Anna Castillo

Assistant Professor of Spanish

As a Morehead-Cain Scholar at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Professor Castillo's pursuit of a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Latin American Studies took her to Bolivia, Mexico, and Costa Rica, where she conducted qualitative research with community activists in healthcare, education, and LGBTIQ rights. After graduating with honors, she was awarded a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to study Comparative Literature for a year at Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina) and later earned a Ph.D. in Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University. She arrived at Vanderbilt in 2017 and served as the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Spanish for four years before becoming a regular assistant professor in the department.

Professor Castillo researches contemporary Southern Cone literature and film with a particular interest in technology and intimacy. Her current book project (Posthuman Intimacy: The Plasticity of Companionship in Contemporary Southern Cone Narrative) is a study of recent Southern Cone novels about how human intimacy is moving beyond the human. These novels offer an unflinching portrayal of the more-than-human aspects of companionship today.

Recent Publications

“A Private Matter: Naturalist Rurality and Juvenile Intersexuality in Solomonoff’s El último verano de la Boyita (2009).” Submitted December 17, 2020. Forthcoming in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Winter 2022.

“Crear o Criar: Maternity and Choice Feminism in Meruane's Fruta Podrida and Contra los hijos.” Hispanic Review, vol. 87, no. 3, Summer 2019, pp. 355-76.

“Explicit Complicity: A Grindr Narrative.” Chasqui: Revista de literatura latinoamericana, vol. 47, no. 2, Fall 2018, pp. 3-14.