translation and the continuum of decomposition by way of introduction to the idea that translation is a thing that decides when it is to be done but since it is never done we are always repositioning ourselves as subjects in the worlds we imagine and the worlds we occupy and since we can’t really tell the difference between those worlds we engage in translation as a primal force that comes before everything else which is to say that because we cannot scream we translate

— Daniel Borzutzky (2015)

Ethan Madarieta euskal-amerikarra da. He earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with a graduate Minor in Latina/o Studies and a Certificate in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2020. Professor Madarieta’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of Latin American, Latine/x, Black, and Indigenous studies with specializations in Latin American, Latine/x, and Pan-American Indigenous theory and literatures. His research and teaching engage memory studies, queer and trans* studies, Latine/x, Black, and Indigenous studies, and critical race and ethnicity studies. His current book project, tentatively titled The Body is (Not) the Land: Memory, Translation, and the Territorial Aporia, thinks through conceptions of sovereignty, Indigenous presence, and precedence in the literatures and political performances (such as the ongoing hunger strikes) of Mapuche Indigenous peoples of Wallmapu [Chile and Argentina]. Through these sites, the book considers how and when Indigenous bodies and land intersect, and in what ways state and Indigenous conceptions of the body and land are distinct and overlapping. The Body Is (Not) the Land attends to the ontoepistemological underpinnings of Indigenous territorial precedence as body-territorial relation and pursues the possibilities of restitution beyond juridical means.

Pan-American Indigenous literatures and philosophies; Latin American and Latine/x literature; Latine/x studies; Critical Indigenous studies and Settler-colonial studies; memory studies; gender and sexuality studies; queer and trans* theory; performance theory; critical race and ethnicity studies.

Each of my classes incorporates forms of embodied and experiential learning. Each class focuses on cultivating a learning environment that facilitates the relationships needed for engaging in the demanding but necessary work of critical self-reflection and social analysis. I encourage students to be bold in their analyses to contend with the ongoing violent legacies of slavery, colonialism, and dispossessions in their many forms. I teach the importance of relationality in knowledge production and identify pedagogy as a methodology for political, social, and self-transformation.

“Mapuche Hunger Strikes as a Performance of Re-membering.” Critical Memory Studies: New Approaches. Brett A. Kaplan, ed., Bloomsbury Academic, May 2023.

“The Body Is (Not) the Land: Mapuche Hunger Strikes and the Territorial Aporia.” Critical Times: Interventions in Global Critical Theory 5, no. 3, December 2022: 570-602. Online/Print.

“the (dissenting) line/la línea (disidente)” Emilio Rojas: tracing a wound through my body, bilingual catalogue, Grossman Gallery, Lafayette College, 2022: 82-91. Digital/Print.

“An Impulse Toward Agency: Teaching Sexual Violence in Afro-Latina/o/x Literature.” #MeToo and Literary Studies: Reading, Writing, and Teaching about Sexual Violence and Rape Culture. Mary K. Holland and Heather Hewett, eds., Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. Print.

“‘Marichiweu’: Performances of Memory and Mapuche Presence in Guillermo Calderón’s Villa.” Latin American Theatre Review, Vol 53 No 1: Spring 2020. Print.

“silence might have its own significance: an interview with Daniel Borzutzky.” A Contracorriente: una revista de estudios latinoamericanos 17, no 1: Fall 2019. Online/Print.

Assistant Professor of English and Program for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz (SUNY New Paltz)

SUNY PRODiG Scholar (2020-2021)