Isabel Treanor '19 Presents at SAMLA

Senior Spanish and international studies major Isabel Treanor presented her research for the panel on “(Socio)Political: Where Culture and Genre Meet” at Undergraduate Research Forum at South Atlantic Modern Languages Annual Conference held Nov. 2-4 in Birmingham, Alabama.

Treanor’s presentation titled “Modernizing Magical Realism” sought to understand whether contemporary Chilean society continues to value and study the fictional works by Chilean authors that incorporated the elements of Magical Realism while conveying serious social and political messages. It explored the intersectionality between the sociopolitical themes relevant for the period in which they lived and wrote, the use of innovative literary techniques of their times, such as Magical Realism and the ways in which the contemporary Chilean readership “modernized” or brought a contemporary relevance to these authors’ works.

Reading the works of prominent Chilean authors such as José Donoso, Isabel Allende, Roberto Bolaño and Alberto Fuguet, some of the more specific questions that Isabel’s research addresses are whether the social and political messages of these writers are still relevant to contemporary Chilean readership; if modern readers understand their messages in the context of the events and social environment of the authors’ lives or in a modern context; and, to what extent does their use of the literary technique of Magical Realism affect (hinder or promote) the understanding of these sociopolitical messages.