In my research I explore the poetics and the narratives of the social from the 1950s to the present day, in Europe and the Americas. Often times, this research takes me into the realm of the political and of the public. On these journeys of reflection and exploration I'm interested not only in what I find but also, in how we -- humans -- think about the world we inhabit and about how we inhabit it. I'm interested in three broad subject areas: poetry-in-performance, committed writing, and imaginaries of acquiescence and of critical hope.

Poetry in Performance. The performance of poetry as it has been deployed since the 1950s in the Western world is an expression of secondary orality. I'm interested especially in the intermediality of poetry in performance, in the intersections of poetry and critical thinking, and in the relationship between poetry and politics. In recent publications I have explored the sensorial plenitude of the poetry performance as an antidote to the attritional dynamics of austerity politics and necropolitics, and I'm currently compiling research on the different genres of the poetry performance. I have also curated events on the organization of poetry scenes in port cities and on poetry from the edgelands for the ó Bhéal Winter Warmer Festival in 2022 and 2023.

Committed writing. This strand of my research explores the ways in which political and ethical commitments are expressed in, or inform, poetry and prose writing. I approach committed writing as an important intervention into public debates in democratic societies, and as a practice of survival and resistance under non-democratic regimes. Committed writing invites different modes of listening. I'm specifically not interested in committed writing that defies reading practices that work through either identification or 'othering'; my interest lies with committed writing that works through curiosity and critique. I have published on the representation of 1970s armed movement in the Mexican novel, on writing from within the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity in Mexico, on writing from within cataclysmic historical movements and, most recently, on the poetry and the memoirs of Carolyn Forché.

Imaginaries of Acquiescence and Stories of Critical Hope in the 21st century. This line of research emerged from the enquiry into psychosocial obstacles to social and political transformation. It holds that imaginaries of acquiescences are a feature of the cultures of contemporary low-intensity democracies. These imaginaries can be made visible when we decode 'hidden transcripts' (James C. Scott) of acquiescence and suppression. They can be countered by stories of 'critical hope' (Paulo Freire), whereby Freire importantly maintaints that critical hope requires denunciation as well as annunciation. Currently I'm writing stories of critical hope based on the holdings of the CAMeNA in Mexico City.

See the blog series The Aliveness of Memory, published in collaboration with the Latin America Bureau: https://lab.org.uk/series/camena-blog/

Projects:

Collaborative: Contemporary poetry and politics: social conflict and poetic dialogisms (POEPOLIT II)

As a direct continuation of three previous research projects, researchers involved in the project Contemporary poetry and politics: social conflict and poetic dialogisms (POEPOLIT II, PID2019-105709RB-I00) explore the relationships between poetics and politics, and their impact in contemporary western societies. With three projects since 2010, the work of a stable group of international researchers has expanded poetics analyses theoretically and in practice, as well as their interfaces with politics. The project is of a comparative and relational nature and focuses on poetry in several languages and from a range of regions and territories.

Duration of the project: 2020-2023. Funding entity: Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Spain). See https://poepolit.blogspot.nl/p/poepolit.html

Individual: Cultural Imaginaries of Acquiescence in Contemporary Low-Intensity Democracies, funded by The Leverhulme Trust from September 2017 until May 2019.

Stories of Critical Hope from the Centro Académico de la Memoria de Nuestra América (CAMeNA), funded by the British Academy.

I'm a Board Member of the charity Music for Hope and an Associate Member of the Amsterdam Center for Globalisation Studies ACGS.

Cornelia's research focuses on poetry in performance, committed writing, and cultural imaginaries of acquiescence and stories of critical hope.

She explores the interplay of emancipation and experimentality in performance poetry, engages with committed writing as a practice that takes us beyond identification or 'othering', picks apart cultural imaginaries of acquiescence and counters these with narratives of critical hope. Her research includes Europe and the Spanish-speaking Americas, and literatures in Spanish, English, and German.

Cornelia's research draws on the methodologies of literary and cultural analysis. She has been involved in several international research projects on contemporary poetry.