Dr Katie Brown

I joined the University of Exeter in 2018, and was co-Director of Education and Student Experience for Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies from 2021-2024. I am also leading the development of the new BA Comparative Literatures and Cultures with Prof Helena Taylor.

I specialize in contemporary Latin American culture, with a particular focus on Venezuela. My main research interests are the circulation of people (travel, migration and exile) and of texts (publishing, cultural policy and translation), and questions of identity. I also research and teach about cultural responses to politics in the 20th and 21st century.

My PhD, completed at King's College London in 2016, focused on the cultural policy of the 'Bolivarian' government in Venezuela and discussions about why and how to write in fiction from the period. This forms the basis of my first monograph, Writing and the Revolution: Venezuelan Metafiction (2004-2012), published by Liverpool University Press (2019), as well as an article in the Bulletin of Latin American Research.

My current research focuses on Venezuelan migration, publishing and translation, leading to the network Venezuelan Voices in the World: https://venezuelanvoices.exeter.ac.uk/

I am passionate about making Latin American literature accesible not only in the classroom but also to the wider public through translation. I co-edited Crude Words: Contemporary Writing from Venezuela (Ragpicker Press, 2016) and regularly share translations online, particularly through Latin American Literature Today: http://www.latinamericanliteraturetoday.org/en My translation of Desde la salvajada by Alejandra Banca will be published by Selkies House in 2024.

Translation has taken me far back in time, to join the international team digitizing, editing, studying and translated the 13th century General e Gran Estoria, commissioned by Alfonso X: The Confluence of Religious Cultures in Medieval Historiography

I am very active in the Hispanic Studies community, acting as Treasurer for the Association of Hispanists and regularly attending conferences.

Biography:

I studied BA Modern Languages and European Studies (French and Spanish) at the University of Bath from 2007 to 2011, graduating with First Class honours. This degree cemented in me the interdisciplinary and international approach I have carried into my teaching. During my degree, I spent a year studying politics, psychology and sociology at Sciences Po in Paris. I completed my MA in European Studies at Cardiff University (2011-2012) and then a PhD in Spanish American Studies at King's College London, under the supervision of Professor Catherine Boyle, with a thesis on literary production in Venezuela (2012-2016).

I taught Spanish and Latin American literature throughout my PhD at KCL, then spent two years as a Teaching Fellow in Hispanic Studies at the University of Bristol, before joining the University of Exeter in 2018.

Research supervision:

I am open to discussing research proposals on any relevant subject given my research expertise. I am especially happy to consider working with candidates with interests in the following areas:

• Venezuelan studies
• Contemporary Latin American literature and culture
• Migration and exile
• Publishing
• Translation and reception
• Comparative literatures and cultures