Catia Dignard

PhD Candidate
catia.corriveau.dignard@mail.utoronto.ca

Campus

  • Downtown Toronto (St. George)

Fields of Study

  • Modern and Contemporary Hispanic Literatures and Cultures

Areas of Interest

  • Contemporary and Post-Soviet Cuban Fiction;
  • Caribbean Literatures and Cultures;
  • Latin American and Spanish Cinema;
  • Women's Studies.

Working Dissertation

Title

Linguistic Representations of Racialized Voices in Contemporary Cuban Fiction

Supervisors

Prof. Nestor Rodriguez, Prof. Susan Antebi

Biography

Catia Dignard is a PhD candidate in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation examines the topic of linguistic representations of black characters in contemporary Cuban fiction, and how these reflect evolving notions of nationhood, class and race relations on the island. Her doctoral research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2020-2022), and draws upon literary and critical theory (postcolonial, critical race and disability studies), sociolinguistics and anthropology. She is currently a Northrop Frye Centre Doctoral Fellow (2020-21) and New College Senior Doctoral Fellow (Caribbean Studies) (2020-21), as well as a recipient of two OGS Awards (2017-18 and 2019-20).

Catia has previously coordinated student cultural exchanges in Nicaragua (2007-2010), Cuba (2009-2013) and Italy as an Economics and Intercultural Studies professor. She is now a course instructor of Spanish for Beginners with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and as a singer-songwriter, she also collaborates in musical projects with Cuban artists and writers.

Education

MA, University of Toronto
BA, Bishop’s University
MS, Université du Québec à Montréal
BS, Université du Québec à Montréal

Presentations

“Deconstructing the Cuban Revolution: Racial and Spatial Tensions in Negra (2013) by Wendy Guerra,” XIX Congreso Internacional de Literaturas y Estudios Hispánicos, March 8-10, 2017, Bs As, Argentina.
“Azúcar blanca/Azúcar prieta: análisis comparativo de la presencia afrocubana en la obra de Ortiz y Urzaiz,” La antropología anti-hegemónica contemporánea. CASCA-Cuba: mayo de 2018, Universidad de Oriente, Santiago de Cuba.
“Las comidas profundas (1997) de Antonio José Ponte y la huella de Fernando Ortiz,” Migraciones y marginaciones representadas en símbolos culturales. CALACS @ 50, 2019 Conference, May 10-12, York University, Toronto.

Cohort

  • 2017-2018