Maria Cisterna

Maria Cisterna is Professor and Department Chair of Hispanic Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She received her PhD from New York University in 2005 and joined the university that same year, when it was still known as the Hispanic Studies Department. She has established herself as a leading scholar in Latin American literary studies with a particular focus on Argentine literature.

Her research interests center on exile and travel narratives in Argentine literature, memory and autobiography, history and politics, and the social and political representation of hotels in Latin American literatures. She has developed a distinctive scholarly approach that examines how physical spaces, particularly transient ones like hotels, function as metaphors for political and social conditions in post-dictatorship Argentina. Her work bridges literary analysis with historical and political contexts, revealing how literature processes collective trauma and national identity.

Cisterna's publications demonstrate a consistent focus on the relationship between literature and political history in Argentina, particularly during the post-dictatorship period. Her scholarship traces how writers have used narrative forms to process exile, memory, and national identity in the aftermath of traumatic historical events. She has developed a particular expertise in analyzing how urban spaces function as literary and political metaphors in contemporary Latin American fiction.

As Department Chair, she oversees the academic direction of the Hispanic Studies program while maintaining an active research agenda. She teaches courses on Latin American Literatures and Cultures, Argentina, Autobiography and Exile, contributing significantly to the education of students in Latin American cultural studies. Her leadership in the department has helped shape the curriculum to reflect contemporary approaches to Latin American literary and cultural studies.

Her current research project continues her exploration of spatial representation in literature, focusing specifically on the social and political significance of hotels in Latin American literary works. This project extends her established scholarly trajectory while opening new avenues for understanding how physical spaces reflect and shape political realities in the region.