Irina Troconis

Associate Professor of Latin American Studies

Overview

Irina R. Troconis is Associate Professor of Latin American Studies in the Department of Romance Studies. She holds a PhD in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures from New York University, and an MPhil Degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge (UK). Her areas of specialization include: Memory Studies, Venezuelan Studies, Politics and Performance, Affect Theory, Visual Culture, and Material Culture. She is the co-organizer of the online conversation series (Re)thinking Venezuela/(Re)pensando a Venezuela, currently in its seventh season.

Professor Troconis’s first book, The Necromantic State: Spectral Remains in the Afterglow of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution (Duke University Press, 2025) explores through the lens of spectrality the memory narratives and practices developed around the figure of Hugo Chávez in the decade following his death. She is also working on three new research projects. The first one examines how the recent cultural production connected to the Venezuelan diaspora engages with issues of nostalgia, materiality, and loss. The second one considers the politics of reenactment in Latin America by analyzing a selection of performances and documentaries produced in the last thirty years. The third one explores the changes new technologies have triggered in the memory narratives, practices, and theories that shape contemporary Latin American fiction.

Professor Troconis is a graduate field member of Media Studies, the Department of Performing and Media Arts, and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program. More information about LACS can be found here.

Research Focus

Venezuelan Studies
Politics and Performance
Critical Theory
Cultural Studies
Affect Theory
Memory Studies
Material Culture

Publications

Selected Publications

“Ghosts, Wounded Butterflies, and Other Thin Histories: Memory and the Venezuelan Diaspora.” Memory Studies, 0, no. 0.

“The Firefly Effect.” LASA Forum 56, no. 1.

“Of Saints, Spirits, and Misfits: Coming Together and Coming Undone in Santa Salsa.” Hispanic Review 94, no. 1: 199–221.

“Of Frogs and Ghosts: Tales of a Haunted Diaspora.” ASAP/J, “Hauntings” Cluster, December 4, 2025.

“Pepe López’s Crisálida: Memory, Materiality, and Loss in the Venezuelan Diaspora.” Latin American & Latinx Visual Culture 7, no. 1: 4–25.

“Leaky, Dead, and Restless: Afterdeath in Contemporary Venezuelan Fiction.” Latin American Literary Review 50, no. 100: 46–55.

“French Kissing the Icon: Erotic Iconoclash and Political Subversion in Deborah Castillo’s The Emancipatory Kiss (2013).” Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 32, no. 4: 567–85.

“Unfinished Business: Visuality, Space, and the State in (Post)socialist Venezuela.” Comparative Literature Studies Journal 59, no. 3: 527–548.

“‘Pequeñas rebeldías’: Cuerpo, materialidad y resistencia en Pelo malo (2013) de Mariana Rondón.” Akademos 22, nos. 1–2: 177–202.

“Crafting Nationness: DIY Venezuela in Deborah Castillo’s RAW and Violette Bule’s REQUIEM200≤200.” Latin American Research Review 56, no. 2: 437–456.

“Echoes in the Desert: Digging Out the Disappeared in the Digital Age.” Journal of Media Art Study and Theory 1, no. 2: 76–102.