Conference. School of English, University of Leeds. September 2008.
  • 'Escrache: Resistance in the Streets of Buenos Aires'. 'Poetics of Resistance' Conference. Department of Spanish & Portuguese, University of Leeds. March 2008.

Other activities and projects

  • Member of Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland (AHGBI)
  • Co-Founder and Moderator of Uruguay Research Student (with Francesca Lessa).
  • Member of World Universities Network 'Transformative Justice' Project. June 2010-Present
    http://www.wun.ac.uk/research/transformative-justice-network
  • Member of Society of Latin American Studies (SLAS) January 2010-Present
  • Co-President, Postgraduates in Latin American Studies (PILAS) September 2009-July 2010
  • Co-Founder and Moderator of Argentine Research Student Network (ARSN) June 2009-Present
  • Member of Latin American Studies Association (LASA) November 2008-Present.

Research projects and grants

  • SAS Knowledge Transfer Grant (to organise Crisis, Response, Recovery: A Decade on from the Argentinazo).
  • SLAS Conference Grant (to organise Crisis, Response, Recovery: A Decade on from the Argentinazo 2001-2011with Dan Ozarow and Paulo Drinot- December 2011)
  • SLAS Postgraduate Conference Grant (to attend LASA 2010)
  • LASA Student Travel Grant (to attend LASA 2010)
  • AHRC Overseas Conference Grant June 2009 (to attend LASA 2009)
  • Abbey Santander Research Grant May 2009 (to conduct fieldwork in Montevideo)
  • AHRC Fieldwork Grant March-September 2008(to conduct fieldwork in Argentina/Uruguay)
  • AHRC Studentship for PhD study -2007-2010
  • University of London Fieldwork Grant (MA thesis)- May 2007 (to conduct fieldwork in Buenos Aires).

Teaching

  • SPPO1042: The Historical Development of Spain and Spanish America(team-taught module)
  • SPPO1160: Introduction to the Cultural Production of Spain and Spanish America (team-taught module)
  • SPPO1180: Skills and Issues in Spanish and Latin American Studies (team-taught module)
  • SPPO1401: Introduction to History, Society and Culture in Spain (module coordinator)
  • SPPO1402: Introduction to Latin American History and Society (module coordinator)
  • SPPO1403: Introduction to Latin American Art and Culture (module coordinator)
  • SPPO2560/01: The Spanish Civil War as Cultural Representation and Historical Memory (co-taught with Dr Richard Cleminson and  Dr Stuart Green)
  • SPPO2580/01: Translation Theory in a Spanish<>English Context (co-taught with Professor Jeremy Munday and Mr Roberto Rodriguez-Saona
  • SPPO3420: Spanish-English Translation (team-taught module) 
  • SPPO3620: Nunca Mas: Latin American Human Rights in an Historical and Cultural Context (module coordinator)