Joseph Wager
Joseph Wager (he/his/él) is a PhD Candidate (ABD; expected January 2025) in Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University. He is writing a dissertation focused on the form of the stories about the disappeared, what is said about the disappeared, in contemporary Colombia and Mexico. The dissertation places social-scientific inquiry, the work of activists and collectives, and legal instruments in dialogue with art installations, films, novels, performances, and poems. Two key principles guide this research: first, that human-rights changes emerge through the ways individual and collective actions either resist institutionalization or become institutionalized, and second, that the formal qualities of cultural products play a crucial role in shaping these processes.
He has been the instructor for “Advanced Spanish Language: Cultural Emphasis" and the First-Year Cycle of Spanish Language (Quarters I, II, III) at Stanford University. Joseph has co-taught “Modern Latin American Literature” with Héctor Hoyos and “The Labor of Diaspora and Border Cultures” with José David Saldívar, in addition to being an assistant for “Migration in 21st Century Latin American Film” with Ximena Briceño and “Introduction to Latin America: Cultural Perspectives” with Nicole Hughes. Before Stanford, he taught several courses at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá on literature, including the "Introduction to Literature" survey to more than 40 students.
Recent presentations include a roundtable "Lo desaparecido: Aproximaciones a los usos y utilidades de una noción ya desprendida de su origen" at LASA2024 in Bogotá, Colombia and "Disappearance and Development: Thinking Cultural Heritage through the Cauca River" at the University of Cambridge as part of A Dialogue on Disappearance: The Missing in a Global Perspective.
Recent publications include "The Sound of Wind Farming: Rethinking Clean Energy with Wayuu Cultural Practices," "New Wine, Old Bottles? A Review of Gabriel Gatti's Desaparecidos (2022)," and "¿Cómo es ser una mosca? La ética de la escala en la literatura de Augusto Monterroso."
Joseph has participated in and organized events and discussions, including: the working group Praxis, conversations with lawyers at The Rights Pod, the workshop series Law and Literature in the Global South, and the student-run Caribbean Studies Reading Group. He has worked with Human Rights First and Al Otro Lado, and contributed to the Court Listening Project. He received the Community Impact Award from the Stanford Alumni Association.