Irina Feldman
Associate Professor of Luso-Hispanic Studies
- Office
- Voter 204
- Tel
- (802) 443-5470
- ifeldman@middlebury.edu
- Office Hours
- On leave (AY 2025/2026)
My teaching and publications have consistently focused on twentieth-century Latin American literary and visual cultures, primarily in the Andes region, and specifically in Bolivia. My first book on the Peruvian Indigenist writer José María Arguedas is a close reading of his monumental novel Todas las sangres, in which I consider the concept of community from different theoretical angles (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014). I later co-edited a volume of essays on Marxist tradition in Latin America. (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019). I have published consistently in peer-reviewed journals, such as MLN, Bolivian Studies Journal and Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, among others, mostly on Bolivian literary and film production as well as political theory, including intellectuals such as Fausto Reinaga, Felipe Quispe Huanca, Álvaro García Linera, Jaime Saenz and Jorge Sanjinés.
Recently, I have started to expand the time scope of my research and branch out geographically. With the support of American Philosophical Society Franklin Grant, I am working on a monograph on explorers and exiles in the networks of exchange between Paris and Latin America, from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. In this project, I return to my readings of Walter Benjamin as a key theorist for understanding of modernity and its experience in Latin America and approach the texts of the French nineteenth century explorers, such as Alcide D’Orbigny and Charles Wiener; and twentieth and twenty-first century Latin American canonical and newer writers, such as Cortázar, Vallejo, Asturias, and Gabriela Wiener.
In addition to the Paris/Latin America book project, I have parallel research and teaching projects that continue my commitment to the Andes while deepening my interest in urban studies. With the support of Whiting Grant and Ada Howe Grant for teaching, during the 2025-26 Academic Year I will be working on research about Mexico City and Santiago de Chile in preparation for my new course Cities of Spain and Latin America. I am co-authoring a chapter on the popular urban music in Indigenous languages (Q-pop in Lima, Peru and Aymara Rap in El Alto, Bolivia) for a co-edited Andean studies volume. Finally, I am collaborating on the translation and critical edition of Teoría y práctica de un cine junto al pueblo (1979) by Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Sanjinés.
I teach all levels of Spanish language as well as literature and culture courses, both introductory surveys and thematic ones, based on my research.
Courses Taught
CMLT 0700
Upcoming
Senior Thesis
Course Description
Senior Thesis
A senior thesis is normally completed over two semesters. During Fall and Winter terms, or Winter and Spring terms, students will write a 35-page (article length) comparative essay, firmly situated in literary analysis. Students are responsible for identifying and arranging to work with their primary language and secondary language readers, and consulting with the program director before completing the CMLT Thesis Declaration form. (Approval required.)
Terms Taught
SPAN 0101
Beginning Spanish I
Course Description
Beginning Spanish I
This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of grammar and focuses on the development of four skills in Spanish: comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. Emphasis will be placed on active communication aimed at the development of oral and comprehension skills. This course is for students who have not previously studied Spanish. Students are expected to continue with SPAN 0104 after successful completion of SPAN 0101. 5 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
SPAN 0220
Intermediate Spanish II
Course Description
Intermediate Spanish II
A course for students seeking to perfect their academic writing skills in Spanish. The course is also an introduction to literary analysis and critical writing and will include reading and oral discussion of literary texts. The course will also include a thorough review of grammar at a fairly advanced level. This course may be used to fulfill the foreign languages distribution requirement. (SPAN 0201, SPAN 0210, or placement) 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0300
Intro to Hispanic Literature
Course Description
An Introduction to the Study of Hispanic Literature
This course in literature and advanced language is designed to introduce students to literary analysis and critical writing. The work will be based on the reading of a number of works in prose, drama, and poetry. Frequent short, critical essays will complement readings and provide students with practice in writing. (SPAN 0220 or placement) 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0347
Indigenous peoples Bolivia
Course Description
Indigenous peoples and social movements in Bolivia
Quechua and Aymara people of the Andes, and the indigenous nations from the Lowlands have been key in grassroots movements in Bolivia in the 21st century. We will study historical and present indigenous decolonial and environmental struggles, tackling issues of political representation and self-representation. We will look at indigenist literature and film, the Constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, and indigenous journalism and performance. The Bolivian case will be placed in context with other social movements in the region and the Global South. 3 hrs. sem.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0490
Latin America in Paris
Course Description
Latin America in Paris/Paris in Latin America
Paris has been central in cultural exchanges with Latin America, as a model of an ideal city, a rejected cipher of coloniality, and a place of encounters. Many Latin American intellectuals and artists, such as Cesar Vallejo and Remedios Varo, lived and created in Paris. Tango became an Argentinean national symbol after having been recognized in the Parisian night scene. In this course we will study phenomena such as these to understand the dynamics of translation and exchange of people and ideas, and their profound impact on both Latin America and Paris. 3 hrs. sem.
Terms Taught
Requirements
SPAN 0500
Upcoming
Independent Study
Course Description
Independent Study
The department will consider requests by qualified juniors and senior majors to engage in independent work. (Approval only)
Terms Taught
SPAN 0705
Upcoming
Senior Honors Thesis
Course Description
Senior Honors Thesis
The department will award honors, high honors, or highest honors on the basis of a student's work in the department and performance in SPAN 0705. (Approval only)
Terms Taught
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Monograph
Feldman, Irina Alexandra (2014). Rethinking Community from Peru. Political Philosophy of José María Arguedas. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Edited volumes
Baker P, Feldman I A et al., eds. (2019) Latin American Marxisms: Past and Present. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Feldman Irina Alexandra and Lopez-Zapico, A M, eds. (2019) Resistiendo al Imperio: nuevas aproximaciones al antiamericanismo desde el siglo xx hasta la actualidad. Madrid: Sílex Ediciones.
Feldman, Irina Alexandra and Mario Portugal Ramírez (2025) “Felipe Quispe Huanca contra los sentidos comunes de los discursos deshumanizantes del positivismo boliviano.” Bolivian Studies Journal (accepted for publication in December 2025 issue).
Daly, T. A., & Feldman, I. A. (2025). “Man and Cosmos: an Indianist Response to Nuclear Threat in the Amautic Thought of Fausto Reinaga (Bolivia 1978–83)”. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 33(4): 1–18.
Feldman, Irina Alexandra (2022) “Marxismo Latinoamericano: La Fuerza Crítica de La Traducción Teórica.” Realidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales Y Humanidades 160: 11–34.
Feldman, Irina Alexandra (2022). “Pensamiento tecnológico y prácticas chamánicas: Leer José María Arguedas con Sara Castro-Klarén” MLN 137: 1-15.
Feldman, Irina Alexandra (2021). “‘Vida De Artistas’: La Borrachera Andina En El Ámbito Del Hampa Boliviano.” Revista De Estudios Hispánicos 55 (3): 649–674.
Feldman, Irina Alexandra (2021). “Ruin/Waste: Temporal and Spatial Logics of the City of La Paz in Saenz and Viscarra.” Bolivian Studies Journal, 26: 158–80.
Feldman Irina Alexandra and Tara Daly (2019) “José María Arguedas and Early 21st Century Cultural and Political Theories.” Oxford Bibliographies. Oxford: Oxford U. Press. www.oxfordbibliographies.com.
Feldman Irina Alexandra (2015) “The Re-Encounter of Indianismo and Marxism in the Work of Alvaro Garcia Linera”,Viewpoint Magazine, 25 February (no page numbers).
Feldman, Irina Alexandra and Tara Daly (upcoming 2027). “Andean Rap, Performance, and Social Media: From Material Streets to Virtual Clouds.” In Dynamic Cartographies: New Turns and Displacements in Andean Cultural Productions. Eds. Lorena Cuya, Nuria Villanova and Elizabeth Monasterios.
Feldman, Irina Alexandra (2022) “The insurgent subject versus accumulation by dispossession in Alvaro Garcia Linera and Jorge Sanjines.” In Accumulation and Subjectivity in Latin America, 175-194. Albany: SUNY Press.
Feldman, Irina Alexandra and Tara Daly (2020) “El legado de José María Arguedas: los límites de la ecocrítica y las contribuciones marxistas-indigenistas en el siglo XXI”. In Arguedas global: indigenismo en el nuevo milenio, edited by José Antonio Mazzotti, 77-108. Lima: Universidad César Vallejo.
Feldman, Irina Alexandra and Pareja R (2019) “Franz Tamayo and Fausto Reinaga on the State, the Army and Revolution in Bolivia of 1952: a Dialogue between Liberal and Marxist Traditions.” In Latin American Marxisms: Past and Present, 133-156. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Recent Presentations
Upcoming: Feldman, Irina Alexandra and Tara Daly. “Aymara Rap and Q-pop: emergent urban Indigeneities in Lima (Peru) and El Alto (Bolivia).” NECLAS 2025. University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. November 7-8, 2025 (in person).
Upcoming: Feldman, Irina Alexandra and Roberto Pareja. Digital Humanities International Conference 2025. Lisbon, Portugal. July 16, 2025 (in person).
Feldman, Irina Alexandra. “Paris as Colonial Museum in Huaco retrato by Gabriela Wiener.” Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland (AHGBI) Conference 2025. Edinburgh, Scotland. April 8, 2025 (in person).
Feldman, Irina Alexandra. “Teoría y práctica de un cine junto al pueblo y el legado de los cineastas soviéticos.” IILI Conference. Athens, Greece. June 8, 2023 (in person).