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Sofia Mercader, PhD student

PhD Student in Hispanic Studies

Part-time teaching assistant

Email: s dot mercader at warwick dot ac dot ukHumanities Building, University Road, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

About

I received my degree in Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires, where I specialized in Argentine and Latin American Thought. My present research is focused on contemporary Argentine intellectuals.

Research interests

  • Intellectual history
  • Latin American History and Culture
  • Argentinian History and Literature
  • Political thought

PhD Project

My thesis is mainly focused on contemporary Argentine intellectuals. In particular, the purpose of my project is to study the generation of intellectuals in Argentina around 1983, at the transition from the dictatorship period to the new hitherto democratic regime. Most of the intellectual groups analysed in the dissertation project, had a left political background, for which many of them suffered censorship during the last, particularly cruel, dictatorship (1976-1983). Nevertheless, these men and women maintained certain spaces to express themselves, either in exile or locally and, when democracy was finally re-established, they vigorously participated in the cultural sphere and presented a corpus of new ideas that revised their previous Marxist conception of politics and culture.

Many of the discussions of the period were outlined in different magazines, such as Controversia (1979-1981), La Ciudad Futura (1986-2003), Unidos (1983-1991), and Punto de Vista (1978-2008) among others. Moreover, these magazines worked as places of convergence where intellectual identities were built. In their pages, it is possible to find a number of topics that are related to the political events of the moment in Argentina, but also to contemporary theory: from the re-thinking of left discourses to the analysis of the historical, literary and cultural background of the country. Through these intellectual interventions, this generation of thinkers and writers re-interpreted their tradition as they sought for a new definition of the nation. My research, therefore, attempts to analyse key figures and movements that helped shape the historical transition that started in ‘catacomb’ intellectual spaces in 1976 and finished towards 1989.


Teaching and supervision

HP101: Modern Spanish Language I (Oral)

HP201: Modern Spanish Language II (Oral)

Awards

  • Warwick Chancellor's Award 2014
  • SLAS Postgraduate Travel Grant 2015

Drop-in Hour (Term 1)

I'm available to see students without appointment at the following times:

Friday 11-12, room H205.

For all other times, please email for an appointment.

Teaching (2015-16)

HP101: Modern Spanish Language I
HP201: Modern Spanish Language II