Olivia Lott

Olivia Lott is an Olin Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) in Hispanic Studies, with a Graduate Certificate in Translation Studies. Her dissertation, "Radical Re/Turns: Translation and Revolution in Latin American Neo-Avant-Garde Poetics, 1959-1973," examines experimental poetic projects from the pivotal "long sixties," uncovering translational dialogues across time, space, and language. This project proposes a new theory of the neo-avant-gardes, grounded in the revolutionary and anti-imperialist imperative of the long decade. Case studies move between Havana, Caracas, Mexico City, Lima, Buenos Aires, and Santiago. An excerpt from the project, on the Venezuelan arts collective El Techo de la Ballena, is forthcoming from Revista Hispánica Moderna. Other components have been presented at the annual conferences of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) and the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA). Currently, Olivia is finishing her dissertation as a Marilyn Yarbrough Dissertation/Teaching Fellow in Spanish at Kenyon College. 

Olivia has earned several recognitions at WashU, including the 2019 Eva Sichel Memorial Essay Prize, a 2020 Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence, and a 2020 Fellowship with the Center for the Humanities. She was the Editorial Assistant for the Revista de Estudios Hispánicos during the 2018-2019 Academic Year. In addition to this work, she is the translator of Lucía Estrada's Katabasis (2020, Eulalia Books), which was named a finalist for the PEN Award for poetry in translation, the co-translator of Soleida Ríos's The Dirty Text (2018, Kenning Editions), and the curator of Poesía en acción, a monthly feature dedicated to Latin American poetry in translation, on the Action Books Blog.