Javier Velasco

Javier Velasco is a Lecturer in Spanish in the Department of Global Languages and Cultures at SUNY Geneseo. His research and teaching bridge Latin American cultural studies, Spanish-language education, and the study of technology in education. A specialist in Bolivia and the Andes, he examines how literature, visual culture, and the built environment register the uneven experience of modernity. His scholarship focuses especially on infrastructure and mobility as cultural forms that reorganize social relations and shape ideas of progress, nation, and Indigenous modernity. His broader interests include urban studies, visual culture and photography, political aesthetics, and narrative theory.

At Geneseo, Dr. Velasco teaches across the Spanish curriculum, from beginning language courses to advanced courses in oral and written communication, Latin American cities, popular culture, and music and identity.

A second area of his work focuses on generative AI, language education, and assessment. He develops human-centered course designs that use AI to deepen, rather than replace, linguistic and cultural learning. His assignments ask students to document their use of digital tools, revise and justify their choices, and demonstrate capacities central to meaningful communication: pragmatic judgment, interpretation of tone and context, negotiation of meaning, authorship, creativity, and ethical responsibility.

Research Interests

Andean and Bolivian studies; Latin American urban cultural studies; infrastructure and modernity; indigeneity and Indigenous modernity; visual culture and photography; generative AI and language education

Education

Ph.D., Romance Languages, University of Oregon

M.A., Spanish Cultures and Literatures, University of Oregon

M.A., Latin American Studies, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Bolivia

B.A., Political and Judicial Law, San Simón University, Bolivia

Selected Courses
SPAN 102: Beginning Spanish
SPAN 301: Oral and Written Communication
SPAN 314: Latin American Civilization
Latin American Cities
Pop Culture in Latin America
Fiesta, Music, and Identity in Latin America

Selected Publications
Book

Montenegro, Walter. Cuentos. Critical introduction, scholarly edition, and notes by Javier Velasco and Alejandra Echazú Conitzer. La Paz: Plural Editores, 2018. Published in the Letras Fundacionales series, directed by Leonardo García-Pabón.

Articles, Book Chapters, and Book Reviews

“Infrastructures of Modernity in Bolivia: Railroads and Infrastructural Reading in José Aguirre Achá’s Platonia.” TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World 14, no. 1 (2026). https://doi.org/10.5070/T4.47028.

“‘…ese hombre nuevo, quizá erizado de disonancias’: Del héroe romántico al tramado trágico en Aluvión de fuego.” In Aluvión de fuego de Óscar Cerruto: 90 años. La Paz: Carrera de Literatura, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés and Instituto de Investigaciones Literarias, 2026.

“‘…Pero las hornacinas estaban desiertas’: Tramado trágico y modernidad indígena en Yanakuna de Jesús Lara.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 49, no. 98 (2023): 71–92.

“La sombra del fotógrafo: Modelo visual andino en Damián Ayma.” Revista Iberoamericana, no. 284 (2023): 805–824.

“Movilidad urbana y geometrías de poder: El tranvía urbano en La Paz a principios del siglo XX.” Bolivian Studies Journal 28 (2022): 135–158.

“Geografías imaginarias: Los múltiples espacios de la ciudad en la narrativa de Walter Montenegro.” Ciencia y Cultura 23, no. 43 (2019): 9–25.

Review of Curepto es mi concepto: Ensayos sobre literatura y territorio, by Mario Verdugo. Periphērica: A Journal of Social, Cultural, and Literary History 3, no. 2 (2025): 361–368. https://doi.org/10.7264/peripherica.3.2.6113.