Dr Fiona J. Mackintosh is a Senior Lecturer in Latin American Literature. She arrived at the University of Edinburgh in 2002, having previously taught at Queen’s University, Belfast.

Fiona’s academic career began after graduating from the University of Cambridge in 1992 with an honours degree in Music and Modern Languages (Spanish and French). She received her MPhil in Modern Spanish American and French Literature at Oxford, and her PhD in Comparative Literature was awarded by the University of Warwick in 2000.

Fiona holds a Higher Education teaching certificate from Queen’s and has been nominated for various EUSA Teaching Awards, including Best Dissertation Supervisor, Best Personal Tutor, Best Overall Teacher, and for the Supporting Students' Learning award.

Fiona's general research interests are in 20th and 21st-century Latin American literature (prose and poetry), particularly of the Southern Cone. She also works on women’s writing, literary translation and comparative literature.

Fiona very much enjoys supervising, working with and learning from her PhD students.

Current PhD Students:

Elisabeth Goemans - 'Cultural Memory in Argentine Literature and Translation' (2nd supervisor; Current full-time PhD student funded by LLC Research Scholarship, September 2021-).

Rolando Bompadre - 'The Novels of Carlos Gamerro'. (Lead supervisor; Current part-time PhD student 2016-).

Former PhD students:

Kate Dunn - ‘Poetry as testimonio: Writing Human Rights in Alicia Partnoy’ (1st supervisor; PhD awarded May 2022)

Luyue Wang - 'East Asian Culture and Visual Representation in José Juan Tablada's Poetry'. (Co-supervisor; PhD awarded September 2021).

Rosa Ross - 'Becoming Woman in the Land of Women: Investigating the Paradigm of the Individual Versus the Collective in Contemporary Feminist Utopianism '. [Gioconda Belli, Naomi Alderman and Jacqueline Harpman] (Co-supervisor; PhD awarded January 2021).

Elaine Newton-Bruzza - 'La Mina del Tango: Gendering Discourse in Tango Lyrics'. (2nd supervisor; PhD awarded July 2020).

Alice Kilpatrick - 'Approaches to Subtitling Multilingual Films Set in Catalonia' (2nd supervisor;  PhD awarded April 2020).

Bárbara Fernández Melleda - Chilean women’s poetry, ‘Neo-Liberalism and its Discontents: Three Decades of Chilean Poetry’ (Elvira Hernández; Carmen Berenguer; Alejandra del Río; Marina Arrate; Nadia Prado; Malú Urriola) (1st supervisor; PhD awarded January 2019). Having done a one year Teaching Fellowship in SPLAS at Edinburgh, Bárbara has a Tenure Track Assistant Professorship in Latin American Studies at the University of Hong Kong.

Patricio Rodríguez - 'La obra poética de Elvira Hernández, producida entre 1981 y 2016'. (Visiting PhD student April - September 2018 from Universidad de Chile). 

Julia Utiger - Literature's engagement with xenophobia: a comparative study of novels by/about second generation migrants in Spain, UK and Switzerland. (Visiting PhD student Jan-Aug 2018 from University of Zurich). I was external examiner for Julia's thesis defense in July 2021.

Juliana Nalerio - 'Literary violence in North and South American Literature: Representations of political, systemic, and symbolic violence in Roberto Bolaño, Diamela Eltit, and Miguel Angel Asturias' (Visiting PhD student from University of Valladolid, semester 1, Autumn 2015 and semester 1, Autumn 2016). Juliana received her PhD cum laude in May 2019 and is currently undertaking a second PhD at Harvard University.

Natasha Hakimi - 'El cuerpo exiliado: poesía argentina escrita por mujeres en EEUU', Alicia Borinsky, Gladys Ilarregui, Zulema Moret, María Negroni, Alicia Partnoy, Mercedes Roffe, y Lila Zemborain (Visiting PhD student from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, semester 1 Autumn 2015 and semester 2, Spring 2017). Natasha presented her translations of Alicia Borinsky's poetry collection 'La mujer de mi marido' / 'My husband's woman' (Literal Publishing, 2016) at Edinburgh in May 2017.

María José Barros Cruz – ‘Hablar por la herida: la comunidad nacional en la poesía chilena (1949-2013)’ (Pablo de Rokha; Raúl Zurita; José Ángel Cuevas; Bernardo Colipán) (Visiting PhD Student 2014-15) . Following successful completion of her PhD, María José has a Fondecyt funded postdoc project “Artistas y activistas del siglo XXI: Retóricas de la resistencia y genealogías descolonizadoras en Cecilia Vicuña, Ana Tijoux y Camila Huenchumil" and she is now Assistant Professor at the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Santiago.

Clara Martínez Nistal – ‘The Translator’s Imposture: History and Fiction in Sciascia and Borges’. (Joint supervisor; PhD awarded 2017).

Carolina Orloff – ‘The Representation of the Political Element and its Evolution in Julio Cortázar’s Longer Fiction’ (1st supervisor; PhD awarded 2010). Carolina has her own independent Press, Charco Press, specializing in contemporary Latin American fiction in translation.

Inés Ferrero Candenas – ‘Gendering the Marvelous: Strategies of Response in Remedios Varo, Elena Garro and Carmen Boullosa’ (1st supervisor; PhD awarded 2007). Inés has a permanent academic post in the Departamento de Letras Hispánicas, Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico and coordinates the PhD programme there.

Courses

Current 4th year undergraduate option course on ‘Reading Latin American Poetry’ and team-teaching of 'Latin America: History and Culture Entwined' with Iona Macintyre.

In previous years option courses on 'History and the Writer in Latin America' and 'Reality and Fantasy in Latin American Fiction'.

At Masters level, co-teaching on the option 'Fantastic Fiction' available within the Comparative Literature programme.

I also contribute to DELC common courses 'Comparative Literature', 'Crime and Detection' and 'Gender and Culture'.