Education & Professional History
University of Villanova, MA; University of Colorado at Boulder, PhD
Dr. Palmar Álvarez-Blanco is a professor at Carleton College, Minnesota. She is the co-founder and coordinator of the international association ALCESXXI, a space dedicated to critical, and public intervention in research, educational, and cultural areas threatened by capitalist interference.
As a cultural researcher, Palmar Álvarez-Blanco focuses on tracing the historical issues and crises inherent to the capitalist system, as well as on situated analysis and documentation of the transition towards a system based on the logic of the Commons. This work is captured in the cartography and living open archive of The Constellation of the Commons.
As Broom Fellow for Public Scholarship, Álvarez-Blanco introduced two strategic initiatives to strengthen the community of public scholars at Carleton. She increased the visibility of this mode of scholarship and its many expressions through the Media Library for Public Scholarship and the Day of Public Scholarship, both of which are designed to continue on beyond her fellowship. She brings an organizer’s mindset to her work, always finding ways to help more people (faculty, staff, and students) see how they can and do contribute to public scholarship and higher education’s public purpose. This work earned her the President’s Engagement Civic Award at Carleton College in 2024.
At Carleton since 2006.
Current Courses
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Winter 2025
SPAN 320:
Death and Dying Under Capitalism: An Ecological and Humanistic Perspective
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Spring 2025
Alvarez-Blanco’s research focuses on the transformation of cultural paradigms in the frame of capitalism and its crises. Among her latest essays focused on capitalist culture and alternative cultural imaginary are: “Culture a la contra: A Cultural Paradigm Toward Alternatives to the Civilizatory and Ecological Crisis”, in the book titled Spain After the Indignados/15M Movement: The 99% Speaks Out; “De-fencing: Notes on the Cultural Ecosystem of the Commons in the Post-15M Spanish State” (Boundary 2) and “Transformative and Emancipatory Research and Education: A Counter-Practice in Research and Teaching” with Steven Torres (in Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, VOL40, 2018). Moreover, Palmar Alvarez-Blanco is conducting campus-based research on the concept of Public Scholarship. This research is dedicated to the Media Library for Public Scholarship project.
Throughout her career at Carleton, Professor Alvarez-Blanco has continued to explore new ways to grow as a teacher, scholar, and engaged community member. Her teaching portfolio includes courses on Civic engagement, and participatory video, and co-curation of traveling exhibitions in the USA: Welcome to the World and Satirical and Political Graphics in the Modern World. In 2020 professor Alvarez-Blanco was selected for the Mellon Periclean to Faculty Leadership Program to incorporate civic engagement into the curriculum. This award supported the creation of ‘Radio and News in Spanish,’ an Academic Civic Engagement (ACE) course co-designed and co-taught with community partners Lucy Gonzalez Miron, Tayde Rodriguez, Marlene Rojas and Mar Valdecantos (founders and managers of the Northfield community radio program “El Súper Barrio Latino”). As a Periclean Faculty Leader, Professor Alvarez-Blanco joined a community of scholars dedicated to incorporating civic engagement into the curriculum while empowering students to use their academic knowledge to tackle real-world problems.
Current Courses
-
Winter 2025
SPAN 320:
Death and Dying Under Capitalism: An Ecological and Humanistic Perspective
-
Spring 2025
In addition to being the architect, curator and creator of the Constellation of the Commons —an audiovisual open-access archive concerning self-managed communities of practice that have emerged over the past decade, spurred on by the exposure of the neoliberal financial sham within the Spanish territory. —, she is the author and co-author of several book projects
Pequeño Tratado de amistad. Hacia una política de respeto (La Vorágine, 2023)
Oikonomía y Acción Ciudadana. Transitando sistemas con la constelación de los Comunes (2024)
En ruta con el común. Archivo y memoria de una posible constelación (2017-18-19). (2020)
La Imaginación Hipotecada. Aportaciones al debate sobre la precariedad en el presente (Ecologistas en Acción, 2016).
Contornos de la narrativa española actual (2000-2010). Un diálogo entre creadores y críticos (Iberoamericana, 2011).
