Antonio Barrenechea

Professor

  • Fredericksburg VA UNITED STATES

Antonio Barrenechea is a scholar and teacher of literature of the Americas and cinema.

Contact

Spotlight

2 min

Need an expert to chat about movies and tv? We’ve got just the person for your coverage!

UMW’s experts are in the news and just recently Antonio Barrenechea, associate professor of English, was interviewed for two articles in the web magazine MEAWW. The first was on the relationship between summer and romantic comedies and why that season in particular seems to hold the ideal climate for on-screen love."The Canadian literary theorist, Northrop Fry, provides insight into its origins. As with the seasons of the year, genres deploy archetypes of birth, maturation, decay, death, and rebirth, all within natural cycles," said Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington.Professor Barrenechea opines that for Fry, comedy belongs to spring, and romance to summer. "Nature as background thus directs the foreground of social ordering and human affairs. Greenery and florals are to the romantic comedy as deserts are to the Western, and dark places and climates are to horror," Barrenechea added.This is translated beautifully on screen in movies like 'Call Me By Your Name', 'My Best Friend's Wedding', and the 'Before Sunrise' movies.The second probed the link between intelligence and dark humor.  In this piece, our expert explained our passion for dark humor and death.Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington has a different opinion of 21st Century's vicarious morbidity fans. "Dark humor responds to our absurd condition with the armor of world-weariness. Except that, of course, we also know we can't really laugh such troubles away — which is why dark humor has a fatalistic dimension built into it," he said.Between Netflix, streaming services, TV, cable and the big screen – we are always talking about movies.  If you are covering, don’t hesitate to let one of our experts help with your stories. Antonio Barrenechea, associate professor of English, specializes in literature of the Americas and the cinema. He’s available to speak with media, simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.

Antonio Barrenechea

Biography

Antonio Barrenechea is a scholar and teacher of literature of the Americas and cinema. His first book is America Unbound: Encyclopedic Literature and Hemispheric Studies (University of New Mexico Press, 2016). It brings together the disciplines of comparative literature and hemispheric studies by tracing “New World” historical imaginaries in novels from the United States, Latin America, and Francophone Canada. He is also coeditor of “Hemispheric Indigenous Studies,” a special issue of Comparative American Studies (2013). Dr. Barrenechea has contributed articles and reviews to Comparative Literature, Revista Iberoamericana, American Literature, and several other journals and collections. The forthcoming “Hemispheric Studies Beyond Suspicion” was awarded the 2014-2016 prize for best essay by the International Association of Inter-American Studies. During a recent fellowship at the Institut Américain Universitaire in Aix-en-Provence, France, he lectured in Europe and provided an interview for the Italian journal América Crítica. Dr. Barrenechea is currently writing “Hemispheric Horrors: Monster, Trash, and Exploitation Cinema of the Americas,” a book on the relationship between shock and avant-garde aesthetics in cinema produced at the fringes of North and South American film capitals. He serves on the boards of the International American Studies Association, the International Association of Inter-American Studies, and Comparative American Studies.

Areas of Expertise

Comparative Literature
Cinema Studies
Literature of the Americas

Accomplishments

Barrenechea Appointed IAU College Resident Fellow in Aix-en-Provence, France

2016-03-28

Antonio Barrenechea, associate professor of English, has been appointed the Institute for American Universities College Resident Fellow, Aix-en-Provence, France, for the academic year 2016-17. His residency will coincide with a sabbatical project on how the South American underground cinema reinvents Hollywood and European "trash" and avant-garde film sources.

Education

Fordham University

B.A.

Comparative Literature

1998

Yale University

M.Phil.

Comparative Literature

2001

Yale University

Ph.D.

Comparative Literature

2005

Affiliations

  • Comparative American Studies
  • Comparative Literature Association
  • International American Studies Association
  • American Comparative Literature Association
  • International Association of Inter-American Studies

Media Appearances

It's the Summer of Love again as streaming services unleash romcoms for the season

meaww.com  online

2019-05-06

"The Canadian literary theorist, Northrop Fry, provides insight into its origins. As with the seasons of the year, genres deploy archetypes of birth, maturation, decay, death, and rebirth, all within natural cycles," said Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington.

View More

Why shows like 'Dead to Me' are helping us embrace dark comedy like never before

meaww.com  online

2019-05-06

Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington has a different opinion of 21st Century's vicarious morbidity fans. "Dark humor responds to our absurd condition with the armor of world-weariness. Except that, of course, we also know we can't really laugh such troubles away — which is why dark humor has a fatalistic dimension built into it," he said.

View More

Barrenechea Selected for Jessie Ball duPont Summer Seminar

Eagle Eye  online

2014-03-10

Antonio Barrenechea, Associate Professor of English, has been selected to participate in one of the two 2014 Jessie Ball duPont Summer Seminars sponsored by the National Humanities Center.

View More

Show All +

Articles

Hemispheric Indigenous Studies: Introduction

Comparative American Studies

2013-01-01

This special issue approaches Native American Studies across the Americas in order to emphasize connections between indigenous people that are often overlooked and/or suppressed in scholarship by both Native and non-Native scholars. Together, the ...

View more

Good Neighbor/Bad Neighbor: Boltonian Americanism and Hemispheric Studies

Comparative Literature

2009-01-01

This essay locates the intellectual origins of comparative American studies in Herbert Eugene Bolton's “The Epic of Greater America” (1931). Bolton argued for a hemispheric approach to the study of history and laid the groundwork for a comparative ...

View more

Conquistadors, Monsters, and Maps: Moby-Dick in a New World Context

Comparative American Studies

2009-01-01

Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" (1851) is read within a hemispheric American context of transmission across political and cultural borders. A reinterpretation is proposed of what many still regard as the Great American Novel by examining the national concerns of ...

View more

Show All +