Aarti Smith Madan

Biography

Education: BA Birmingham-Southern College 2004 MA University of Pittsburgh 2007 PhD University of Pittsburgh 2010 Aarti Smith Madan is an Assistant Professor of Spanish & International Studies in the Department of Humanities and Arts at WPI. Her research centers on the ways spatial practices inform the production and consumption of literature, film, and art in Latin America. In her first book, Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative: National Territory, National Literature (under contract, Palgrave Macmillan), Professor Madan unearths the literary roots of the discipline of geography in nineteenth-century Latin America. Her second book-length project explores literary and cultural encounters between Latin America and India, with a special focus on Brazil. Through that research, she discovered the feminist works of Brazilian street artist Panmela Castro, whose art and activism inform her project on South-South collaboration between women artists of color. Professor Madan brings her research interests into the classroom both in Worcester and in Buenos Aires, where she leads WPI’s biennial summer language immersion. In 2013, she was awarded the Romeo Moruzzi Young Faculty Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Education. Professor Madan is active on- and off-campus as part of the Educational Development Council, as Faculty Advisor to Alpha Xi Delta, and as Vice Chair of the Women’s Initiative Community Impact Committee.

Research Interest

Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies; Cultural Geography and Geocriticism; Ecocriticism; Spanish-Language Instruction and Foreign Language Pedagogy; Testimonio; Women Artists Across the Americas