World Languages and Cultures Speaker Series

Diana Aldrete: From Poetry to Protest: The Circulation of a Poetics of Justice in Mexican Women’s Writing and Activism

March 18
Noon-1:00 pm
CRT 118

This talk examines how a language of justice circulates from poetic writing into activist movements and public discourse in Mexico, through an analysis of Susana Chávez Castillo’s Primera Tormenta and Arminé Arjona’s Juárez, tan lleno de sol y desolado. Drawing on Chávez Castillo’s work, initially circulated online prior to her feminicidal murder in 2011, it traces how her poetic discourse of justice—including the phrases “Ni una más” and “Ni una menos,” now central to anti-feminicidal movements—entered public and political spaces. The talk then turns to Arjona’s poetry, dedicated to the dead women of Juárez, whose dissemination through the Movimiento Acción Poética brought her work into the city streets. Together, these cases illuminate how a poetics of justice transcends traditional literary boundaries to become part of the public discourse, positioning Mexico as a generative space in which women’s writing actively shapes the language of resistance.

Diana Aldrete is an Assistant Professor of Language and Culture Studies and Human Rights, as well as a visual artist based in Hartford, CT. She is a recipient of the 2025-26 American Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) which supports the completion of her manuscript, Between Land and Death: Women Writing for Justice in Mexico. The project examines how literary production by contemporary Mexican women writers enters the political dialogue on anti-feminicidal violence, questioning justice and linking literature to political discourse and activism. Her scholarly and creative work explore themes of violence, erasure, and ecological interconnection across literary and visual media. She has published poetry and short fiction, and her visual art has been exhibited in several venues throughout Connecticut. Her first solo exhibition, Invisible Suffering (2022), supported by the Free Center’s “Independent Artist Fund,” interrogates the historical resonance of unseen suffering in the year 2020. Her current art project, Ech.o Locations, examines the ecologies of the Great Lakes and the relationships between water, land, and their human and non-human inhabitants. Integrating field research, visual anthropology, sound studies, and visual art (photography and painting), the project underscores the urgent need to protect freshwater ecosystems.