Víctor Goldgel Carballo

Fall 2025 Office Hours

by appointment

Biography

Víctor Goldgel Carballo is Professor of Latin American literatures and cultures. He is also an affiliate at the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program, the Program in Chicanx/e Latinx/e Studies, and the Center for Visual Culture and Performance Studies. His current teaching and writing focus on racial ideologies, abolitionism, fictionality, and the relationship between politics and literature. His research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Humanities Center, and the UW-Madison Institute for Research in the Humanities. His first monograph, Cuando lo nuevo conquistó América. Prensa, moda y literatura en el siglo XIX (Siglo XXI, 2013), won prizes from the Latin American Studies Association and Casa de las Américas. His second novel, Modesta dinamita (Blatt & Ríos, 2021), was among the five finalists for the 2022 Medifé Filba literary award. He is the editor, with Daylet Domínguez, of Slavery, Mobility and Networks in Nineteenth-Century Cuba (Routledge, 2024). His book Racial Doubt: Slavery, Passing, and the Emergence of Black Writing in Cuba is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

Education

PhD, University of California – Berkeley
Licenciatura, Universidad de Buenos Aires

Honors and Awards

2020-2025. H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2019-20. American Council of Learned Societies Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship, in residence at the National Humanities Center.

2017-19. Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

2016. Ezequiel Martínez Estrada Honorary Award, Casa de las Américas.

2015. Institute for Research in the Humanities (UW-Madison), Resident Fellow.

2014. Premio Iberoamericano, Latin American Studies Association.

2013. Mellon Foundation Area and International Studies Research Award.

2013. Library of Congress – John W. Kluge Center Fellow.

2007-08. Social Sciences Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship.

Books

Racial Doubt: Slavery, Passing, and the Emergence of Black Writing in Cuba (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

Co-editor (with Daylet Domínguez). Slavery, Mobility, and Networks in Nineteenth-Century Cuba. New York: Routledge, 2024.

Modesta dinamita. Buenos Aires: Blatt & Ríos, 2021.

Co-editor (with Juan Poblete). Piracy and Intellectual Property in Latin America: Rethinking Creativity and the Common Good. New York: Routledge, 2020.

Cuando lo nuevo conquistó América. Prensa, moda y literatura en el siglo XIX (New edition). La Habana: Fondo Editorial Casa de las Américas, 2016. Premio Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, Casa de las Américas.

Cuando lo nuevo conquistó América. Prensa, moda y literatura en el siglo XIX. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2013. Premio Iberoamericano, Latin American Studies Association.

Baquelita. Buenos Aires: El fin de la noche, 2011.

Co-editor (with Silvia Tieffemberg). El viaje a Nicaragua e Intermezzo tropical. Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 2003.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

“The Racial (Re)turn.” In Juan Poblete (ed.) New Approaches to Latin American Studies. Culture and Power, Vol. 2. New York: Routledge, 2025.

“1837: The Foundation of a National Literature.” In Alejandra Laera and Mónica Szurmuk (eds.) The Cambridge History of Argentine Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2024.

“Abolitionism.” Fernando Degiovanni and Javier Uriarte (eds.) Latin American Literature in Transition, 1870-1930. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2022, pp. 208-221.

“Forty-One Years a Slave. Agnosia and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century Cuba.” Atlantic Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (January 2021).

“Plagio y anacronismo deliberado en la novela antiesclavista cubana.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos (Washington University in Saint Louis), vol. LIII, No. 2 (2019)

“Spectral Realism: Cecilia Valdés as Gothic Novel.” Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies. Vol. 27, No. 3 (2018), pp. 313-329

“Una isla pintoresca y su horroroso colorido: Aproximaciones a la modernización y la violencia en la cultura visual cubana del siglo XIX.” Decimonónica. Journal of Nineteenth Century Hispanic Cultural Production. Vol. 12, No. 1 (2015): 134-150.