Professor
Academic Degrees
Jeremy G. Larochelle, Professor of Spanish, received his Ph.D. (2006) from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in Spanish with a focus on contemporary Latin American and U.S. Latina/o literature and ecological issues. He received his B.A. in Spanish from the College of William and Mary, where he conducted undergraduate research in Mexico and Ecuador.
Dr. Larochelle’s academic interests lie in the intersection between Latin American and U.S. Latina/o literature and environmental issues. Over the last number of years, his research has revolved around cultural production in the Amazon region. Through the support of a Faculty Research Grant, he conducted research in the Peruvian Amazon, where he interviewed writers, visited libraries and spoke with people in villages along the Amazon River.
His students received undergraduate research grants to travel to the Amazon as well and conduct their original research. His work on the subject has been published in the journals The Dirty Goat and Review: Literature and Art of the Americas, ¡Más aplausos para la lluvia! Antología de poesía amazónica reciente/More Applause for the Rain: Anthology of Recent Amazonian Poetry, a critical anthology of recent poetry from the Amazon with a focus on the environment that was published in spring 2014 by TierraNueva Press in Perú.
His book chapter titled The ‘Brevity of the Planet’: Environmental Loss in Recent Poetry by Contemporary Amazonian Writers appeared recently in the edited volume, Ecological Crisis and Literary Representation in Latin America: Ecocritical Perspectives on Art, Film, and Literature (Lexington Books, 2016). In addition, an article titled A City on the Brink of Apocalypse: Mexico City’s Urban Ecology in Works by Homero Aridjis and Vicente Leñero was published in the widely read journal Hispania. He has a forthcoming book chapter on the interoceanic canal in Nicaragua titled Poetry and Revolution on the Brink of Ecological Disaster: Ernesto Cardenal and the Interoceanic Canal in Nicaragua (University of Nevada Press, 2019).
Dr. Larochelle also works as a Faculty Fellow in the Office of Academic Services, where he advises students and helps guide them to viable paths to graduation.
Outside of the classroom he servs as the Faculty Sponsor for the UMW Outdoor Club and enjoys coming along on excursions as UMW students discover the natural beauty of the local area. He is also an active member of the President’s Council on Sustainability, which strives to make UMW a more sustainable institution. Every fall he teaches his FSEM, Writing For a Wounded Planet: Literature and the Environment in the U.S. and Latin America, which incorporates paddling and hiking excursions to local natural areas.