Headshot of Eunice Rojas, new professor

Eunice Rojas

Herman N. Hipp Professor of Spanish Chair, Latin American and Latinx Studies Minor

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Eunice Rojas grew up spending the school year in Atlanta, Georgia and her summers in Barcelona and the Catalan Pyrenees. After completing an undergraduate degree in Spanish and Classics at Emory University, she took a long detour through law school in both Puerto Rico and Barcelona before returning to Spanish studies at the graduate level. She then earned her M.A. in Spanish Linguistics at the University of Georgia and a Ph.D. in Spanish focusing on contemporary Latin American Literature at the University of Virginia. Before coming to Furman she spent a decade teaching Spanish and Latin American literature in Central Virginia.

Research

Dr. Rojas studies contemporary Latin American, and particularly Southern Cone, literature dealing with discourses of political, social, or cultural resistance to oppression. While her first book focused on psychiatric hospitals Argentine narrative, currently she has turned her attention to music grappling with political and social justice issues from all parts of the Spanish-speaking world, but principally from Chile. Her latest book examines anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism in Chilean music from the 1960s renewal of folk music to today’s hip-hop.

Honors

  • Furman University Chiles-Harrill Award in recognition of exemplary concern and exceptional caring for undergraduate students

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Virginia
  • M.A., University of Georgia
  • J.D., Universidad de Puerto Rico
  • Licenciatura en Derecho Universitat de Barcelona
  • B.A., Emory University

Publications

Books:

  • Gringos Get Rich: Anti-Americanism in Chilean Music. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2023.
  • Spaces of Madness: Insane Asylums in Argentine Narrative. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014.
  • The Sounds of Resistance: The Role of Music in Multicultural Activism. Co-edited with Lindsay Eades. New York: Praeger Press, 2013.

Book chapters:

  • “Stopping the Rapist in our Path: Resisting Rape Culture in Latin American Music and Performance Art.” Consent: Histories, Representations, and Frameworks for the Future. Eds. Arya Thampuran et al. Taylor and Francis, Forthcoming.
  • “¿La vida volverá?: Affect in Musicians’ Narrations of the Pandemic in Chile.” Co-authored with Daniel Sarkela. Pandemic and Narration: COVID-19 Narratives in Latin America. Eds. Luis A. Medina Cordova and Andrea Espinoza. Vernon Press, Forthcoming.
  • “The Cops vs. the Commies: Cold War Cuba and Chile in U.S. Folk Music.” Red Reckoning: A New History of the Cold War and the Transformation of American Life. Eds. Mark Boulton and Tobias Gibson. Louisiana State University Press, Forthcoming November 2023.
  • “The Anxiety of the Other Side: Paris in the Contemporary Argentine Novel.” Paris in the Americas: Yesterday and Today. Ed. Carole Salmon, Vernon Press, 2022.
  • “Rocking the Colombian Casbah: Exposing Lives of Colombian Violence through Music.” Co-authored with Carlos García Pinilla. Human Rights in Colombian Literature and Cultural Production: Embodied Enactments. Eds. Kevin Guerrieri and Carlos Gardeazábal Bravo. Routledge Publishers, 2022.
  • “’There is no revolution without songs’: Teaching Latin American Resistance Music in the Spanish Curriculum.” Popular Music in the Classroom: Essays for Instructors. Ed. Dave Whitt. McFarland Publishing, 2020.
  • “Rapping for a Revolution: Latino Hip-Hop Artists and the 2016 Presidential Election.” You Can’t Always Campaign with the Song You Want:The Role of Music in the 2016 Presidential Election
    Eds. Eric T. Kasper and Benjamin S. Schoening. University of North Texas Press, 2018

Articles:

  • “Devouring Sons and Sinners: Ekphrasis in Álvaro Bisama’s Música marciana.” Ciberletras 46 (2022), 91-106
  • “Cultural Codes in the Soundtrack of Catalan Nationalism 1959-2019.” Romance Notes 60:1 (2020), 207-16.
  • “A Transgendered Soundtrack of Resistance to Pinochet’s Chile: Music and the Radio in Pedro Lemebel’s Tengo miedo torero.” MIFLC Review 19 (2019), 7-21.

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