Ernest Rafael Hartwell, PhD

Associate Professor of Spanish (Minor Advisor of Spanish), Affiliated Faculty of Latin American Studies

About

Education

BA in Spanish and Religious Studies, NYU 2010

Coursework in Literary Theory and Criticism, Universidad de Buenos Aires 2009

PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures, with a specialty in 19th-century Latin American Literature, Harvard University 2017

 

Current Courses

2024-2025

Fall: SPAN 340 Introduction to Literary Analysis & SPAN 430 Mexican Cinema

Winter: SPAN 301h Grammar and Composition for Heritage Learners & HNRS 350 Gossip and the Spanish Pacific

Spring: SPAN 450 Philippine Literature in Spanish & SPAN 332 Cultures of Latin America

 

Bio

Ernest Rafael Hartwell's teaching and research areas are in 19th-century Latin American, Caribbean, and Philippine literature. He engages with methods in postcolonial thought, critical race theory, and cultural studies, within the fields of Hispano-Philippine studies and Caribbean studies. His current research project, borne of his doctoral dissertation, examines experiments in prose (travel writing, historiography, novels) aimed to counteract colonial divisions and disparities by 19th-century anticolonial writers of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, Spain's last remaining overseas colonies at the time. 

On campus, Ernest teaches Spanish language courses in the L2 and Heritage sequences, Latin American culture and literature courses, and advocates for the rights of his students and colleagues. Off campus, he enjoys playing basketball, wandering through nature, learning new languages, cooking Filipino food, and finding the best tacos in every city (check out Mi Rancho and Tacos el tule in Bellingham!).

Selected Publications

2024

Ernest Rafael Hartwell (co-author Sony Coráñez Bolton). 2024. "Narrativas de ficción: alianzas soñadas y almas locas". Introducción a la literatura hispanofilipina Edited By Rocío Ortuño Casanova, Beatriz Álvarez-Tardío, Axel Gasquet, Jorge Mojarro, Emmanuelle Sinardet. 

Ernest Rafael Hartwell. 2024. Review of Mawson, Stephanie Joy, Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 294 pp., $130.00, ISBN 978-1501770265, Publication Date: July 2023. History: Reviews of New Books, Volume 52, Issue 4 (2024).

Ernest Rafael Hartwell. 2024. Race, Gender, and Colonial Rule in an Illustrated Eighteenth-Century Manuscript on Mexico and the Philippines (1763). The Spanish Pacific, 1521-1815, Volume 2 A Reader of Primary Sources.

Ernest Rafael Hartwell. 2024. Brazo, corazón, y lengua: Immigration and Anti-Colonial Biopolitics in the Spanish Caribbean and the PhilippinesTransnational Philippines: Cultural Encounters in Philippine Literature in Spanish.

2023

Ernest Rafael Hartwell. 2023. Convenient Quadrilaterals and Imagined Indians: An Introduction to "El pabellón colonial: Revisiting Cuba and the Philippines" Co-authored and co-edited with Hugo García González. Peripherica: A Journal of Social, Cultural, and Literary History.

Ernest Rafael Hartwell. 2/1/2023. Intercolonial Intimacies: A Conversation with Paula C. Park. Diacritics: DVAN. 

2022

Ernest Rafael Hartwell. 12/28/2022. Review of Park, Paula C. Intercolonial Intimacies: Relinking Latin/o America to the Philippines 1898-1964. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022. Transmodernity, Fall Issue 2022.

2019

Ernest Rafael Hartwell. 5/2019. “Bad English and Fresh Spaniards: Translation and Authority in Philippine and Cuban Travel Writing.” UNITAS, 92, 1, Pp. 43-74.  unitas-92-1-ernest-hartwell-bad-english.pdf

2018

Ernest Rafael Hartwell. 11/15/2018. “Imperial Endnotes: The First Filipino and Boricua Historians.” Latin American Literary Review, 45, 90, Pp. 53-67. lalr_90_6_hartwell_proof3.pdf

2012

Ernest Hartwell. 10/1/2012. “Bodies (un)made: Aging and Violence in Two Argentine Novels.” Transverse Journal, 2012, 12, Pp. 21-42. Publisher's Version