Jack Martínez Arias

Jack Martinez Arias specializes in Indigenous and Andean Studies. Growing up in the mining city of La Oroya, Peru, inspired him to deeply examine the impacts of extractive activities on culture and the environment through Peruvian and Bolivian cultural productions. His monograph Las ficciones mineras de los Andes (1880-1930) [Mining Fictions of the Andes (1880-1930)] is forthcoming from Universidad Nacional del Centro del Perú Press. Martinez Arias has published his research in more than a dozen prestigious peer-reviewed journals.

As a fiction writer, he has published three novels: Bajo la sombra (Animal de invierno, 2014), Sustitución (Planeta/Emecé, 2017), and Te he seguido (Dendro, 2024). His short stories have appeared in anthologies in the United States and Italy.

Recent Courses Taught

Creative Writing in Spanish
Indigenous Migration: Why and Where
Introduction to Hispanic Cinema     
Introduction to Latin American Literature
Literature and Modernity in the Andes
Spanish Conversation
Third Term Spanish   
Spanish Immersion II             
Spanish Immersion I

Select Publications

• Critical edition and Introduction of Junín (1930) by Enrique Bustamante y Ballivián. MYL, forthcoming 2025.
• “El otro Indigenismo: voces desde los centros mineros de Perú (1920-1940)” Romance Quarterly. Forthcoming.
• “On the Edge of the Abyss: Ecocritical Responses to Extractivism in the Andes.” Critical Humanities. Forthcoming.
• "El indio-máquina y la contaminación minera en Junín (1930) de Enrique Bustamante y Ballivián." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. Vol. 101, No. 2 (2024): 179-194.
• “Mining, pollution, and irony in Manuel Scorza’s Redoble por Rancas (1970).” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. Vol. 100, No. 6 (2023): 635-649.
• “Medioambiente y transculturación en El abrazo de la serpiente (2015).” Brújula: revista interdisciplinaria de estudios latinoamericanos. Vol. 16 (2023): 19-46
• “Interpretaciones del cristianismo en la tradición oral andina: Arguedas, Condori Mamani y el mito del Inkarrí.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana. 96 (2nd semester of 2022): 273-291.
• “Ante el realismo cíclico en los Andes: la ciencia ficción como alternativa de resistencia.” Confluencia. Revista Hispánica de Cultura y Literatura. 38.2 (Spring 2023): 95-107.
• “La Independencia postergada: colonialismo e indigenismo en el fin de siglo boliviano.” Taller de Letras 66 (2020): 103-118.
• “Modernizing the Andes: Literature and Mining Industry in a Foundational Novel.” Decimonónica 14.2 (2017): 54-70.
• “La fotografía como evidencia y premonición en “La noche de los visones” de Pedro Lemebel.” Chasqui 46.1 (2017): 45-56.
• “Entren los que quieran: Calle 13 y la construcción de lo latino(americano).” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 35 (2017): 195-209.
• “Estética, política y economía: dinámicas dialécticas en Amauta.” Horizonte de la Ciencia 6.11 (2016): 15-26.
• “Pendiendo de la maquinaria: autos y hombres en “La autopista del sur” de Julio Cortázar.” A Contracorriente 12.3 (2015): 220-239.
• Bajo la sombra. Novel. Animal de invierno, 2014.
• Sustitución. Novel. Planeta/ Emecé, 2017.
• Te he seguido. Novel. Dendro, 2024.

College Service

Latin American Studies Committee, 2023-26
Spanish Club, 2023-24
Spanish Table, 2022-
Teaching at Clinton Elementary School, 2017-19
Radio host of Ritmos Latinos, the radio show of the Hispanic Studies Department, 2020-21

Professional Affiliations

Latin American Studies Association

Appointed to the Faculty

Educational Background

Ph.D., Northwestern University
B.A., Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos

Dissertation