# Alejandra Laera Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor (Spanish - Fall 2025) ![Ale](/sites/g/files/omnuum8296/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2025-08/Ale.jpg?h=f25f5a2e&itok=pIlzQT3Q) location\_on Boylston 516 smartphone [(617) 496-3488]() email I am a cultural critic specializing in the intersections of literature, economy, and politics in Latin American—and particularly Argentine—narrative. In my latest book, *¿Para qué sirve leer novelas? Narrativas del presente y capitalismo* (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2024), I explore the narrative imagination surrounding money, work, and time in a range of contemporary works and its contribution to understanding the world we live in. Already in one of my earlier books, *Ficciones del dinero. Argentina 1890–2001* (FCE, 2014), I examined the fictional treatment of economic crises—a topic I later revisited by focusing on various Latin American cases in chapters published in landmark reference volumes such as *Latin American Literature in Transition (1870–1930)* and *The Routledge Companion to 20th and 21st Century Latin American Literary and Cultural Forms*. I am also interested in the historical processes that shape national literatures within the framework of world literature. In this line, I directed the volume *El brote de los géneros*for the *Historia crítica de la literatura argentina* (Emecé, 2010) and co-edited *A History of Argentine Literature* (Cambridge, 2024). I am currently Full Professor at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, where I also direct the Instituto de Literatura Argentina “Ricardo Rojas,” and a Principal Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). I also direct the M.A. Program in Narrative Journalism at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Throughout my career, I have taught courses and delivered lectures at various universities in Argentina and abroad, and have been Visiting Professor at Stanford University, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, and Wesleyan University. In addition to the books already mentioned and numerous articles in specialized journals, I have authored *El tiempo vacío de la ficción. Novelas argentinas de Eduardo Gutiérrez y Eugenio Cambaceres* (FCE, 2004), the essay *Húmeda, susurrada, afectiva, creativa*(Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 2022), and the literature and art anthology *Una historia de la imaginación en la Argentina* (Museo de Arte Moderno, 2019), among other publications. I am also the series editor of *Viajeras/Viajeros* for Fondo de Cultura Económica and of the *Revista Crítica de Literatura Argentina. El Matadero*, published by the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Course 215: Narratives of Environmental Crisis: Eco-Affective Imaginings in Contemporary Latin America - ## Department Role [Faculty](/people/role/faculty) [Spanish Faculty](/people/role/spanish-faculty)