Victor Sierra Matute
(he/him/his/el)
Assistant Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature
Víctor Sierra Matute (PhD University of Pennsylvania) is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at Baruch College . His research and teaching interests include early modern Iberian and colonial cultural studies, material culture, visual and performing arts, transoceanic studies, and the history of emotions.
Sierra Matute is currently working on a book-length manuscript provisionally entitled A Sense of Empire: Perceptual and Material Foundations of Early Modern Iberian Colonialism. Preliminary research towards this project has been funded by fellowships and grants from the Huntington Library, PSC-CUNY, the Cervantes Society of America, and the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry. He is the editor of Soundscapes of the Early Modern Hispanophone and Lusophone Worlds (Routledge, 2024) and the forthcoming special issue “The Past Awakened: Cultural Reimagination in the Global Hispanophone” (Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies).
Sierra Matute has served the profession as the PMLA Advisory Committee member in the field of “Spanish, pre- 1800” (2020-2023). Additionaly, he has been elected a member of the executive committee for the Global Hispanophone Forum and the Program Committee of the Modern Language Association. Before joining Baruch, he taught at New York University, Haverford College, and the University of Pennsylvania. Besides Spanish language classes, Sierra Matute has offered courses on early modern and colonial cultures, literary clubs and academies, Spanish performance and theater, and contemporary representations of the past.
Contact
Education
- Ph.D. Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Pennsylvania, 2019
- M.A. Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Pennsylvania, 2015
- M.A. Departamento de Filología Española, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2011
- B.A. Departamento de Filología Española, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2010
Publications
Books
in preparation A Sense of Empire: Perceptual and Material Foundations of Early Modern Iberian Colonialism.
Edited Volumes
2025 Soundscapes of the Early Modern Hispanophone and Lusophone Worlds. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
2025 Was Sor Juana a Sphinx? Monstrosity and the Poetics of Dedication in Her Transoceanic Enigmas (1695). Latin American Research Review, 60.4.
2024 Bolulu, Bolulo, Bolula, Bululú: A Speculative Approach to the Early Modern Single Performer. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 101.1: 23-38.
2023 Material Methodologies in Early Modern Iberian Treatises. Romanic Review, 114.2: 237-258.
2021 García Pérez, M., Sierra Matute, V., Formas de sociabilidad literaria: Siglos XVI y XVII. Philobiblion: Revista de Literaturas Hispánicas, 14: 7-20.
2019 Letra y sonido en las estructuras epistemológicas de la Primera parte del Parnaso antártico (1608). Entre Caníbales: Revista de Literatura, 3.11: 159-181.
2009 Tomás Tamayo de Vargas y las cartas al cronista Andrés de Uztarroz. Voz y Letra: Revista de Literatura, 20.2: 137-161.
forthcoming Estrategias e imaginarios barrocos en La sombra de don Quijote (2014) de Patricio Clarey y Lara Fuentes. Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies (Accepted).
forthcoming Public Monuments and the Colonial Legacies of the “Tongue of Cervantes.” Romance Studies (Accepted).
forthcoming Square: Listening to Lisbon’s Praça do Pelourinho Velho (1593). Special issue of diacritics: A Review of Contemporary Criticism. (Accepted).
under review Soundscapes from the Beyond: Spiritual Mediumship and Sonic Permeability in Úrsula de Jesús’s Diario Espiritual (1647-1661). Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies.
under review Tarot and Its Colonial Temporalities in Cartas Philippinensis (2016) and Tarot Neocolonial de las Américas (2021). Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies.
under review A Prince Through the Mirror: Garcilaso de la Vega and the Lyricization of Early Modern Poetry
in preparation Pardo Porto, C.E., Sierra Matute, V., Una poética del tránsito: el Libro centroamericano de los muertos de Balam Rodrigo.
Peer Reviewed Book Chapters
2025 The Social Life of Sounds in the Early Modern Iberian Empires. Soundscapes of the Early Modern Hispanophone and Lusophone Worlds. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 1-14.
2021 Humors and Rumors: Sonic Viscerality in Juan Pérez de Montalbán’s La mayor confusión. Pornographic Sensibilities: Imagining Sex and the Visceral in Premodern and Early Modern Spanish Cultural Production. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 219-232.
forthcoming The Spatial Display of Poetry in Recibimiento al obispo Pimentel (1629). The Spatial Turn in the Literature and Art of Early Modern Spain. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (Accepted).
forthcoming Guamán Poma’s Ecocentric Ethos in Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1616). Plants and Animals in Latin American Cultures. Gainesville: University Press of Florida (Accepted).
forthcoming The Quixotic Sensorium. Cervantine Futures: Theorizing Cervantes after the Critical Turn. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Special Issues and Dossiers
2021 García, M., Sierra Matute, V., Formas de sociabilidad literaria: Siglos XVI y XVII, special issue of Philobiblion: Revista de Literaturas Hispánicas 14: 7-74.
forthcoming The Past Awakened: Cultural Reimagination in the Global Hispanophone, special issue of Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 28 (2025).
Encyclopedia Entries
2015 “José de Espronceda.” Biblioteca de Autógrafos Españoles IV (s. XIX). Madrid: Calambur.
2013 “Sentencias que se promulgaron contra Rodrigo Calderón” and “Carta que envió a su padre en la víspera de su muerte.” Memoria manuscrita del Siglo de Oro en la Biblioteca Nacional de España. Madrid: Calambur.
2011 “Miguel de Barrios,” “Pedro de Ribadeneyra,” and “Tomás Tamayo de Vargas.” Biblioteca de Autógrafos Españoles II (ss. XVI-XVII). Madrid: Calambur.
Review Essays
2021 El giro socioliterario en los estudios del Barroco hispánico. Review essay of Sociabilidad y literatura en el Siglo de Oro, ed. Mechthild Albert. Iberoamericana-Vervuert. 2013; Ámbitos artísticos y literarios de sociabilidad en los Siglos de Oro, ed. Elena Martínez Carro and Alejandra Ulla Lorenzo. Reichenberger. 2020; and Redes y escritoras ibéricas en la esfera cultural de la primera Edad Moderna, ed. María D. Martos. Iberoamericana-Vervuert. 2021. Philobiblion: Revista de Literaturas Hispánicas.
Book Reviews
2024 Review of Elizabeth Spragins, A Grammar of the Corpse: Necroepistemology in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Fordham UP, 2023. ConSecuencias. A Journal of Spanish Criticism.
2024 Review of Diego Javier Luis, The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History. Harvard UP, 2024. Confluencia: Revista Hispánica de Cultura y Literatura.
2024 Review of Mary E. Barnard, A Poetry of Things: The Material Lyric in Habsburg Spain. U of Toronto P, 2022. Hispanófila.
2023 Review of Frederick A. de Armas and James Mandrell, The Gastronomical Arts in Spain: Food and Etiquette. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2022. Cervantes: Journal of the Cervantes Society of America.
2023 Review of David Castillo and William Egginton. What Would Cervantes Do? Navigating Post-Truth with Spanish Baroque Literature. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2022. Cervantes: Journal of the Cervantes Society of America.
2022 Review of Nicole D. Legnani, The Business of Conquest: Empire, Love, and Law in the Atlantic World. U of Notre Dame P. Hispanic Review.
2021 Review of Rosilie Hernández, Immaculate Conceptions: The Power of the Religious Imagination in Early Modern Spain. U of Toronto P. 2019. Hispanófila.
2020 Review of The Rise of Spanish American Poetry 1500-1700: Literary and Cultural Transmission in the New World. Ed. by Rodrigo Cacho Casal and Imogen Choi. Legenda. 2019. Bulletin of Spanish Studies.
2020 Review of Nicholas R. Jones, Staging Habla de Negros: Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain. Bucknell UP. 2019. Calíope: Journal of the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry.
2019 Review of Emily Francomano, The Prison of Love: Romance, Translation, and the Book in the Sixteenth Century. U Toronto P. 2018. Hispanic Review.
2018 Review of Luis Avilés, Avatares de lo invisible: espacio y subjetividad en los Siglos de Oro. Iberoamericana-Vervuert, Colección Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica, 2017. Philobiblion: Revista de Literaturas Hispánicas.
2018 Review of Karoline Cook, Forbidden Passages: Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America. U of Pennsylvania P. 2016. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos.
2017 Review of Lope de Vega, La vega del Parnaso. Critical ed. by Felipe B. Pedraza and Pedro Conde Parrado. Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha. 2015. Criticón.
2017 Review of Miguel Martínez, Front Lines: Soldiers’ Writing in the Early Modern Hispanic World. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: U of Pennsylvania P. 2016. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies.
2016 Review of Enrique Fernández, Anxieties of Interiority and Dissection in Early Modern Spain. U of Toronto P. 2015. Hispanic Review.
Academic Translations
2025 A la usanza romana: Spanish Poetry and alla spagnola Music in Early Modern Rome (1624). Soundscapes of the Early Modern Hispanophone and Lusophone Worlds. Routledge. [translation from Sebastián León, “‘A la usanza romana’: Poesía, teatro y música alla spagnola en la embajada española de la Roma barroca (1624)”]
2023 Quijotes bajitos. The Cervantes Public Project [translation from Stephen Haff, “Kid Quixotes”]
2022 Divas negras, feminismos negros: el “habla de negros” y el cuerpo de las mujeres negras en Lope de Rueda. Mora: Revista del Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de Género, 28: 157-182[translation from Nicholas R. Jones, “Black Divas, Black Feminisms: The Black Female Body and Habla de Negros in Lope de Rueda”]
Other Publications
2021 Líquidos, sonidos, sensibilidad montalbaniana: La mayor confusión (1624). Iberian Connections: Medieval and Early Modern Studies and Contemporary Critical Thought (Yale), https://iberian-connections.yale.edu
2020 Lope y sus nombres: identidad y desdoblamiento lírico en las Rimas sacras (1614). Esferas, 10: 239-247.
2011 Historia del Códice Daza. Manuscrt.Cao, 10.
2010 De trajes y sombras: dos sonetos autógrafos de Miguel Hernández en la Biblioteca Nacional de España. Manuscrt.Cao, 8.
Positions
Grants
Faculty Fellow Publication Program, CUNY, 2024
Huntington Library Fellow, 2017
