Barbarita Polster

Barbarita Polster is a Ph.D. student in Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University, with a home department in Spanish & Portuguese. She concurrently serves as a Lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and North Park University. Her research focuses on code-switching and code-mixing across semiotic, sociocultural, and infrastructural dimensions, with a particular emphasis on Latin American and Caribbean cultural texts. She explores connections between Bakhtin’s heteroglossia and Glissant’s creolité to analyze cultural production’s revolutionary potential.

• Educational Background:
  • MFA in Visual & Critical Studies (School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with Dean’s Graduate Scholarship)
  • BFA in Visual Culture (Cleveland Institute of Art)

Her writing appears in Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, and other venues. She is fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew.

Awards:

• Dean’s Graduate Scholarship (SAIC)

Research & Interests: Examines democracy, economy, and society through Latin American cultural production, emphasizing interdisciplinary frameworks. No grants or labs explicitly mentioned, though her work intersects with visual and literary theory.