Wilfredo José Burgos Matos

Wilfredo José Burgos Matos is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at the University of Texas, Austin. His research spans sound studies, music, affect theory, Caribbean history, and race and space. His dissertation, titled “The Affective Aurality of Dominican Feeling.” combines his various areas of specialty to examine the feeling of amargue and how its aurality shapes racial, class, and gender consciousness and identity in the Dominican Republic and New York City from the XIX century to the present. Building upon the works of pioneering Bachata scholar Deborah Pacini-Hernandez, who donated her papers to CUNY DSI’s Dominican Archives in 2018, Burgos Matos’ work takes into account the wide range of cultural articulations of amargue—the sacred, literature, albums, live performances, and geographies—to frame Dominicanness, in his words, “within the amargue condition and worldview that evolved since the XIX century when the emerging sugar economies of the island where booming and plantation-like sensibilities were at their peak.” At CUNY DSI, Burgos Matos will consult Pacini-Hernandez’s archival collection.