My research and teaching interests converge at the intersection of aesthetics, politics, and philosophy. With a background in Comparative Literature, I specialize in modern and contemporary Latin America. I also work on the history of Marxism, the philosophy of translation, competing notions of what constitutes universality, indigenous and African diaspora studies, avant-garde poetry and film, and critical theory. My current book project is a comparative study focusing on the transformation of Marxism as it travels across space, time, and cultures. I am particularly interested in efforts to de-provincialize Marxism through the translation of its universal concepts and in moments of negotiation between Marxism and alternative forms of thought and action that articulate their own universalist horizons (e.g. indigenous cosmology, négritude, Jacobinism). Other long-term projects include rethinking the history of surrealism from Latin America and the Caribbean, exploring indigenous alternatives to environmental devastation that challenge the logic of multinational capital and state power, tracing examples of convergence between communism, anarchism, and other leftist traditions, and attending to the legacy and continued relevance of the Haitian Revolution.