Nicolás Fernández-Medina
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nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
Nicolás Fernández-Medina
@nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
140 followers 130 following 12 posts
Professor of Spanish & Iberian Studies; Dept. of Romance Studies at Boston University; Series Editor-MQUP's Iberian and Latin American Cultures
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nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
**New from MQUP's Iberian & Latin Am Cultures Series**

From Griffin to Axolotl: Reimagining the Bestiary in Contemporary Hispanic Literature, by Ailen Cruz

"What the resurgence of a medieval literary genre reveals about contemporary Latin America and Spain"

www.mqup.ca/from-griffin...
The fox is cunning, the lion is brave. These familiar ideas span back to the medieval bestiary – short, animal-centred texts, often illustrated, used to disseminate Christian teachings in medieval society. Translated into dozens of languages, bestiaries were wildly popular until the twelfth century. After centuries of obscurity, six of Latin America’s most prominent writers – Juan José Arreola, Jorge Luis Borges, Nicolás Guillén, Augusto Monterroso, Pablo Neruda, and José Emilio Pacheco – took up the bestiary during the experimental Latin American avant-garde and Boom periods. From Griffin to Axolotl presents the bestiary as a distinct genre within Hispanic literature, examining its resurgence in the contemporary canon. Analyzing a corpus of over eighty bestiaries collected through field research in Canada, Argentina, Mexico, and Spain, Ailén Cruz explores the evolutions of the genre. Reimagined through both prose and art, and moving beyond religious teachings, these bestiaries range from the rebellious to the nonsensical, touching on a spectrum of topics – from preservation of Indigenous Latin American cultures to environmental crises and the human condition. From Griffin to Axolotl promotes an understudied genre of Hispanic literature, demonstrating that the bestiary is not extinct, but has been remoulded for modern society.
June 8, 2025 at 10:51 AM
nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
**New from MQUP's Iberian & Latin Am Culture Series**

Pasting Up Protest: The Art of Memorializing Violence in Mexican Printmaking, by Annik Bilodeau

"How artistic activism challenges political and gender-based violence in Mexico and reshapes collective memory"

www.mqup.ca/pasting-up-p...
Across Mexico, human rights abuses take many forms, as do the strategies designed to denounce and resist them. Political street art thrives; murals, stencils, and posters challenge authorities and commemorate the missing and the disappeared. Pasting Up Protest explores the sociopolitical engagement of contemporary Mexican artists, introducing the concept of memory activism, the guiding philosophy behind their efforts to expose human rights violations such as forced disappearances and feminicides. Through her analysis of street art interventions from the collectives ASARO, URT-Arte, ARMARTE, and MuGRe over the past decade, Annik Bilodeau argues that these artists are shaping a new collective memory. By depicting real-life victims and referencing past acts of state-sponsored violence, their works create a familiar visual vocabulary that elicits empathy and compassion in the viewer. A reliance on a tradition of printmaking, a highly reproducible medium, further amplifies the emotional impact of the images. A critical examination of the role of art in creating public memory, Pasting Up Protest sheds light on how Mexican artists document crimes of the state, transforming citizens into political agents of change.
June 8, 2025 at 10:45 AM
nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
The Iberian & Latin American Cultures Series at McGill-Queen's UP is opening a call for single-authored, English language manuscripts. Details of the submission procedure for proposals can be found here:

www.mqup.ca/submitting-a...

For questions, feel free to reach out to me: nfm@bu.edu

Thanks!
April 16, 2025 at 9:52 PM
nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
On Monday, April 14 @ 3pm EST/US the Iberian Modernist Studies Forum @ Boston U will be hosting Christopher Maurer, Prof of Spanish, Boston U. The title of his Zoom presentation is: “Lorca’s American Archive.”

Please reach out for the Zoom link to nfm@bu.edu or inh@bu.edu.

Hope you can join us!
https://sites.bu.edu/imsf/
April 1, 2025 at 3:08 PM
nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
New book by Andrew W. Keitt on the linkages between medicine and politics in nineteenth-century Spain:

A Physician in the Age of Liberal Reform:
Ildefonso Martínez y Fernández and Medical Politics
in Nineteenth-Century Spain

Check it out here:

lsupress.org/978080718228...
March 19, 2025 at 2:38 PM
nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
Iberian Modernist Studies Forum @ BU will be hosting Max Jensen, Asst. Prof. Spanish & Comp Lit, U of Pittsburgh, Bradford, Monday, Mar 24 @ 3pm US/EST.

Title of Zoom presentation is: “Garcilasismo: The End of Peninsular Modernism?”

Reach out for link or with questions. I hope you can join us!
https://sites.bu.edu/imsf/
March 4, 2025 at 4:42 PM
nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
New from MQUP!

Y Tu Mamá También, by Juan Llamas-Rodriguez

A critical study of the musical legacy, new media afterlives, and queer significance of the 2001 hit.

www.mqup.ca/y-tu-mam---t...
https://www.mqup.ca/y-tu-mam---tambi--n-products-9780228023791.php#!prettyPhoto
February 20, 2025 at 7:51 PM
nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
Students & faculty from BU Dept of Romance Studies have collaborated on the first-ever exhibition on the archive of poet Federico García Lorca. The exhibition Lorca y el archivo: Memoria en movimiento is the largest ever organized by the Centro Federico García Lorca.
www.bu.edu/rs/2025/01/2...
https://www.bu.edu/rs/2025/01/28/bu-rs-faculty-students-collaborate-on-lorca-exhibition/
January 30, 2025 at 2:17 PM
nicolasfmedina.bsky.social
Iberian Modernist Studies Forum @ BU presents:

Rafael Cabañas Alamán, SLU, Madrid Campus
"Los objetos insólitos y el alma en las minificciones de Ramón Gómez de la Serna"
Monday, Feb 24, 3-4pm US/EST
Zoom Presentation

For Zoom link, pls reach out to nfm@bu.edu or inh@bu.edu

Thanks!
https://sites.bu.edu/imsf/
January 29, 2025 at 10:18 PM