Hermán Luis Chávez (USA/Bolivia)

Saludos! As a scholar, I am passionate about interdisciplinary approaches in critical theory and cultural studies and public humanities. My research projects stem from an overarching interest in the sociality of the literary and musical arts, the institutions that engender their creation and history, and the people that navigate them to produce and experience culture. In the academy, these studies have included 20th century Bolivian literature, Bolivian art music historiography, LGBTQ+ performance in the United Kingdom, ethnographic methodologies, and music higher education in the United States.

I earned my MMus in Musicology and Ethnomusicology from King's College London as a Marshall Scholar, where I completed a dissertation on the London Gay Symphony Orchestra. Considering the affect of the institutional archive alongside ethnographic research, I situated the orchestra amongst networks of amateur orchestras and LGBTQ+ charities in London and beyond to articulate the social benefits of the orchestra. My undergraduate studies began at Colorado State University in cello performance, music education, and interdisciplinary liberal arts, and culminated in a BA in Ethnomusicology and a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Los Angeles. There, my research focused on mestizaje in the musicological works of Bolivian composer Atiliano Auza León as I simultaneously taught a course on contemporary Latinx studies.

My public humanities work includes Oíste? Listening to the Salsa Stories of Afro Latin Music for the National Park Service and A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States for the Library of Congress. I have also had the privilege of working in outreach, education, and administration for literary arts non-profits, libraries, and universities to assist in making learning and literature projects accessible to various audiences.

At Oxford, I am excited to pursue research that focuses on Bolivian culture as expressed in modern literature and theory, as Indigenous writers from multiple disciplines complicate popular narratives of underdevelopment cultivated by urban literary and political elites following the national revolution in 1952. 

I am Co-President of the Oxford University Poetry Society and an Associate Editor for Society for Ethnomusicology Student News, a biannual publication of student research in ethnomusicology. My academic writing can be found in Society for Ethnomusicology Student News and Aleph, UCLA Undergraduate Research Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences. My poetry can be found in Scribendi, Greyrock Review, Barely South Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere.

Alongside my research, I will continue work on poems, essays, and public writing. A lover of yellow hues, soft objects, stippled art, and furtive glances, I am active sometimes as a siren, sometimes as a cellist. I extend much gratitude to the Ertegun Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities for expanding my access to scholarly community and innovation.