Josué David Chávez

Josué Chávez studies how Central American artistic productions mediate histories of social transformation in the isthmus and their global connections. He first trained in Comparative Literature at Columbia University, with a focus on Spanish and Chinese. His senior thesis, titled “Translation Aesthetics: Performance Art across Central America and China” was awarded the Catherine Medalia Johannet Memorial Prize in Comparative Literature in 2018. Josué now investigates how literature, contemporary art and architecture from the isthmus theorize in their formal coordination a number of financial experiments, such as Panama’s transformation into a tax haven in the 1970s, the dollarization of remittances in El Salvador soon after the peace accords of 1992 and the legalization of privatized, special economic zones in Honduras after the 2009 coup. A dedicated and generous teacher, Josué is committed to helping students develop the linguistic, socio-cultural and critical skills needed for them to achieve their goals inside and outside the classroom.