Daniel Noemi Voionmaa

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, film, and politics. He is the author of four books and many articles.

Leer la pobreza en América Latina: Literatura y velocidad (Cuarto Propio, 2004; second edition 2011) develops the notion of the Aesthetic of Poverty, using the concept of velocity as a starting point to analyze literature, film, and visual arts in Ecuador and the Southern Cone during at the turn of the 21st century.

Revoluciones que no fueron: ¿Arte o política? Más allá de realismos y vanguardias en América Latina (Cuarto Propio, 2013) studies the 1920s and 1930s in Ecuador and Chile, analyzing political discourses, political performances and economic crisis alongside novels, short stories, manifestos, poetry, and literary and political magazines and journals.

En tiempo fugitivo: Narrativas latinoamericanas contemporáneas (Universidad Alberto Hurtado UP, 2016), is an interpretation of Latin America’s recent literature that provides a panoramic and critical interpretation of the last 30 years.

Surveillance, the Cold War and Latin American Literature (Cambridge UP, 2022) is a social, political, cultural and aesthetic analysis of the relations between secret police agencies and intellectuals and writers.

His current research –for which he obtained a FIFA-CIES fellowship– is on Latin American literature, soccer, modernization, and national identities.

He teaches courses on human rights and violence, literature, poverty and soccer, politics and contemporary Latin American Film and narrative

Before coming to Northeastern University, Professor Noemi Voionmaa was on the faculty in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he earned tenure, and in the Department of Languages and Literatures at Bard College, where he was a visiting assistant professor.

He is a regular contributor to Chile’s most important online newspaper, El Desconcierto.