Biography

Laura Patricia Zuntini de Izarra is Full Professor at the University of Sao Paulo; she graduated in English Literature (1974) from the Juan XXIII Institute (Argentina), and has a Master (1989), PhD (1995) and Livre Docência (2006) degrees in Linguistic and Literary Studies in English from the University of São Paulo. She was awarded two postdoctoral fellowships by Fapesp: at the University of London, Institute of Latin American Studies and Trinity College Dublin (2004), and at the Institute of Advanced Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University, India (2013), where she was also visiting professor at the School of English. In 2024, she was Research Fellow at Trinity Long Room Hub at Trinity College Dublin (TCD/Fapesp). At present, she coordinates the W.B.Yeats Chair of Irish Studies (since 2009) and exchange agreements between USP and Irish universities. She was co-founder and President of the Brazilian Association of Irish Studies (ABEI 1988/ 2008-2017) and of the Society for Irish Latin American Studies (SILAS 2003/ 2006-2009); a founder member of the Association of Irish Studies of the South, Argentina (AEIS 2017) and mentor of the Alliance of Chairs of Irish Studies in Latin America (since 2022). At present, she is vice-chairperson of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures for Other Countries (IASIL 2018-2025).  She was Deputy Director and Vice-President of USP National and International Cooperation Agency (2015-2021). Her interdisciplinary projects and publications are in Irish contemporary literature, Irish in South America, memory and diaspora studies, (post/de)colonial theories and cultural trauma.

 

Books & Chapters

Mirrors and Holographic Labyrinths. The Process of an Aesthetic Synthesis in the Novels of John Banville (NY& Oxford: International Publications, 1999).

Narrativas de la diáspora irlandesa bajo la Cruz del Sur (Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 2010)

Life-Writing and Diaspora I: The Autobiographical Writings of the Irish in the USA and Latin America. Liam Harte (ed.). A History of Irish Autobiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. pp 315-330. [co-author: James Silas Rogers]

O Trauma Cultural / Cultural Trauma: Irish Literary Resonances (SP: FFLCH & Cátedra W.B. Yeats 2020). [bilingual publication] https://www.livrosabertos.abcd.usp.br/portaldelivrosUSP/search?query=Trauma+cultural

'The Poetry of the Old Tongue Still Lingers in Our Souls': William Bulfin-An Irishman in Argentina. Stephanie Schwerter &  K. Brannon (eds.) Translation and Circulation of Migration Literature. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2022. pp. 59-75.

Writing Irish Women in South America. Anne Fogarty & Tina O’Toole (Eds.). Reading Gender and Space. Essays for Patricia Coghlan. Cork: Cork University Press, 2023. pp. 192-206.

 

Articles

Reinventing Brazil: New Readings and Renewal in the Narratives of Irish Travellers. Irish Migration Studies in Latin America Vol.4 (2006): 133-144. https://irlandeses.org/journal/journal-archives/

Looking for Orion: literature at the interface of cosmopolitanism and translocation. Aletria, vol.19 n.1 (2009): 61-78 Revisões/Releituras nas Literaturas de Língua Inglesa.  https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/aletria/article/view/18232

Don´t Cry for me Ireland -Irish Women´s Voices from Argentina. Ilha do Desterro. Vol 59 (2010): 133-146. https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/issue/view/1621

Translated Irelands Beyond the Seas. Irish Migration Studies in Latin America, Vol.8, No.4 (2015): 58-71 https://irlandeses.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2015-issue-Travel-Writing.pdf

Rumours of “The Insurrection in Dublin” Across the South Atlantic. ABEI Journal. Vol.18 (2016): 21-36. https://www.revistas.usp.br/abei/issue/view/11813

Why Ireland and Irish Studies in South America? Estudios irlandeses Vol 1, No.16 (2021): 196-204. https://www.estudiosirlandeses.org/issue/issue-16/

 

Editor

Roger Casement in Brazil: The Rubber, the Amazon and the Atlantic World, 1884-1916. São Paulo: Editora Humanitas, 2010 (Portuguese translation published in 2011)

 

Co-editor:

ABEI Journal- The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies (since 1999) https://www.revistas.usp.br/abei

IMSLA, Vol 7, No.2 (2009). https://www.academia.edu/105403098/Irish_Migration_Studies_in_Latin_America_CONTENTS?uc-g-sw=1336136

IMSLA Journal. Vol. 8, No.4. Travel Writing: Encounters within and through Irish and Latin American Spaces. 2015. https://irlandeses.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2015-issue-Travel-Writing.pdf

W. B. Yeats Chair’s annual series Lectures (since 2010)

Transatlantic Crises of Democracies: Cultural Approaches (2022) https://www.livrosabertos.abcd.usp.br/portaldelivrosUSP/catalog/book/949

Interviewing John Banville. São Paulo: FFLCH/WB Yeats Chair, 2023.