Pagan

Iliana Pagán-Teitelbaum

  • Associate Professor of Languages
  • Ph.D., Harvard University
  • M.A., Harvard University
  • B.A., University of Puerto Rico

Dr. Pagán

Dr. Iliana Pagán-Teitelbaum (she/ella) is an Associate Professor of Languages and Cultures at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She obtained a BA in Latin American Studies at the University of Puerto Rico. She has MA and PhD degrees in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University. She was also a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Pagán teaches courses on Latin American film and cultural studies. Her research focuses equity and violence in Latin American culture. Dr. Pagán is Faculty Advisor for the Latino American Student Organization-LASO and she co-chairs the WCU Innovation in Diversity and Inclusion Grants Council.

As a filmmaker, she received the Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant and a Los Fellows Film Residency for her film Twin Tongues/Lenguas gemelas, a nonfiction film about multilingualism and identity. On campus, she directs the annual WCU Global Hispanic Film Festival (more info below).

Research Interests

  • Equity and Violence
  • Critical Discourse Studies
  • Contemporary Latin American Film and Literature
  • Latin American Studies
  • Cinema Studies
  • Cultural Studies
  • Indigenous Studies
  • Caribbean Studies
  • Filmmaking
  • Disability Studies

Courses Taught at WCU

  • ESP 309 Latin America on Film (in English)
  • FYE 100F First-Year Experience: Culture and Communication
  • LNC 368 Comparative Cultural Studies
  • LNC 503 Global Cultural Studies
  • SPA 101-102 Beginner Spanish I & II
  • SPA 201-202 Intermediate Spanish I & II
  • SPA 302 Advanced Spanish Grammar and Conversation II 
  • SPA 322 Latin America on Film (in Spanish)
  • SPA 456/556 Latin American Short Story
  • SPA 456/556 Narratives of Exclusion in Latin American Cinema
  • SPA 558 Violence in Latin American Cinema
  • SPA 559 Adaptation: Literature to Film in Latin America
  • YES 301 Seminar in Youth-led Media and Inquiry

Scholarly and Creative Projects

Films Directed

  • Twin Tongues, 49-minute non-fiction film on the risks of language loss and the benefits of becoming multilingual.
  • Mulberry Tree, 8-minute short film on environmental justice and disability justice.
  • Marcial, 12-minute nonfiction short film on immigrant justice.

Multilingual Memory Project

  • An ongoing audiovisual digital oral-history project by Dr. Pagán that films, archives, and engages with a virtual video repository of stories related to migration and languages in Latin America and the Latinx diaspora.
  • See a concept pilot here:  https://youtu.be/RQUgK8PEtZw

Publications

  • Violencia invisible. Narrativas de la exclusión en América Latina. Fondo Editorial UNMSM-Pakarina Ediciones, 2025.
  • “Movilización, violencia y poder: Un estudio de caso del discurso periodístico peruano.” F. Guzmán, coauthor. Revista Sílex. Vol. 14, Nº 1 (January-June 2024): 7-37.
  • “Espejo eurocéntrico: por una estética de la equidad en el discurso audiovisual sobre la mujer indígena y la tecnología.” Ojo que piensa. Revista de cine iberoamericano 14 (2017): 20-43.
  • "Distorsión en los Andes: violencia cultural y exclusión en el cine contemporáneo." Cine andino: estudios y testimonios. Ed. Julio Noriega and Javier Julián Morales Mena. Galesburg, IL and Lima: Knox College P-UNMSM-Pakarina Ediciones, 2015.
  • "Desestabilizar la violencia: exclusión y resistencia narrativa en Brasil y República Dominicana" Abehache 7: 2 (2014): 178-191.
  • "Sueños malditos: diáspora y globalización violentas en la narrativa dominicana" Sargasso: A Journal of Caribbean Literature, Language, and Culture. Special Issue: Agency and Intervention in Caribbean Contexts. I & II (2013-2014).
  • "Neofavela filmada: violencia y resistencia en la ciudad partida de Cidade de Deus" Badebec: Revista del Centro de Estudios de Teoría y Crítica Literaria 4 (Mar. 2013): 116-146.
  • "Glamour in the Andes: Indigenous Women in Peruvian Cinema" Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies Journal 7.1 (Mar. 2012): 71-93.
  • "Depiction or Erasure? Violence and Trauma in Contemporary Peruvian Film." Interrogating Trauma: Collective Suffering in Global Arts and Media. Ed. Mick Broderick and Antonio Traverso. London: Routledge, 2011. 161-177. Formerly published as, "Depiction or Erasure? Violence and Trauma in Contemporary Peruvian Film" Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies24.1 (Feb. 2010): 159-175.
  • "El glamour en los Andes: la representación de la mujer indígena migrante en el cine peruano" Revista Chilena de Antropología Visual12.2 (2008): 1-30; revised version reprinted in Crónicas Urbanas 14 (2009): 159-174.
  • "Arsenales de odio: violencia invisible en 'O Cobrador' de Rubem Fonseca" El hablador 4 (2004): 76-81.

Global Hispanic Film Festival at WCU

  • Founding director.
  • The Global Hispanic Film Festival at WCU presents contemporary films about Hispanic realities across the world in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Latinx communities in the US. Every Fall during Hispanic Heritage Month. Free and open to the public! All films are subtitled.
  • For more information: www.wcupa.edu/cine and @cineWCU on social media.

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