Birds occupy a privileged place in the Western and Latin American literary tradition. However, despite their symbolic and material centrality, the representation of avifauna in Spanish American literature has received still-fragmentary critical attention. This symposium proposes to address the presence of birds in Latin American literature from a situated and interdisciplinary ecocritical perspective, paying special attention to the links between literature, biodiversity, and ecosocial crisis.<\/p>\n
The proposal stems from the research project BIOPOET (“Poetic Biodiversity. Representation of Birds and Ornithological Competence in Latin American Poetry”). Building on this framework, the symposium broadens the reflection to Latin American literature in general, exploring the evolution of representations of birds from the processes of Independence to the present day, as well as the relationships between literary imaginaries, nation-building, and environmental awareness. In contrast to the historical predominance of birds inherited from the European tradition (the nightingale, the swan, the dove, or the crow), numerous Latin American authors progressively incorporated native and endemic species such as the condor, the quetzal, the long-tailed meadowlark, the rufous hornero, or the hummingbird, shaping a literary imaginary of their own tied to American biodiversity. It should also be considered that birds, by blurring traditional geopolitical conceptions and establishing new horizons through migration, have managed to bring together the transatlantic literary crossing and generate new ways of interpreting the Spanish American experience.<\/p>\n
The symposium aims to reflect on how literature participates in the construction of alternative ways of inhabiting the world and relating to non-human nature. In this sense, birds appear as literary symbols, but also as “environmental indicators” of the contemporary ecological crisis. The progressive disappearance of species and habitats, accelerated urbanization, and the degradation of ecosystems have diminished the presence of birds in contemporary literature. From the early intuitions of authors such as Vicente Huidobro, Pablo Neruda, or Gabriela Mistral to recent proposals by Indigenous or ecofeminist writers, Latin American literature has developed various forms of symbolic resistance to the loss of biodiversity.<\/p>\n
The symposium will also explore concepts developed within the framework of avian poetics, such as “literary biodiversity,” understood as the diversity of flora and fauna present in a work; “ornithological competence” (Binns 2022), relating to the ability to perceive, distinguish, and name bird species in a given ecosystem; and “literary ecosystem,” referring to the networks of interdependence among subject, territory, climate, flora, and fauna within the text. Another key idea, developed by researcher Carla Llamunao (2026), is that of the “poetic biome,” through which poetry is understood as a living web among territory, ecological sensibilities, and ontological relationships, operating on both the extratextual and intrapoetic planes.<\/p>\n
Finally, the symposium aims to open a space for dialogue among literary studies, environmental humanities, animal studies, and decolonial thought, with special attention to contemporary Indigenous and ecofeminist productions. The dialogue is also open to proposals inscribed within the ontological, vegetal, and geological turns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","simposio_area":[64],"class_list":["post-10735","simposio","type-simposio","status-publish","hentry","simposio_area-literatura"],"yoast_head":"\n