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Research.

Research Interests

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My research currently is focused on the intersections between human rights, culture and Contemporary Mexican literature, documentary film and textile art. Especifically, I am interested in how affective and testimonial practices through aesthetics are used in these artistic and literary expressions in order to “move” the audiences physically, emotionally and politically, to respond and act against violence, impunity and corruption in the face of human rights violations in Mexico and other Latin American contexts.

In addition, the representation and the idea of making human rights violations visible from a new affective perspective in art and literature responds to contexts in which in the cultural and public sphere victims have been criminalized and dehumanized in mass media and the government discourse. Because of this, I am also interested in the way language used in Latin American journalism has affected the dominant perspectives on phenomena related to human rights violations.  

Publications

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Refereed Journal Articles

  • Salazar Pozos, Olga, James Ramsburg, and Yoko Hama. “‘Part of My Heart Left With Him’: The Use of Metaphors in Mexican Press Reports About Disappearances in Nuevo Leon.” Hispania, vol. 106, no. 4, 2023, pp.627-642. (In Spanish)
  • Salazar Pozos, Olga. “To Unearth the Truth: Affective and Denouncing Spaces in To See You Again by Carolina Corral.” A contracorriente: una revista de estudios latinoamericanos, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 105-131.
  • Salazar Pozos, Olga. “Armed to the Teeth: An Intolerable Image of Impunity in Mexico.” Arizona Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 25 (2021), pp. 66-85. (In Spanish)
  • Salazar Pozos, Olga. “Representations of the Jewish in Spanish Literature of the XII-XIII Centuries.” Lepisma: Creación y crítica literaria, vol. 1 (2014), pp. 64–70. (In Spanish)

Book Chapter

  • Salazar Pozos, Olga and María Ignacia Terra. “Disappearances in Mexico: Press Report Database to Support the National Search System.” Javier Yankelevich (Ed.), Manual de capacitación para la búsqueda de personas – Tomo 1: La voz de la academia, USAID, 2020, pp. 111–120. (Originally in Spanish)

Conference Proceedings

  • Salazar Pozos, Olga. “The Linguistic Interference of English in the Written Spanish of High School Students.” Volumen Monográfico del XXX Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Jóvenes Lingüistas, Editorial de la Universidad de Cantabria, 2016. (In Spanish)

Documentary Film & Book Reviews

  • Salazar Pozos, Olga. “Approaching the Disappearances in Mexico Through Impact Documentary Films.” Latin American Research Review, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 927–936. (In Spanish)
  • Salazar Pozos, Olga. “Film Review: Until We Find Them.” Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2021. (Web-based publication)
  • Salazar Pozos, Olga. “Alberto Ruy Sánchez, Una introducción a Octavio Paz.” Criticismo: Revista de Crítica. vol. 11, July – September 2014.
  • Salazar Pozos, Olga. “Emiliano Monge, El cielo árido.” Criticismo: Revista de Crítica. vol. 7, July – September 2013.

Other Publications

  • Contributing Editor, “Press Reporting on Disappearances in Mexico”. Observatory on Disappearances and Impunity in Mexico, 2021. (Web-based publication)
  • Salazar Pozos, Olga. “Carl Jung’s Structure of the Psyche in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens”. Metamorfosis: nueva época. Revista semestral de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras – Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua. vol. 40, January – July 2014. (Originally in Spanish)

Research Assistantships

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  • “Translation of Medical Surveys of the Americas” (2022 & 2021): 500 hours of translation (Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation – University of Minnesota)
  • “Testimonies of Hope” (2021): 120 hours of developing and implementing an artistic workshop for migrant Indigenous women from Guatemala and Mexico (Human Rights Lab – University of Minnesota)
  • “Readings on Medical Humanities” (2020): 120 hours of reading, research, and translation (Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies – University of Minnesota)
  • “Mexican Journalists’ Perspectives on the Representation of Disappearances in Mexican Press Reports” (2019): 260 hours of conducting interviews, transcriptions, coding, and analysis of interviews with Mexican reporters (Human Rights Program – University of Minnesota)
  • “Literature Review of Writers of Central America and the Southern Cone” (2019): 120 hours (Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies – University of Minnesota)
  • “Blended Learning and Online Coaching” (2018): 260 hours of transcriptions, coding and analysis of 57 interviews  (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition – University of Minnesota)
  • “Literature Review of Mexican Writers of the 19th Century” (2014): 200 hours (Mexican Academy of Sciences – Academia Mexicana de las Ciencias)

Dissertation Abstract

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When in moments of war, human rights violations, and the withdrawal of the State, how do we change in favor of peace and justice? When the social fabric is torn apart by fear, violence in the media, and the criminalization of victims, how do we repair it? These questions reverberate in the history of twentieth-century Latin America, yet they are once more urgent, as Mexico faces a human rights crisis because of its ongoing War on Drugs (2006–present). According to diverse social actors (UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances 2022; Ansolabehere and Payne 2021; Gatti and Irazuzta 2019; and Robledo 2017), it is imperative that collective indignation is mobilized at the national and international level, forcing the State to respond. Therefore, a perennial topic of social science research is: how to mobilize this response? Yet, there is less research dedicated to analyzing the answers given by art and literature. 

My dissertation, “Between the Erasure of Violence and the Political Force of Collective Mourning: Artistic Interpretations of Mexico’s War on Drugs”, contributes to the debate by exploring the intersections of human rights, art and literature in which solutions to the crisis are aesthetic and affective, generating connections between victims and audiences that are capable of mobilizing a collective desire for repair and resolution. I explore Mexican documentary films, literature and collective art produced by NGOs (embroidery, weaving and engraving) from 2011 to 2021 that all respond to the crisis and war. In this archive, writers and artists employ intertextuality, intermediality and testimony to create an aesthetic and affect of care. In so doing, they center victims’ humanity in discussions and challenge the existing criminalizing narratives propagated by mass media and the government. They also build an artistic archive that addresses the crisis of violence from the perspective of those exposed to it and that acts as a space for collective mourning. Collective mourning restores social bonds, dismantles structures of violence, and reclaims the rights of all victims to be appreciated. 

My dissertation is composed of two main sections. The first is dedicated to literature, analyzing Antígona González (Sara Uribe), Tierras arrasadas (Emiliano Monge), El invencible verano de Liliana (Cristina Rivera) and Monterrey 24 (Comp. by Luis Felipe Lomelí). The second section analyzes the documentaries Tempestad (Tatiana Huezo), No sucumbió la eternidad (Daniela Rea), Hasta los dientes (Alberto Arnaut), and Volverte a ver (Carolina Corral). In the epilogue, I explore collective mourning by analyzing the art that is created by activists and the family members of victims, including work by Bordando por la paz, Huellas de la Memoria, and Colectiva hilo.