Staff profile

Before coming to Durham in 2011, I was Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University, and Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. As an undergraduate I studied Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard, with a secondary focus on Premed, and hold an MA and a PhD in Hispanic Studies from Brown. I have two main areas of research: contemporary Latin American cinema and media, on the one hand, and on the other, 16th and 17th century Hispanic literature and culture with an emphasis on the history of science in transatlantic contexts. My work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Institute for Citizens & Scholars.

At the undergraduate level, I convene a final-year module, Representing Women: Sex and Power in Colonial Latin America, and co-convene a second-year module, Race and Gender in Latin American Cinema. I also contribute to Identity in the Spanish-Speaking World and Spanish Texts, as well as to The Art of the Moving Image 2: Theories and Contexts. At the postgraduate level, I am part of the teaching and supervisory teams in the MA in Languages, Literatures and Cultures and the MA in Translation Studies. Within the Durham community more broadly, I am an affiliate of the Institute for Medical Humanities and a member of the Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art steering group. 

Recent talks

*2021, ARTES & Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art: 'Illustrating medical treatment in colonial Latin America' (in English)

*2021, Pleibéricos podcast, Interview by Esther Gimeno Ugalde (University of Vienna) about Marvels of Medicine: Literature and Scientific Enquiry in Early Colonial Spanish America, Liverpool UP, 2020 (in Spanish)

*2020, VI Seminario de Escrituras Virreinales, Universidad Complutense de Madrid & CSIC: 'Enfermedad y diferencia racial en la literatura médica novohispana del siglo XVI' (in Spanish)

• Caribbean Literature and Culture
• Colonial Latin America
• Early Modern Studies
• Film Studies
• Gender and Sexuality Studies
• History of Science and Medicine

Authored book

• Pérez Marín, Y. (2020). Marvels of Medicine: Literature and Scientific Enquiry in Early Colonial Spanish America. Liverpool University Press

Chapter in book

• Pérez Marín, Y. (2022). The Health of the Soul: Religious Guidance and Medical Practice in Early Colonial Mexico. In R. Quispe-Agnoli, & A. Brian (Eds.), Latin American Literature in Transition Pre-1492–1800 (81-92). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108976893
• Pérez Marín, Y. (2022). Natural History and the Comentarios reales. In J. A. Mazzotti, & C. Fernández-Palacios (Eds.), Approaches to Teaching the Works of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (76-93). Modern Language Association of America
• Pérez Marín, Y. (2021). The Circulation of Knowledge in Early Colonial New Spain: A Plural Landscape. In A. Goeing, M. Feingold, & G. Parry (Eds.), Early Modern Universities: Networks of Higher Learning (145-162). Brill Academic Publishers
• Pérez Marín, Y. (2020). Empathy, Patients' Needs, and Therapeutic Innovation in the Medical Literature of Early Viceregal Mexico. In J. Page, & M. D. P. Blanco (Eds.), Geopolitics, culture, and the scientific imaginary in Latin America (103-116). University of Florida Press
• Pérez Marín, Y. (2015). Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. In The Literary Encyclopedia. Literary Dictionary Company
• Pérez Marín, Y. (2014). Lectoras de medicina: el recetario del Convento de la Purísima Concepción. In En torno al documento (83-91). Universidad de San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) and Colegio de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades (COCISOH), Ecuador
• Pérez Marín, Y. (2011). Lecturas en celuloide: el personaje indígena latinoamericano en el 'cine de época'. In S. Kirk (Ed.), Estudios coloniales latinoamericanos en el siglo XXI : nuevos itinerarios (183-210). Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana

Journal Article

• Pérez Marín, Y. (2014). Hands of God: Evangelization and Visual Representation in Juan de la Cruz's Doctrina Christiana (1571). Colonial Latin American historical review, 19(3), 291-316
• Pérez Marín, Y. (2011). La tierra enferma: representaciones tempranas del Caribe y el discurso patológico. Estudios - Universidad Simón Bolívar, 17(34), 261-285