CFD Team Spotlight: Maria Antonia Blandon, Graduate Fellow
The Newsletter Team sat down with one of our graduate fellows, Maria Antonia Blandon, for an interview about her work, passions, hobbies, and special CFD projects. The transcript of our interview is below.
CFD Team: Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? What are you studying or researching?
Many have heard of Medellín as a party city, a place to have fun, drink and dance, but I only know it as my home. I did my undergraduate major in Literature at EAFIT University, a private institution in my city, where I participated in many extracurricular activities such as student body representative and also in research, working and organizing in a research group where we did projects related to Translation Studies, which led me all the way here to Boston in order to pursue an MFA in Literary Translation at BU.
What concerns me most during this moment in my research career is non-fiction literature that portrays armed conflict, focusing on testimony as a way to process traumatic events and also to contradict official narratives in order to create a collective memory for the communities involved in these situations. My focus is Colombia, and my main project is the translation of my dad’s diary from when he was captive during the most violent period in our national history, called La Violencia.
CFD Team: What is your role within the Center?
I’m a graduate fellow at the CFD. Shortly after I applied for my program at BU, my program director reached out to me with a fellowship offer from the Center, and I wasn’t planning to apply, since I didn’t think a project like mine would align with their principles. But, after considering what it would mean for my dad, his story and his pain, I reconsidered and sent my project proposal. It was a great surprise to hear that my project was exactly what they were looking for, and I was granted the fellowship. I’m happy that I have the opportunity to be among these amazing professionals, driven by a great responsibility regarding their work in these complex situations where violence is always present, and I hope I can achieve a research career that has the same empathy and compassion as theirs.
CFD Team: Where does CFD fit into your story?
With the opportunity to focus on a project like the one I’m overtaking at the CFD, a whole set of possible research approaches to literature and translation that I didn’t consider before have opened up for me. Specifically, I’m referring to undertaking projects that can have a direct impact on the ways we think about conflict, trauma, victims, memory and history; by giving spotlight to these narrative works we are doing something to amplify their experiences and include them in an aesthetic-cultural part of our society, on a global, national and local scale.
CFD Team: What excites you about working here? Are you looking forward to anything?
I’m pretty stoked about being allowed a space to mingle with other researchers who work with so many different areas, because they all have something unique to say about displacement through their own lens. Whether it be migration, border studies, politics, medicine, teaching, I think it’s enriching for me when I can have them listen to what I’m doing and they, in turn, give me feedback I couldn’t have found anywhere else. The CFD has an interdisciplinary approach that interests me a lot, and I hope to see more of that, especially at the Works in Progress meetings.
When I think about the access I can give to others with translation, that’s enough to get me going. We don’t think about it as much, but we can consider language as a barrier to knowledge, expression and connection, and what translation can do is to share, communicate and facilitate. In helping someone understand what a foreign language is gatekeeping from them I find the most rewarding experience I could ever imagine. So that, in conjunction with shedding light on those stories, experiences and livelihoods that remain distant because of language barriers, I find myself ready to tackle new projects.
CFD Team: Tell us about some of your passions and hobbies outside of academia. What makes you, you?
Since I’m a literature major, most people would expect me to say that reading is my passion and hobby, but like any other profession, it has become my work. So, what I try to do in order to balance literature and pleasure is to access other kinds of storytelling, like movies, tv shows, videos, music, museums, etc.
Most of the time you can find me taking long walks, which is something I’ve come to appreciate since living in Boston; I particularly enjoy walking along the beach, even with the cold weather, since the ocean is not something I’ve always had so available as I do here. Walking is a way to meditate more relaxed and freely, as Thoreau has proven, and it allows me to shift from academia-focused thinking to something more encompassing, which is thinking about life in general.
CFD Team: Where do you hope to be five years from now?
In five years, I aspire to be contributing to more compassionate and grounded Humanities and Literary Studies, focusing on Colombian literature and narratives born from the armed conflict. If it’s possible, I would like to start this work by completing a PhD, which is ideal for granting me the independence desired for my research work, and translating a lot of works by Colombian authors so their voices can be more known in a global stage.
CFD Team: What is something you’re proud of?
I’m proud to be so blessed as to be here sharing this experience with all the amazing people I’ve met since coming to Boston, since this is something I had only dreamed of. Thankful is an understatement to what I feel everyday coming to BU, whether it be classes or visiting the CFD; I’ve never felt more welcome.