Joseph Wager

Joseph Wager (he/his/él) is a PhD Candidate (ABD) in Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University. He is writing a dissertation focused on the form of the stories about desaparecidos, what is said about desaparecidos, in contemporary Colombia and Mexico. The dissertation places social-scientific inquiry, the work of activists and collectives, and legal instruments in dialogue with art installations, film, novels, performances, and poems. Underpinning this combination is 1. the idea that human-rights changes stem from how individual and collective actions resist institutionalization or translate into institutions and 2. that cultural products (e.g., art) and their form are crucial to the understanding of such processes.

He has been the instructor for “Advanced Spanish Language: Cultural Emphasis" and the First-Year Cycle of Spanish Language (Quarters I, II, III) at Stanford University. Joseph has co-taught “Modern Latin American Literature” with Héctor Hoyos and “The Labor of Diaspora and Border Cultures” with José David Saldívar, in addition to being an assistant for “Migration in 21st Century Latin American Film” with Ximena Briceño and “Introduction to Latin America: Cultural Perspectives” with Nicole Hughes. Before Stanford, he taught several courses at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá on literature, including the "Introduction to Literature" survey with 40 students.