Marissa Ambio

Lecturer
marissa.ambio@stonybrook.edu

Marissa L. Ambio (Ph.D Columbia Univ.) specializes in Latino and Latin American literature and cultural production, with a strong emphasis on nineteenth-century nation formation and modernity. She has expertise in mid- to late nineteenth century U.S. Spanish-language periodicals and ephemera. Her dissertation, Solidarities in Exile (2010), proposes that the Cuban national project of the 1870s, as it developed in exile and through periodical media, yielded articulations of nation based on heterogeneity and contributed to the conceptualization of a Hispanic New York and a Latin Western Hemisphere.

Her current work focuses on the Spanish-language illustrated periodicals of the 1870s as a particular genre of print media that functioned as national institution. She proposes that illustrated periodicals were a product of the intellectual currents of modernity, akin to other nineteenth century heterotopias such as the museum. In this project she examines the relation between visual culture, social discipline and the forging of national culture.

Marissa has published in Hispania and presented on the nineteenth-century anonymous novel Jicoténcal at the MLA annual convention. She has had the privilege of presenting work on nineteenth-century periodicals at the U.S.-Hispanic Literary Heritage Project (U of Houston) on several occasions, and on Carpentier’s Concierto Barroco at the International Conference of Caribbean Studies.

Courses taught include beginning and intermediate Spanish language and Latin American culture. Prior to joining the faculty at Stony Brook University, Marissa participated in the redesign and teaching of “Latin American Humanities,” a two-semester core curriculum course at Columbia University. During her time at Columbia she also taught several required courses for the major including “Introduction to Hispanic Studies,” “Hispanic Cultures I and II,” and an advanced undergraduate course in her area of specialization: “Hispanic New York.”

Marissa is delighted to join the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University.