Who Am I?

The question above tends to cause much grief and has been the subject of numerous pieces of art, literature, film, philosophy, etc.; I’ll limit myself to stating what is generally considered to be the “standard” info. My name is Rodrigo Ponciano Ojeda, I have a BA in English Lang. and Lit. from the UNAM, and I am currently a half-independent academic, half-still-involved-it’s-complicated with the UNAM. My research interests tend to be narratology, genre studies (Western, crime, science fiction, and Gothic—for the most part), and ecocriticism.

What Is Shored Fragments?

This will be my first foray in academic blogging; I’ve been impressed by seeing the work of other academics on social media and I thought I would give it a go. A more personal motivation for the blog is that—like the protagonist, Amory Blaine, of one of my favourite novels (This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald)—I have “rather a Puritan conscience” at times, and I feel much better if my procrastination is involved in more productive pursuits than looking up images of corgis (another obsession).

As the complete title of the blog suggests, it will be comprised of pieces of writing that serve me as notes on topics that I am interested in, pieces that make public certain lines of inquiry, or just other miscellanea. I could do (and I do) all of these things privately, but by writing them here I have the hope that other people will be able to pitch in their thoughts, suggest readings/resources, or engage in discussion, and perhaps also benefit from them. Even if I have a small or nonexistent reading audience beside myself, writing these pieces will still help force me give clarity to these ideas which should aid me in then incorporating them into more developed pieces.

CV:

For the time being, the complete list of my academic talks/publications so far is found at the following link, although I am gradually transferring everything to my Humanities Commons profile.