Isabel Balseiro

Isabel Balseiro

Alexander and Adelaide Hixon Professor of Humanities
Professor of Comparative Literature

AB 1985, Barnard College
PhD 1992, New York University

Isabel Balseiro specializes in African and Latin American literatures, cinema from the Global South, postcolonial studies, translation theory, and interdisciplinary approaches to literary culture. She is the editor of Running towards Us: New Writing from South Africa (Heinmann, 2000), which focuses on post-apartheid literary discourse and grapples with the “new” South Africa as reflected in poetry and fiction preoccupied with history, language, and memory. With Ntongela Masilela she co-edited To Change Reels: Film and Film Culture in South Africa (Wayne State UP, 2003), an inquiry into the history of South African film and its future–one that focuses on the country’s cinematic production while squarely facing questions of race. And with Tobias Hecht she co-edited South Africa: A Traveler’s Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press, 2009). In Poesía descalza (Valparaíso Ediciones, 2020) and Por la vida siento la fuerza (Valparaíso Ediciones, 2021), Balseiro recovers the oeuvre of twentieth-century poet María Acuña. A visiting research associate at the University of Cambridge, the Federal University of Pernambuco, and the University of Cape Town, she is the recipient of fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Irvine Foundation, among others. In 2023-2024, Balseiro was awarded a María Zambrano Fellowship for the Recruitment of International Talent, Department of Universities, Government of Spain. During the fellowship year she was a Visiting Professor at the Department of English Studies, Complutense University of Madrid.

Courses Taught

(Please refer to HSA Departmental Courses for this semester’s courses.)

  • AMST120 HM – Hyphenated Americans
  • MS172 HM – Third Cinema
  • MS173 HM – Exile in Cinema
  • LIT144 HM – Poe Goes South: The Fantastic Short Story in Latin America
  • LIT145 HM – Third-World Women Writers
  • LIT146 HM – Twentieth-Century South African Literature
  • LIT147 HM – Writers From Africa and the Caribbean
  • LIT155 HM – Post-Apartheid Narratives
  • LIT156 HM – Translation; or, the Foreignness of Language
  • LIT158 HM – Zora Neale Hurston: Theories of Race, Gender, and Art
  • LIT179 HM – Reading Race Writing
  • HSA10 – Critical Inquiry: English with an Accent
  • WRIT001 – Writing Matters
  • WRIT001E – Writing as a Second Language

Independent Studies

  • HSA197 – Introduction to Archival Studies in the Humanities
  • HSA197 – Asian American Comparative Ethnic Studies
  • HSA197 – Post WWII Japanese American Literature
  • HSA197 – Arundhati Roy: Creative Writer and Political Activist
  • HSA197 – Zora Neale Hurston and the Digital Humanities
  • HSA197 – South African Cinema History
  • HSA197 – Narrating Immigrant Identities
  • HSA197 – Traditional, Experimental, and Interactive Narratives
  • HSA197 – Twentieth Century Latin American and Peninsular Literature
  • HSA197 – Postwar Spanish Women Writers
  • RLST197 – Women and Religion in Latin America
  • HSA197 – Latin American Pre-Columbian Mythology