Professor Ana Elena González-Treviño

Ana Elena González-Treviño is full professor and researcher in English Literature (Titular "C") at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

She has a B.A. in English, an M.A. in Comparative Literature from UNAM, and an PhD in English from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. She has specialized in literary and cultural studies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, cultural history, translation and literary criticism.

She has published forty academic articles and book chapters. She has coordinated four collective books of literary and translation studies, and a book as sole author.

She has directed and taken part in several research projects funded by PAPIIT-DGAPA. She directs a digital humanities project, Imaginary Mexico based on imagology about the representation of Mexico in seventeenth and eighteenth-century print culture.

She has supervised 39 BA, MA and PhD dissertations; she has and taken part in 89 BA, 25 MA and 12 PhD adjudicating committees. 

She is a member the Critical Theory Seminar and the Digital Humanities Seminar. She is a member of the National Research System, SNI. She has published a book of original poetry. 

She was head of the Modern Languages Department and is the director of the Centre for Mexican Studies, UNAM-UK.

Research 

México Imaginario is a digital catalogue that seeks to unite representations of what is now Mexico and Mexican objects in English and French printed culture of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Alphabetical entries with keyword in context references exemplify early views and stereotypes of Mexican identity, fusing both the Spanish culture and the diversity of groups that inhabited the central plateau and its surroundings. Underlying beliefs of good versus bad savages serve to reinforce a series of conceptions and stereotypes through the authority of print.

Early descriptions of way of life, flora, fauna, etc. contrast with the widely held view of Mexico as a site for exploitation, mostly through its silver mines, and offer a view into what would become long-lasting contributions to world culture, such as chocolate. This is but one example.

Research Interests

• Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature and cultural history
• Digital humanities Imagology (representations of otherness)
• Orientalism (Arabian Nights)
• Translation
• Literary Criticism
• History of the Book
• Material Culture
• Animals in early printed culture

PhD supervision topics

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English and comparative literature (Spanish and French) Orientalism, Arabian Nights, comparative translation, imagology Translation History of the book, early-printed culture and book circulation.

Research groups

• Critical Theory Seminar (UNAM)
• 17th- and 18th-century Studies (UNAM)
• Digital Humanities (UNAM)
• Corpus Auctoris (UNAM-UAB)