Lecturer in Latin American Studies

Tel: 0113 343 3521
Email: t.pitman@leeds.ac.uk

BA (Cambridge)
MA (UCL)
PhD (UCL)

Research Interests

Contemporary Latin American literature and culture, in particular, travel-writing by Latin American authors; postmodernism and postcolonialism in Latin American literature; twentieth- and twenty-first-century Mexican and Chicano literature and film; Latin American popular culture; and Latin American cyberliterature and cyberculture (for this project see http://www.liv.ac.uk/soclas/research/lacyberculture/index.htm).

Publications

Single-Authored Monographs

• Mexican Travel Writing (Oxford: Lang, 2008 – due out in October).

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

• ‘Mexican Travel Writing: The Legacy of Foreign Travel Writers in Mexico, or Why Mexicans Say They Don’t Write Travel Books’, Comparative Critical Studies, 4:3, 209-23 (2007).
• ‘Identidad nacional y feminismo en el periodismo de mujeres: el caso de Elvira Vargas’ Literatura Mexicana, 18:1, 133-45 (2007).
• ‘Hypertext in Context: Space and Time in Latin American Hypertext and Hypermedia Fictions’, Dichtung Digital, 1/2007 (Nr. 36), guest edited by Astrid Ensslin and Alice Bell. Available online only: http://dictung-digital.org/ (December 2007).
• ‘En primera persona: Literary Evocations of Birth by Contemporary Spanish-American Women Writers’, special issue dedicated to ‘Cultures of Birth’, Women: A Cultural Review, 17:3, 355-67 (2006).
• ‘Postmodernity, Post-Tourism and Postmodern Irony: Juan Villoro’s Palmeras de la brisa rápida and the Possibility of a Postmodern Travel-Chronicle’, Bulletin of Spanish Studies (formerly Bulletin of Hispanic Studies), 81:1, 77-97 (2004).
• ‘An Impossible Task: Héctor Perea’s México: crónica en espiral and the Problems of Writing a Travel-Chronicle of Contemporary Mexico City’, special issue on Latin American Travel Writing, ed. by Claire Lindsay and Tim Youngs, Studies in Travel Writing, 7:1, 47-62 (2003).
• ‘The Construction of National Identity in the Mexican Travel Chronicle, 1843-1893’, Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing, 2:1, 1-23 (2001).

Chapters and Parts of Books

• Entries on Miguel Méndez and Nicolás Guillén, in The Literary Encyclopedia. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/ (2008).
• .‘Hypertext in Context: Space and Time in the Hypertext and Hypermedia Fictions of Blas Valdez and Doménico Chiappe’, in Latin American Cyberculture and Cyberliterature, ed. by Claire Taylor and Thea Pitman, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 225-41 (2007).
• ‘Latin American Cyberprotest: Before and After the Zapatistas’, in Latin American Cyberculture and Cyberliterature, ed. by Claire Taylor and Thea Pitman, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 85-109 (2007).
• Sections on popular music, religion, art and architecture, with specific reference to Mexico and Argentina (approx. 20,000 words), for Lisa Shaw and Stephanie Dennison, Pop Culture Latin America!: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, (2005).

Editorial Work

• Editor, double special issue of Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, dedicated to ‘Latin American Women Writers, Then and Now’, 14:2/3, Aug-Dec 2008 (forthcoming).
• Co-editor (with Claire Taylor), Latin American Cyberculture and Cyberliterature, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (2007). (Editorial work includes co-authorship of introduction and conclusion.)
• Editor, Proceedings of the 8th Annual Symposium on Contemporary Narrative: Contemporary Spanish American Narrative, Leeds: University of Leeds in conjunction with the Instituto Cervantes (2004).

Conference Proceedings

• ‘The Representation of the Indigenous Subject in the Travel-Writing of Fernando Benítez: Caught between the Discourses of Literature, Journalism and Anthropology’, Memorias del Segundo Congreso Internacional Alexander von Humboldt 2003, 12-16 August 2003, published as A través del espejo: viajes, viajeros y la construcción de la alteridad en América Latina, ed. by Lourdes de Ita Rubio and Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, Morelia, Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás Hidalgo, 455-63 (2005).

Future Projects

• Co-editor (with Andy Stafford), double special issue of Journal for Transatlantic Studies, dedicated to ‘New Transatlanticisms’ (forthcoming 2009/10).
• Co-authored book (with Claire Taylor) on The Discourses of Latin American Cyberculture (for end 2009).
  

Invited Lectures and Publications

• Presentation (with Claire Taylor) of Latin American Cyberculture and Cyberliterature book, I Encuentro Internacional de Revistas Digitales Culturales, sponsored by the publisher Mirada Malva, in conjunction with Literaturas.com, Ómnibus: Revista Intercultural, and the Spanish Ministerio de la Cultura, Madrid, September 2008.
• Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, UNAM, Mexico, August 2008.
• Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, February 2006.
• Institute of Latin American Studies, Liverpool, October 2005.
• Bite the Mango Film Festival: Symposium on World Cinema, National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, June 2003.
  

Other Research Activities

• Convenor of 9th Annual Symposium on Hispanic Narrative (July 2005), dedicated to Latin American Women Writers, Then and Now.
• Convenor of 10th Annual Symposium on Hispanic Narrative (March 2006), dedicated to Latin American Cyberliterature and Cyberculture.
• Co-convenor of symposium hosted by the Institute of Colonial and Postcolonial Studies entitled Parallel Lines, Parallel Lives?: Comparative and Transnational Approaches in Postcolonial Studies, with a Specific Focus on Relations between Africa and the Americas (February 2007).
• Member of executive board of the Centre for World Cinemas, University of Leeds.
• Member of advisory committee, Institute for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, University of Leeds.
• I regularly review books for the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies and the Bulletin of Spanish Studies. I have also reviewed books for the Bulletin of Latin American Research, Framework, and Modern Languages Review.
  

Teaching

• On Study Leave during the 2008/9 academic session.

Postgraduate Research Supervision

• Travel-writing by Mexican and other Latin American writers
• Travel-writing concerning Latin America
• Mexican and Chicano literature and film
• Latin American cyberliterature and cyberculture
• Latin American women's writing.