General Events

This presentation will analyze the crossings between antifascist politics and culture in the work and exchanges among Latin American women intellectuals such as Gabriela Mistral and Victoria Ocampo during and after World War II. The war in Europe altered Latin American socio-political parameters and forced these authors to redraw the map of Western civilization by placing Latin American women and their work as cultural agents rooted in feminist principles at the center. Through their cultural endeavors, Mistral and Ocampo were able to shift power dynamics and created a political impact in the region beyond the symbolic domain. As “agents of change” these authors worked in the dissemination of a gendered americanismo in the Western World while discussing in essays, letters, and conferences the failure of European democracy. 

Professor Vanesa Miseres specializes in the cultural and literary landscapes of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Latin America, with her research and teaching exploring diverse topics such as travel writing, war literature, women writers, gender, cultural, and food studies. She is the author of Mujeres en tránsito: viaje, identidad y escritura en Sudamérica (1830–1910).