Antonio Cordoba

Associate Professor, Modern Languages & Literatures

I am an educator with twenty-five years of experience. I have taught all levels of Spanish as a second language, introductory courses to Spanish and Latin American cultures, and classes on cinema, literature, and Latin American and Iberian studies. I hold a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where I was an instructor for nine years. I have also taught at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Connecticut College, and Manhattan College.

My writing focuses on modern and contemporary culture, media, technology, and the sacred. I have published one book and more than a dozen academic essays on these topics and coedited seven collections on essays. I have also written on Internet culture for Spanish newspapers and translated Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture [Por una cultura libre, Traficantes de sueños].

CV (December 2023).

Education

  • Ph.D. Harvard University.
  • M.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
  • B.A. University of Sevilla.

Courses Taught

  • SPAN 202. Spanish for Communication II.
  • SPAN 209. Speaking Spanish
  • SPAN 210. Writing Spanish
  • SPAN 303. Spanish Culture through Film.
  • SPAN 307. Advanced Grammar and Composition.
  • SPAN 320. Special Topics: in Hispanic Culture Studies. Imagining the Fantastic in Spanish and Latin American cultures.
  • SPAN 340. Spanish Civilization.
  • SPAN 341. Spanish American Civilization.
  • SPAN 351. Masterworks in Spanish II.
  • LLRN 102. Classical Origins of Western Culture.
  • LLRN 102: Classical Origins: West Culture
  • SPAN 201: Spanish for Communication I
  • SPAN 202: Spanish for Communication II
  • SPAN 303: Spanish Culture Through Film
  • SPAN 340: Spanish Civilization
  • SPAN 341: Spanish American Civilization
  • SPAN 424: The Modern Novel in Spain and Spanish America
  • Research

    My main academic interests are Spanish-language science fiction in all media (literature, film, TV, and comic books), and the intersections of modernity and the sacred in Iberian and Latin American cultures. I am currently working on two book-length manuscripts that reflect these interests: Religion, Faith, and the Afterlife in Latin American Science Fiction (under contract with Palgrave Macmillan) and Extrañas repúblicas: Ciencia ficción argentina contemporánea y la idea de comunidad [Strange Republics: Contemporary Argentine Science Fiction and the Idea of Community].

    I have published ¿Extranjero en tierra extraña? El género de la ciencia ficción en América Latina [Stranger in a Strange Land? The Science Fiction Genre in Latin America] (Servicio de publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla, 2011) and coedited three collections of essays: The Sacred and Modernity in Urban Spain: Beyond the Secular City (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Rite, Flesh, and Stone: The Matter of Death in Contemporary Spanish Culture (Vanderbilt University Press, 2021), with Daniel García-Donoso, and  Posthumanism and in Latin(x) American Science Fiction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), with Emily A. Maguire.

    Two special issues on ruins in Iberian cultures and Post-Francoist representations of monarchs are coming out in 2024 in the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies and the Bulletin of Spanish Studies, respectively. Non-Anglophone European Science Fiction Cinema, a co-edited volume with twenty-one essays covering films from more than a dozen countries and national cultures, is under contract with Peter Lang.

    I have also written journal articles and book chapters on Latin American, Brazilian, and Iberian literature, cinema, and music. You can check the list here.

  • Publications and Scholarly Activities

    Publications.

    Monograph.

    • 2025. Religion, Faith, and the Afterlife in Twenty-First Century Latin American Science Fiction. (Under contract with Palgrave Macmillan).
    • 2011. ¿Extranjero en tierra extraña? El género de la ciencia ficción en América Latina. [Stranger in a Strange Land: The Science Fiction Genre in Latin America]. Sevilla: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla. Link. [PDF].

    Edited volumes and special issues.

    • 2025. Iberian New York: Transatlantic Connections and Cultural Crossings in the Modern Metropolis. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Evelyn Scaramella. London: Bloomsbury. Under contract.
    • 2025. Non-Anglophone European Science Fiction Cinema. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Débora Madrid. Oxford: Peter Lang. Under contract.

    • 2024. Head and Tails of the Monarch: Representing Kings and Queens in Post-Francoist Iberian Cultures. Edited by Antonio Córdoba, Daniel García-Donoso, and Carlos Varón González. Bulletin of Spanish Studies. Forthcoming.

    • 2024. ‘Ruinas Modernas’: Untimely Spaces and Multiple Temporalities in Modern and Contemporary Spanish Culture. Edited by Pedro Aguilera-Mellado, Antonio Córdoba, and Jacqueline Sheean. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 25, no. 1. Link.

    • 2023. Posthumanism and Latin(x) American Science Fiction. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Emily A. Maguire. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Link.

    • 2021. Rite, Flesh, and Stone: The Matter of Death in Contemporary Spanish Culture. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Daniel García-Donoso. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Link.
    • 2016. The Sacred and Modernity in Urban Spain: Beyond the Secular City. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Daniel García-Donoso. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Link.

    Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

    • 2025. “Haunted New York: Mourning and the Specter of Lorca in Lumen’s Photobook edition of Poeta en Nueva York (1966).” In Iberian New York: Transatlantic Connections and Cultural Crossings in the Modern Metropolis. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Evelyn Scaramella. London: Bloomsbury. Under contract.
    • “Introduction.” With Evelyn Scaramella. In Iberian New York: Transatlantic Connections and Cultural Crossings in the Modern Metropolis. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Evelyn Scaramella. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Under contract.

    • 2025. “H.G. Wells and Latin America.” In The Oxford Handbook to H.G. Wells. Edited by Duncan Bell and Sarah Cole. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Under contract.

    • 2025. “Introduction: Non-Anglophone European Science Fiction Cinema.” With Débora Madrid. In Non-Anglophone European Science Fiction Cinema. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Débora Madrid. Oxford: Peter Lang. Under contract.

    • 2025. “Masculinity, Transhumanism, and the Gothic in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In.” In Non-Anglophone European Science Fiction Cinema. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Débora Madrid. Oxford: Peter Lang. Under contract.

    • 2024. "Introduction." With Daniel García-Donoso and Carlos Varón González. Head and Tails of the Monarch: Representing Kings and Queens in Post-Francoist Iberian Cultures. Edited by Antonio Córdoba, Daniel García-Donoso, and Carlos Varón González. Bulletin of Spanish Studies. Forthcoming.

    • 2024. “Introduction.” With Pedro Aguilera-Mellado and Jacqueline Sheean. In ‘Ruinas Modernas’: Untimely Spaces and Multiple Temporalities in Modern and Contemporary Spanish Culture. Edited by Pedro Aguilera-Mellado, Antonio Córdoba, and Jacqueline Sheean. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 25, no. 1: 1-12.

    • 2023. "Introduction: Posthumanism and Latin(x) American Science Fiction." With Emily A. Maguire. Posthumanism and Latin(x) American Science Fiction. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Emily A. Maguire. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 1-26. Link.
    • 2023. “‘A Mutant Faith: Science Fiction, Posthumanism, and Futurity in Arca’s KiCK Pentalogy.” In Posthumanism and Latin(x) American Science Fiction. Edited by Antonio Córdoba and Emily Maguire. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 219-235.
    • 2021. "Introduction: Materiality, Culture, and Death in Spain, 1959-2020." With Daniel García Donoso. Rite, Flesh, and Stone: The Matter of Death in Contemporary Spanish Culture. Edited by Antonio Cordoba and Daniel García-Donoso. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2021. 9-40. Link.
    • 2021. “Alienígenas, mutantes, ciborgs, sujetos digitales: avatares de lo posthumano en la ciencia ficción latinoamericana.” La ciencia ficción en América Latina: Crítica, teoría, historia. Edited by Silvia G. Kurlat Ares y Ezequiel de Roso. Oxford: Peter Lang. 251-262. Link.
    • 2021. "Aliens, Mutants, Cyborgs, Digital Selves: Avatars of the Posthuman in Latin American Science Fiction." Peter Lang Companion to Latin American Science Fiction Studies. Edited by Silvia G. Kurlat Ares and Ezequiel de Rosso. Oxford: Peter Lang. 249-259 Link.
    • 2020. "Genealogía, vulnerabilidad y mutación en Iris (2014), de Edmundo Paz Soldán." [Genealogy, Vulnerability, and Mutation in Edmundo Paz Soldán's Iris (2014)." Desafíos, diferencias y deformaciones de la ciudadanía: mutantes y monstruos en la producción cultural latinoamericana reciente. Edited by María del Carmen Caña Jiménez. Raleigh: Editorial A Contracorriente. 131-154. Link.
    • 2019. "Spanish Science Fiction Film in Times of Emergency: Crisis and Entrapment in Nacho Vigalondo’s Extraterrestrial and David and Álex Pastor’s The Last Days." European Film and Television: Crisis Narratives and Narratives in Crisis. Edited by Betty Kaklamanidou and Ana Corbalán. New York: Routledge. 51-64. Link.
    • 2018. "Los niños perdidos zombis: La España postsecular y los descontentos con la memoria histórica en [REC]2." [The Lost Zombie Children: Postsecular Spain and the Discontents with Historical Memory in [REC]2]. Alambique: Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía, vol. 6, no. 1. Link.
    • 2018. "(De)Mythologizing the Disabled: Chilean Freaks in Roberto Bolaño's El Tercer Reich and Estrella distante." Freakish Encounters: Constructions of the Freak in Hispanic Cultures. Edited by Sara Muñoz-Muriana and Analola Santana. Hispanic Issues Online no. 20. 77-96. Link.
    • 2018. "Between Moscow and Santa Clara: The Soviet Cuban Imaginary in Agustín de Rojas' Espiral (1980)." Science Fiction Circuits of the East and South. Edited by Anindita Banerjee and Sonja Fritzsche. Oxford: Peter Lang. 75-98. Link.
    • 2017. "Precarious Life in the High Rise: Neoliberal Urban Interiors in Rec (2007) and Mientras duermes (2011).” Gender in Spanish Urban Spaces: Literary and Visual Narratives of the New Millennium. Edited by Maria DiFrancesco and Debra Ochoa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 269-288. Link.
    • 2017. "Astral Cities, New Selves: Utopian Subjectivities in Nosso Lar and Branco Sai, Preto Fica." In Space and Subjectivity in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema. Edited by Antônio Márcio da Silva and Mariana Cunha. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 133-147. Link.
    • 2017. "'Let Me Enter the Heaven of Her Consciousness': Cosmopolitan Ghosts in Adolfo Bioy Casares' The Invention of Morel." Chasqui: Revista de literatura latinoamericana 46, no. 1. 102-113. Link.
    • 2016. "Urban Avatars of 'El Maligno': Sacredness in Alex de la Iglesia's El día de la Bestia and Manuel Martín Cuenca's Caníbal." The Sacred and Modernity in Urban Spain: Beyond the Post-Secular City. Edited by Antonio Cordoba and Daniel García-Donoso. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 119-137. Link.
    • 2016. "Introduction." With Daniel García-Donoso.The Sacred and Modernity in Urban Spain: Beyond the Post-Secular City. Edited by Antonio Cordoba and Daniel García-Donoso. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. xiii-xxvii. Link.
    • 2011. "'¿Qué hay detrás de la ventana': Oralidad delirante y el enigma de la voz en Los detectives salvajes de Roberto Bolaño." Vanderbilt e-Journal of Luso-Hispanic Studies no. 7. 87-108. Link.

    Book Reviews.

    • 2017. García Caro, Pedro. "After the Nation: Postnational Satire in the Works of Carlos Fuentes and Thomas Pynchon." Revista de Literatura Mexicana Contemporánea 22, no. 71. 211-16.

    Conferences.

    Selected conference presentations:

    • 2023. Presentation of the edited volume Posthumanism and Latin(x) American Science Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), with coeditor Emily A. Maguire. Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Annual Convention.
    • 2023. "Beyond the End: Time, Environmental Catastrophe, and Entanglement in Fernanda Trías’s Mugre Rosa." Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Annual Convention.
    • 2023. "Posthumanism, Agency, and Speculative Fiction in Rita Indiana’s La mucama de Omicunlé." New Worlds in the “New World”: Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror in Contemporary Latin American Narrative and Culture/ Mundos nuevos en el “Nuevo Mundo”: Ciencia-ficción, fantasía y horror en la narrativa y la cultura contemporáneas de América Latina, a workshop held at Yale University.
    • 2022. Presentation of the edited volume Posthumanism and Latin(x) American Science Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), with coeditor Emily A. Maguire. Surviving the Anthropocene Conference, UCLA.
    • 2022. ""Eerie Capitalism in Ana Galvñ's Speculative Graphic Fiction." El Taller Summer Institute, New York University.
    • 2022. "'No se acerque... Estoy contaminado': Contagio, colectividad y ciencia ficción en Embalse de César Aira." ['Don't come any closer... I'm contaminated': Contagion, Collectivity, and Science Fiction in César Aira's Embalse]. Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Annual Convention.
    • 2022. "Disappearance, Silence, and Post-Anthropocentric Mexico City in Diego Velázquez Betancourt's La noche que asolaron Tokio." XXVI Congreso Anual de Mexicanistas Juan-Bruce Novoa [26th Juan-Bruce Novoa Annual Conference of Mexicanist Studies]. University of California at Irvine.
    • 2021. La ciencia ficción 'rosada' de Daína Chaviano y el cuestionamiento de la comunidad nacional-revolucionaria en la Cuba de los ochenta" [Daina Chaviano's 'Pink' Science Fiction and the Questioning of the National-Revolutionary Community in 1980s Cuba]. Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Annual Convention.
    • 2021. "Desperately Seeking a Good Lord: On Monarchy and El ministerio del tiempo (2015-2020)." American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Convention.
    • 2020. “Advenimiento de la ruina en Un incendio invisible de Sara Mesa” [The Advent of the Ruin in Sara Mesa's Un incendio invisible]. Northeastern Modern Languages Association (NeMLA) Annual Convention.
    • 2018. “Between Moscow and Santa Clara: The Soviet Cuban Imaginary in Agustín de Rojas’ Espiral (1980).” Latin American Studies Association (LASA) XXXVI International Conference.
    • 2018. "Masculinity, Posthumanism, and the Gothic in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In." Modern Languages Association (MLA) Annual Convention.
    • 2017. "Posthumanismo fascista en La nave (1959) de Tomás Salvador." Mid-American Conference on Hispanic Literatures (MACHL).
    • 2016. "Leaving the Café Behind: Avant-Garde Cultural Politics in Arqueles Vela's 'El Café de Nadie.'" Modernist Studies Association (MSA) Annual Meeting.
    • 2016. "Beyond Benjamin: Cult Mechanically Reproducible Images in Bioy Casares' The Invention of Morel." "Science and Culture in Theory and History: Latin America, France, and the Anglophone World." Conference organized by Oxford University and Cambridge University.
    • 2016. "Astral Cities?: Science Fiction Futures in Contemporary Brazilian Film." Latin American Studies Association (LASA) XXXIV International Conference.
    • 2015. "Science Fiction, Globalization, and the Ethics of Memory in César Aira's The Literary Conference." "Science Fiction from Latin America: The (Re)Invention of a Genre." Conference organized by Oxford University and Cambridge University.
    • 2015. "Del agotamiento de la imaginación política, o el cine español reciente de ciencia ficción: Los cronocrímenes y Eva." Congreso internacional de Historia, Arte y Literatura en el Cine Español y Portugués (CIHALCEP). Universidad de Salamanca.
    • 2015. "Game of the Worlds and the Dispossessed: On César Aira's Science Fiction." Latin American Studies Association (LASA) XXXIII International Conference.
    • 2014. "'Un latido anormal': Memoria, modernidad y ciencia ficción en Una meditación de Juan Benet." Mid-American Conference on Hispanic Literature (MACHL).
    • 2014. "Interview at the Border: Migration as Compulsion in Roberto Bolaño's 2666.""Mobility and Exchange in Latin America, Past and Present." Johns Hopkins University.    
    • 2014. "'Era parriano en la ingenuidad': Nicanor Parra en el canon anti-nostálgico de Roberto Bolaño." Northeastern Modern Language Association (NeMLA).
    • 2014. "'How Do You Describe a City?': Spectral Luchadores, Robot Apocalypse, and Esoteric Mexico City in Rodrigo Fresán's 'Mantra." American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Convention.
    • 2013. "Primeras armas: La práctica de la memoria en Kalpa Imperial de Angélica Gorodischer." XXIII Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femeninas Hispáncias (AILCFH).
    • 2013. "Ekphrasis and the Apocalypse in 1990s Mexican Cyberpunk." XXXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).
    • 2013. "Latin American Ghosts in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: On Bioy Casares' The Invention of Morel." 2013 American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Convention.
    • 2013. "From Cult to Exhibition: The Mechanically Reproducible Image in Bioy Casares' The Invention of Morel." 2013 Northeastern Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Convention.
    • 2012. "Left-Wing Peronism, the Loss of Utopia, and the Failure of Alternative Histories in Manuel Puig’s Pubis Angelical." Latin American Studies Association (LASA) XXX Convention.
    • 2012. "Images of European Collapse in Alfonso Cuarón's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Children of Men." American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) 2012 Convention.
    • 2010. "'La partida transcurrió como entre brumas': Juego, guerra y escritura en El Tercer Reich de Roberto Bolaño.” Mid-American Conference on Hispanic Literature (MACHL).
    • 2010. "2010, ruptura y renovación de la Conquista en La destrucción de todas las cosas de Hugo Hiriart.” XVI Mexican Conference. University of California at Irvine.

    Panels and seminars organized or coorganized.

    • 2023. "Visualizing the Entanglement of Rights, Conflicts, and Struggle in Latin American Cultures." Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Annual Convention.
    • 2022. "Envisioning Memory: The Work of Remembrance in Iberian Cultures." Roundtable with five participants. Northeastern Modern Language Association (NeMLA).
    • 2021. "Head and Tails of the Monarch: Representing Kings and Queens in Iberian Cultures, 1975-2020." Three-panel seminar with a total of 11 participants. American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Meeting. Coorganizer.
    • 2020. "Retrato de la ruina: On Ruins, Ruination, and Bankruptcy in Modern and Contemporary Spain." Two roundtables with a total of 12 participants. Northeastern Modern Language Association (NeMLA).
    • 2019. "Fabulous Leviathan: Visions of New York City in Peninsular Cultures, 1875-1975." American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Convention. Coorganizer.
    • 2018. "Materialities and the Cultures of Death in Spain." Modern Languages Association (MLA) Annual Convention. Coorganizer.
    • 2017. "New Cartographies of Death in Spanish Culture." Mid-American Conference on Hispanic Literatures (MACHL). Coorganizer.
    • 2016. "The Aesthetics of Latin American Science Fiction 1: Constructing Visual and Digital Futures." Latin American Studies Association (LASA) XXXIV International Conference.
    • 2015. "Colonialism and Latin American Science Fiction." Latin American Studies Association (LASA) XXXIII International Conference.
    • 2014. "The War Is Not Over Yet: Continuities and Resistance in the Permanent Conflict of Postwar Spain."  Mid-American Conference on Hispanic Literature (MACHL).   
    • 2014. "Capitals, Modernity and the Sacred in Latin American and Iberian Cultures." American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) 2014 Convention. Coorganizer.
    • 2013. "Avatares femeninos de la escritura histórica." XXIII Annual Conference of the Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina Hispánica (AILCFH).
    • 2013. "Politics, Decline, and the Apocalypse in Iberian and Latin American Cultures." 2013 Norteastern Modern Languages Association (NeMLA) Convention.
    • 2012. "Avatars of Apocalypse in Latin American and Iberian Cultures." 2012 Northeastern Modern Languages Association (NeMLA) Convention.

    Invited Talks.

    • 2019. "The Faces of Disappearance: Imagining Human Extinction in Contemporary Mexican Science Fiction." Catholic University of America.
    • 2018. "Strange Sovereignties: Imagining Political Communities in Argentine, Cuban, and Mexican Science Fiction, 1976-2016." SUNY-Albay.