Profile
Terri Gordon is an interdisciplinary scholar who works at the intersections of memory studies, gender studies, and cultural production. She is currently writing a book on the literature of memory in post-dictatorship Chile. Her co-authored book with Eric Zolov, The Walls of Santiago: Social Revolution and Political Aesthetics, came out in May 2022 in Berghahn Books' "Protest, Culture & Society" series. She mounted a photography exhibition with Eric Zolov, “¡Chile Despertó! Protest Graphics of the 2019-20 Social Uprising,” at the LACS (Latin American and Caribbean Studies) Gallery at Stony Brook University in 2021-22. She is on the advisory board of Women's Studies Quarterly and has co-edited two WSQ volumes: "At Sea" and "Citizenship." Her work has appeared in Latin American Literary Studies, Journal of the History of Sexuality, Nottingham French Studies, Sociologica, The Nation, NACLA and Cabinet Magazine, amongst others. Her translation of Jean Genet's Elle was adapted for an off-Broadway production in 2002. She teaches interdisciplinary courses in the areas of ethics and literature, gender studies, and the aesthetics of the body.
Professor Gordon previously served as Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs at the Schools of Public Engagement, Director of the Gender Studies Program at The New School, and Director of Jewish Cultural Studies at the Schools of Public Engagement.
Degrees Held
PhD in Comparative Literature, Columbia University, 2000
Certificate in Women's Studies, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Columbia University, Fall 1995
MA in French Literature, Columbia University, 1993
BA in Political Science and French, Duke University
Professional Affiliation
Member of WSQ (Women's Studies Quarterly) Advisory Board, Fal 2024-present
Member of WSQ (Women's Studies Quarterly) Editorial Board, Spring 2008-Spring 2024
Member of MSA (Memory Studies Association)
Member of MLA (Modern Language Association)
Member of LASA (Latin American Studies Association)
Recent Publications
Books and Edited Volumes
The Walls of Santiago: Social Revolution & Political Aesthetics in Contemporary Chile (2022), co-authored with Eric Zolov, “Protest, Culture & Society” series of Berghahn Books.
Guest editor (with Amy Sodaro) of WSQ (Women’s Studies Quarterly) At Sea issue 45 1&2 (Spring/Summer 2017).
Guest editor (with Robin Rogers) of WSQ Citizenship issue 38:1&2 (Spring/Summer 2010).
Selected Articles, Essays, Book Chapters, and Interviews
“Chile’s Etallido Social and the Art of Protest,” special feature, “The Many Faces of Protest: Rethinking Collective Action in a World of Dissent,” Sociologica 17:1 (2023).
“Los muros en Chile van a hablar por mucho tiempo: Entrevista a los académicos Terri Gordon-Zolov y Eric Zolov,” Revista Kmcero, special issue, “La ciudad estallada,” by Amanda Contreras, Francisca Cares y Muriel Alarcón, November 14, 2022.
“Turning Art into a Political Weapon: Scholars Terri Gordon-Zolov and Eric Zolov discuss the aesthetics and significance of the Chilean estallido,” Interview by Jordi Mariné Jubany, Public Seminar,
“Terri Gordon-Zolov and Eric Zolov with Camilo Trumper,” The Brooklyn Rail, June 2022.
"The Chilean State Seeks to Ban the Poets," NACLA, 25 October, 2020.
Co-author (with Eric Zolov), "The Walls of Chile Speak of a Suppressed Rage," The Nation, 7 November, 2019.
“An Ethics of Pain: Carlos Cerda’s Una casa vacía,” Latin American Literary Review 43:86 (2015): 59-80.
“A Conversation with Seyla Benhabib and Judith Resnik,” in “Citizenship for the 21st Century,” in WSQ Citizenship issue 38:1&2 (Spring/Summer 2010): 271-86.
“Film in the Second Degree: Cabaret and the Dark Side of Laughter,” in the American Philosophical Society (APS) quarterly journal, Proceedings 152:4 (December 2008): 440-465.
“Debt, Guilt, and Hungry Ghosts: A Foucauldian Perspective on Bigert’s and Bergström’s Last Supper,” Cabinet Magazine Online, June 2006, ed. Sina Najafi.
“Girls Girls Girls: Re-membering the Body,” in Rhine Crossings: France and Germany in Love and War, ed. Peter Schulman and Aminia Brueggemann (New York: SUNY, 2005), 87-118.
“Fascism and the Female Form: Performance Art in the Third Reich,” special issue of The Journal of the History of Sexuality 11:1-2 (Spring 2002): 164-200. Reprinted in Sexuality and German Fascism, ed. Dagmar Herzog (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2005), 164-200.
“A ‘Saxophone in Movement’: Josephine Baker and the Music of Dance,” Jazz Adventures in French Culture, ed. Jacqueline Dutton and Colin Nettelbeck, special issue of Nottingham French Studies 43:1 (Spring 2004): 39-52. Reprinted as “Synesthetic Rhythms: African American Music and Dance through Parisian Eyes” in Josephine Baker: A Century in the Spotlight 6.1-6.2 (fall 2007-spring 2008), ed. Kaiama Glover, in “The Scholar & Feminist Online,” Barnard Center for Research on Women.
“Salome Returns with a Vengeance: Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter (1974),” in The Marketing of Eros: Performance, Sexuality, Consumer Culture, ed. Frederick Lubich and Peter Schulman (Essen: Die Blaue Eule, 2003), 160-177.
Performances and Appearances
“Artistic Activism and Memory: The Matapacos Statue Intervention in Santiago de Chile,” presentation and conversation with Marcel Solá, Pablo Zamorano and Eric Zolov, Digital Memory Studies Association, April 5, 2024.
Fullbright Commission in Chile book presentation, The Walls of Santiago: Social Revolution & Political Aesthetics in Contemporary Chile, commentary by Ángel Sóto, University of Los Andes, and Claudio Rolle, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, August 27, 2021 (invited talk).
“To Print is to Resist: Urgent Graphic Resistance in the United States and Latin America,” Printed Matter roundtable discussion on graphic resistance practices in the 2019-20 Chilean Social Uprising and the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement, hosted by Feria Impresionante and Gato Negro Ediciones, July 17, 2020. Panelists included: Terri Gordon & Eric Zolov, co-authors of The Walls of Santiago (Berghahn Books); Gonzalo Guerrero, Secret Riso Club; Eric Von Haynes, Flatlands Press, Shani Peters and Joseph Cuillier, The Black School.
Research Interests
Transitional justice, post-authoritarian literature, social protest movements, memory studies, cultural production
Portfolio
The Walls of Santiago: Social Revolution and Political Aesthetics in Contemporary Chile
Photography Exhibition at Stony Brooks LACS Gallery