Profile

Thomas Matusiak, Ph.D., is a cultural researcher specializing in Latin American cinema. He obtained he doctoral degree at Princeton University (2019).

He researches the relations between aesthetics and politics in the context of modern and contemporary Latin America, with a focus on cinema. Currently, he is in the process of starting a new research project on intermediality and expansion of documentary forms in contemporary Latin American culture.

His publications address a variety of topics across narrative, documentary, and experimental modes, including the politics of cinematic form and materiality to exilic cinemas, embodied memory, and expanded cinematic practices. His articles were published in the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Romance Quarterly, Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas, Cuadernos de Literatura, and other journals. In addition, he has been revising a manuscript entitled The Visual Guillotine: The Cinematic Cut and the Form of Politics in Latin America.

Prior to joining SWPS, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Dartmouth College (2019-2021) and a Fulbright student scholar in Bogotá, Colombia (2013-2014).

Dr. Matusiak is an active member of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). He received the LASA’s film studies section award for best peer-reviewed article published in 2022.

At SWPS University, he teaches courses in English and Spanish on Latin American and American hemispheric literatures and cultures. He also offers research seminars on these topics.