Biography
Erik Larson grew up in Minnesota. He graduated from BYU with a BA in Spanish Translation in 2006. He subsequently completed his PhD in Latin American Literature, with a designated emphasis in Critical Theory, in 2012, at the University of California, Davis.
Commonly Taught Courses
Dr. Larson regularly teaches introductory courses to literature in Spanish (SPAN 339), as well as Spanish American literature (SPAN 451) and Spanish American civilization and culture (SPAN 355). He also teaches seminars on the Argentine novela negra, Latin American detective fiction, the short story, the novel, and literary theory.
Interests
Dr. Larson’s research focuses on contemporary narrative from Latin America, specifically detective fiction. His work counterposes currents in critical theory and philosophy with metaphysical detective fiction from the Latin America and film noir. His articles have examined, for example, issues of materialism, trauma, and history in detective novels by Ignacio Padilla, Ricardo Piglia, Juan Martini and others. Dr. Larson is currently working on a book project that examines detective fiction from various parts of Latin America and Spain.
Research Interests
I am currently working on a manuscript that examines noir detective fiction from Latin America (primarily writers from Argentina and Mexico). My main argument is that noir fiction from Latin America exposes a world that is groundless, whether they are talking about issues of trauma or political upheaval. In addition to the already well-established reading of groundlessness as a point of critique, I show how groundlessness in noir novels becomes a way of being, or an ontology unto itself and I place it into dialogue with Martin Heidegger. Essentially, the detective protagonists in works by Ricardo Piglia, Jorge Volpi, Patricia Melo and others, model ways of making do within a world where things have come apart. In this sense, in addition to the novels' more familiar dimension of critique, we find a pedagogical dimension wherein the groundless becomes somewhat familiar and the novels even model an attempt to embody and master crisis.I have also published articles on authors like Ricardo Piglia, Ignacio Padilla, Juan Martini and others. I am currently doing some work on Colombian writers Juan Gabriel Vásquez and Santiago Gamboa, with a focus on literary detective novels as a way of constructing a sense of literary sovereignty as a compensation for the loss of confidence in the state. I also have another project I am pursuing on immanence and transcendence in contemporary noir fiction from Spain and Latin America.