Prof. Daniel Noemi Voionmaa

Affiliation: Northeastern University, USA

Bio

Daniel Noemi Voionmaa is a cultural critic, chronicler, and scholar of Latin American literature and culture. His research and teaching focuses on the intersection of critical theory and literature, and on visual arts, sports, film, and politics.
His last books are Surveillance, the Cold War and Latin American Literature (Cambridge UP); Who is Chile? (RIL); and the edited volume World Cup! History, Politics and Art of the Beautiful Game (Vernon Press). Currently he is working on issues of identity, colonialism, religion and literature in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe and Latin America.
He is a Professor at Northeastern University, Boston, where he teaches literature, film, politics, football and national identities, and contemporary Latin American cultures.

Talk Title

“Literature, National Identity, and the Beautiful Game”

Abstract

Literature has always been closely linked to the notion of national identity—whether as "foundational fictions" (Sommers) in the case of novels, or as the creator of an identity-based imaginary, particularly in poetry. Literature speaks to us of who we have been, who we are, and, above all, who we desire to become.

My presentation explores how literature—both poetry and prose—reflects the imaginary of national identities within a specific context: football. I examine various instances where literature addresses football and, in doing so, functions as both "mirror and mask" (Archetti) for our identities. I begin with the unique trajectory of Ferenc Platko—a stateless Barcelona goalkeeper from a century ago—who was immortalized in a poem by Rafael Alberti and a song by Carlos Gardel. Then, I attempt to show how the literary imagination traverses Latin American and European identities, with a particular focus on the writings of Eduardo Galeano.