Antonio Barrenechea
Professor | University of Mary Washington
Fredericksburg, VA, UNITED STATES
Antonio Barrenechea is a scholar and teacher of literature of the Americas and cinema.
Spotlight
Biography
Antonio Barrenechea is a scholar and teacher of literature of the Americas and cinema. His first book is America Unbound: Encyclopedic Literature and Hemispheric Studies (University of New Mexico Press, 2016). It brings together the disciplines of comparative literature and hemispheric studies by tracing “New World” historical imaginaries in novels from the United States, Latin America, and Francophone Canada. He is also coeditor of “Hemispheric Indigenous Studies,” a special issue of Comparative American Studies (2013). Dr. Barrenechea has contributed articles and reviews to Comparative Literature, Revista Iberoamericana, American Literature, and several other journals and collections. The forthcoming “Hemispheric Studies Beyond Suspicion” was awarded the 2014-2016 prize for best essay by the International Association of Inter-American Studies. During a recent fellowship at the Institut Américain Universitaire in Aix-en-Provence, France, he lectured in Europe and provided an interview for the Italian journal América Crítica. Dr. Barrenechea is currently writing “Hemispheric Horrors: Monster, Trash, and Exploitation Cinema of the Americas,” a book on the relationship between shock and avant-garde aesthetics in cinema produced at the fringes of North and South American film capitals. He serves on the boards of the International American Studies Association, the International Association of Inter-American Studies, and Comparative American Studies.
Areas of Expertise (3)
Comparative Literature
Cinema Studies
Literature of the Americas
Accomplishments (1)
Barrenechea Appointed IAU College Resident Fellow in Aix-en-Provence, France (professional)
2016-03-28
Antonio Barrenechea, associate professor of English, has been appointed the Institute for American Universities College Resident Fellow, Aix-en-Provence, France, for the academic year 2016-17. His residency will coincide with a sabbatical project on how the South American underground cinema reinvents Hollywood and European "trash" and avant-garde film sources.
Education (3)
Fordham University: B.A., Comparative Literature 1998
Yale University: M.Phil., Comparative Literature 2001
Yale University: Ph.D., Comparative Literature 2005
Affiliations (5)
- Comparative American Studies
- Comparative Literature Association
- International American Studies Association
- American Comparative Literature Association
- International Association of Inter-American Studies
Media Appearances (4)
It's the Summer of Love again as streaming services unleash romcoms for the season
meaww.com online
2019-05-06
"The Canadian literary theorist, Northrop Fry, provides insight into its origins. As with the seasons of the year, genres deploy archetypes of birth, maturation, decay, death, and rebirth, all within natural cycles," said Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington.
Why shows like 'Dead to Me' are helping us embrace dark comedy like never before
meaww.com online
2019-05-06
Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington has a different opinion of 21st Century's vicarious morbidity fans. "Dark humor responds to our absurd condition with the armor of world-weariness. Except that, of course, we also know we can't really laugh such troubles away — which is why dark humor has a fatalistic dimension built into it," he said.
Barrenechea Selected for Jessie Ball duPont Summer Seminar
Eagle Eye online
2014-03-10
Antonio Barrenechea, Associate Professor of English, has been selected to participate in one of the two 2014 Jessie Ball duPont Summer Seminars sponsored by the National Humanities Center.
Barrenechea Contributes to Multimedia Encyclopedia
Eagle Eye online
2013-09-03
Antonio Barrenechea, Associate Professor of English, recently published two film studies articles, one on John Boorman’s "Deliverance" (1974) and the other on Michael Cimino’s "The Deerhunter" (1978), in Multicultural America: A Multimedia Encyclopedia (SAGE, 2013).
Articles (5)
Hemispheric Indigenous Studies: Introduction
Comparative American Studies2013-01-01
This special issue approaches Native American Studies across the Americas in order to emphasize connections between indigenous people that are often overlooked and/or suppressed in scholarship by both Native and non-Native scholars. Together, the ...
Good Neighbor/Bad Neighbor: Boltonian Americanism and Hemispheric Studies
Comparative Literature2009-01-01
This essay locates the intellectual origins of comparative American studies in Herbert Eugene Bolton's “The Epic of Greater America” (1931). Bolton argued for a hemispheric approach to the study of history and laid the groundwork for a comparative ...
Conquistadors, Monsters, and Maps: Moby-Dick in a New World Context
Comparative American Studies2009-01-01
Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" (1851) is read within a hemispheric American context of transmission across political and cultural borders. A reinterpretation is proposed of what many still regard as the Great American Novel by examining the national concerns of ...
Hemispheric Horrors: Celluloid Vampires from the "Good Neighbor" Era
Comparative American Studies2009-01-01
Universal Studios' 1931 Anglophone and Hispanic adaptations of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897) are placed in the context of the early sound cinema and the U.S. "Good Neighbor" policy. The Mexican horror and vampire cinema is analyzed in connection with ...
Barrenechea Surveys Career of Thomas Pynchon in Review Essay
www.americanbookreview.org2016-03-28
Antonio Barrenechea, associate professor of English, recently published the retrospective review essay “Thomas Pynchon, Literary Giant.” It is the lead essay in an issue on “Big Novels” for American Book Review 37.2 (2016).
