Alessandro Fornazzari works on Latin American literature and cultural studies; other interests include film (with a focus on the documentary form), the visual arts, and political economy. Fornazzari’s research has explored the post-dictatorial problems of memory and restitution in the Southern Cone and on theoretical and artistic reflections on neoliberalism, consumption and debt. Currently, he is working on a book project that analyses eighteenth and nineteenth century seafaring travel narratives of the Pacific. Provisionally titled Capital and the Sea, this study is a reflection on piracy, slavery, the cycles of finance capital, and the development of commodity culture from the perspective of the Pacific.