Ilka Kressner
SUNY Albany, United States
Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies and Chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures at the University at Albany, SUNY. Her scholarship and teaching examine contemporary Latin American film, literature and visual arts within a Pan-Latin American perspective, often with a comparative focus. Her research areas are the environmental humanities, ecofeminisms and translation studies. She is currently researching portrayals of water in Latin American cinema (contamination, inundations, water shortage…) and alternatives to colonial and neocolonial conceptions of ecology in cultural production from the region. She and her students have been COIL-ling since 2018 (cheers to the best partners Dr. José Luis Jiménez Figarotti, Universidad Andrés Bello, Caracas, Venezuela and Dr. Alejandra Olarte, La Salle University, Bogotá, Colombia).
“COIL for me is a gift and constant work in progress. In the best moments, it becomes a synergy where the sum of our contributions surpasses that of our separate efforts. It teaches disciplinary thinking, but also thinking beyond disciplines, and along the way helps practice careful listening and transparent communication (including in more than one language), adapt quickly to changing contexts and technological needs, be flexible, just and real, even in moments of stress, and grow intellectually. It provides a safe space for young people growing up during these challenging times to engage in earnest dialogue and allows for original pedagogical experiments to create knowledges, always in the plural.“
Project Information
COIL collaboration 1 (2018):
w Dr. Alejandra Olarte, La Salle University, Bogotá, Colombia
2018: Ecocides in the Contemporary Latin American Novel
COIL collaboration 2 (2019):
w José Luis Jiménez-Figarotti, Universidad Andrés Bello, Caracas, Venezuela
Popular Culture and Contemporary Means of Communication
COIL collaboration 3 (2020):
w José Luis Jiménez-Figarotti, Universidad Andrés Bello, Caracas, Venezuela
Symbols of Freedom
COIL collaboration 4 (2021):
w José Luis Jiménez-Figarotti, Universidad Andrés Bello, Caracas, Venezuela
Unearthing and Documenting Culturally Silenced Narratives in our Everyday Lives
COIL collaboration 5 (2022):
w José Luis Jiménez-Figarotti, Universidad Andrés Bello, Caracas, Venezuela
Contemporary Environmental Education
(during this collaboration, learners engaged with 5 different NGOs in Albany and Caracas to expose the biopolitics of scarcity and environmental justice)