Daniela Jara Rodriguez

Daniela Jara is a PhD candidate in Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University, specializing in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian cultures of Latin America. Her dissertation, Tracing the Literary Genealogies of Amazonian Ecology (20th–21st Century), examines how Latin American literature has mediated the evolution of Amazonian ecological thought from the early 20th century to the present. Integrating eco-Marxism, political ecology, and Marxist hermeneutics, she explores the material, political, and cultural history of Amazonian environmental thinking in relation to Latin American literature.

Beyond the environmental humanities, she is deeply engaged with philosophy, critical theory, and intellectual history, particularly moral philosophy, political theology, and historical hermeneutics. She is also interested in the 19th-century rise of Darwinism and geological sciences, analyzing their role in shaping the geologic record. Thinking with Clarice Lispector, she is interested in literary artifacts that articulate a unique mode of inquiry that unsettles anthropocentric frameworks deeply embedded in culture.

Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, Daniela is dedicated to pedagogy, Second Language Acquisition, and critical approaches to language learning. She sees teaching as an intellectual practice that fosters deep engagement with texts, languages, and ideas, cultivating a student-centered classroom that prioritizes inquiry and discovery.