Dr Cornelia Gräbner
Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies and Comparative LiteratureAdditional Information
In my research I explore the poetics and the narratives of the social from the 1950s to the present day, in Europe and the Americas. Often times, this research takes me into the realm of the political and of the public. On these journeys of reflection and exploration I'm interested not only in what I find but also, in how we -- humans -- think about the world we inhabit and about how we inhabit it. I'm interested in three broad subject areas: poetry-in-performance, committed writing, and imaginaries of acquiescence and of critical hope.
Poetry in Performance. The performance of poetry as it has been deployed since the 1950s in the Western world is an expression of secondary orality. I'm interested especially in the intermediality of poetry in performance, in the intersections of poetry and critical thinking, and in the relationship between poetry and politics. In recent publications I have explored the sensorial plenitude of the poetry performance as an antidote to the attritional dynamics of austerity politics and necropolitics, and I'm currently compiling research on the different genres of the poetry performance. I have also curated events on the organization of poetry scenes in port cities and on poetry from the edgelands for the ó Bhéal Winter Warmer Festival in 2022 and 2023.
Committed writing. This strand of my research explores the ways in which political and ethical commitments are expressed in, or inform, poetry and prose writing. I approach committed writing as an important intervention into public debates in democratic societies, and as a practice of survival and resistance under non-democratic regimes. Committed writing invites different modes of listening. I'm specifically not interested in committed writing that defies reading practices that work through either identification or 'othering'; my interest lies with committed writing that works through curiosity and critique. I have published on the representation of 1970s armed movement in the Mexican novel, on writing from within the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity in Mexico, on writing from within cataclysmic historical movements and, most recently, on the poetry and the memoirs of Carolyn Forché.
Imaginaries of Acquiescence and Stories of Critical Hope in the 21st century. This line of research emerged from the enquiry into psychosocial obstacles to social and political transformation. It holds that imaginaries of acquiescences are a feature of the cultures of contemporary low-intensity democracies. These imaginaries can be made visible when we decode 'hidden transcripts' (James C. Scott) of acquiescence and suppression. They can be countered by stories of 'critical hope' (Paulo Freire), whereby Freire importantly maintaints that critical hope requires denunciation as well as annunciation. Currently I'm writing stories of critical hope based on the holdings of the CAMeNA in Mexico City.
See the blog series The Aliveness of Memory, published in collaboration with the Latin America Bureau: https://lab.org.uk/series/camena-blog/
Projects:
Collaborative: Contemporary poetry and politics: social conflict and poetic dialogisms (POEPOLIT II)
As a direct continuation of three previous research projects, researchers involved in the project Contemporary poetry and politics: social conflict and poetic dialogisms (POEPOLIT II, PID2019-105709RB-I00) explore the relationships between poetics and politics, and their impact in contemporary western societies. With three projects since 2010, the work of a stable group of international researchers has expanded poetics analyses theoretically and in practice, as well as their interfaces with politics. The project is of a comparative and relational nature and focuses on poetry in several languages and from a range of regions and territories.
Duration of the project: 2020-2023. Funding entity: Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Spain). See https://poepolit.blogspot.nl/p/poepolit.html
Individual: Cultural Imaginaries of Acquiescence in Contemporary Low-Intensity Democracies, funded by The Leverhulme Trust from September 2017 until May 2019.
Stories of Critical Hope from the Centro Académico de la Memoria de Nuestra América (CAMeNA), funded by the British Academy.
Research Overview
Cornelia's research focuses on poetry in performance, committed writing, and cultural imaginaries of acquiescence and stories of critical hope.
She explores the interplay of emancipation and experimentality in performance poetry, engages with committed writing as a practice that takes us beyond identification or 'othering', picks apart cultural imaginaries of acquiescence and counters these with narratives of critical hope. Her research includes Europe and the Spanish-speaking Americas, and literatures in Spanish, English, and German.
Cornelia's research draws on the methodologies of literary and cultural analysis. She has been involved in several international research projects on contemporary poetry.
PhD Supervision Interests
performance poetry; literature, social movements and the public sphere; comparative literary studies; contemporary Latin American literature Proposals may take a comparative approach or may focus on the literature of particular countries.
Selected Publications
Absences and Opacities: Reading ‘Hidden’ Stories of Seafaring in B. Traven’s Ship of the Dead and Francisco Goldman’s The Ordinary Seaman
Grabner, C. 9/01/2018 In: Atlantic Studies. 15, 1, p. 83-102. 20 p.
Journal article
Poetry and performance: the Mersey poets, the international poetry incarnation and performance poetry
Gräbner, C. 31/12/2015 In: The Cambridge companion to British poetry since 1945. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press
Chapter (peer-reviewed)
Public spaces and global listening spaces: poetic resonances from the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity in Mexico
Gräbner, C. 08/2015 In: Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies. 11, 3, 26 p.
Journal article
“But how to speak of such things?”: decolonial love, the coloniality of gender, and political struggle in Francisco Goldman's The Long Night of White Chickens (1992) and Jennifer Harbury's Bridge of Courage (1994) and Searching for Everardo (1997)
Gräbner, C. 2014 In: Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies. 20, 1, p. 51-74. 24 p.
Journal article
All Publications
Investigative Journalists as Cultural Mediators in an Age of Threat: Examples from Mexico and the Amazon
01/12/2023 → 31/12/2024
Research
Building Critical Hope at the Autonomous Center for the Memory of 'Our América': Integrity, Solidarity, Care
01/05/2023 → 30/04/2025
Research
Contemporary poetry and politics: social conflict and poetic dialogisms
01/06/2020 → 31/05/2024
Research
Poetry and Politics
01/01/2017 → 31/12/2019
Other
Contemporary Poetry in Public Spaces
01/01/2013 → 31/12/2015
Research
Poetry in Public Spaces
01/01/2013 → 31/12/2015
Other
Non-Lyric Discourses in Contemporary Poetry: Spaces, Subjects, Mediality
01/01/2010 → 31/12/2011
Other
Poetics of Resistance
01/10/2007 → …
Other
Universidad Autonoma de la Ciudad de Mexico
Visiting an external academic institution
Dr Ainhoa Montoya: Dispossession through Juridification
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
'They only want your Body and Soul': The Poetics of Rebellion and Resistance in Contemporary Tory Britain
Invited talk
(Un)fair Cities
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Ó Bhéal Winter Warmer Festival
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
(Un)timely Crises
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Against the Grain
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Annual Conference of the Cultural Studies Association
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
CINCO SESIONES DE POESÍA ACTUAL Y POLÍTICA
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
General Performance and Hidden Transcripts in Tom McCarthy’s Satin Island (2015): A Dialogue
Invited talk
Comparative or Relational? Responding to Performance Poetry on 21st Century Ongoing Violence
Invited talk
Lo poetico y lo politico en la actualidad
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Acquiescencia en las culturas de democracia de baja intensidad
Invited talk
Centro Académico de la Memoria de Nuestra América
Visiting an external academic institution
NECS 2018 conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Ciudadanxs zombies: Ciudad globalizada, acquiescencia y represión en la novela Satin Island de Tom McCarthy
Oral presentation
Kamchatka: Revista de Análsis Cultural (Journal)
Publication peer-review
Testimony. Poetry. Language.
Invited talk
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis
Visiting an external academic institution
Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Urban World-Making
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Writing for Liberty 2017
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Amsterdam Center for Globalisation Studies ACGS (External organisation)
Member of an organisation
Critical Studies Journal (Journal)
Publication peer-review
Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Music for Hope (External organisation)
Member of Advisory Panel
ASAP/Journal - Journal of The Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (Journal)
Editorial activity
Situations and Events: Intensifications of State Violence in Mexico and the Poetics of Resistance
Invited talk
La poésie dans les éspaces publiques
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Annual Conference Society of Latin American Studies
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Authors and the World
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association: Capitals
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
A Contracorriente (Journal)
Publication peer-review
Latin American Utopian Visions
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Annual Conference Society of Latin American Studies
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
II Simposio Internacional "Cultura e Crise"
Invited talk
Poetic Disruptions of the Neoliberal Etiquette: The European
Invited talk
El otro mundo que si es posible: Neo-zapatismo y imaginarios de alterglobalisacion en el trabajo cultural
Invited talk
Who Grants Poetic Licence? Performance Poetry betweeen Social Critique, Political Activism, and the Market
Invited talk
La poesia en voz alta en los anyos 70 y 80: Tendencias y manifestaciones
Invited talk
Politics are Sexy: Gendered and Political violence in Francisco Goldman's 'The Long Night of White Chickens'
Invited talk
- Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research
- Latin America Research Cluster
- Poetics of Resistance