I am a third-year PhD Candidate in the department of Spanish and Portuguese. My research and teaching interests are in Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies, with a focus on contemporary testimonial narratives, from media to popular culture and fiction. My research is informed by my profound interest in studying how societies with a violent past and present, such as Colombia (my home country), represent, interpret and understand themselves. Currently I am working in my dissertation titled “That town is a red zone”: Geographies of the Colombian Armed Conflict in 21st Century Testimonial Narratives, in which I intend to examine a group of testimonial narratives about war in Colombia published in the last twenty years, emphasizing their portrayal of space and how the armed conflict and its representations have affected the relationship between certain territories and their inhabitants. My goal is to question the uses, meanings and pervasiveness of the term “zona roja” in Colombia, and to contest the importance of the term in shaping the views held by the general population about regions affected by the armed conflict.