Cecilia Salvi

Cecilia María Salvi is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She studies the artistic and literary movement of editoriales cartoneras in Latin America.

Biography

Salvi is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the relationship between literature, public space, and democratic ideologies in post-dictatorship societies. She has conducted ethnographic research in Chile, Argentina, and Peru on editoriales cartoneras, independent publishing houses that use upcycled cardboard to handmake books in their efforts to “democratize literature.” She is currently writing her dissertation based on those findings.

Salvi began her career in education as an ESL teacher in Los Angeles. She has taught courses in anthropology, sociology, ethnic studies, and gender studies. She holds two master’s degrees, in Spanish and Cultural Anthropology, from California State University, Los Angeles, and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is a proud Fellow of the Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program and a former Judy Y.T. Chang Fellow and Research Associate. She was a visiting faculty member at Bennington from Fall 2023-Fall 2024.