Visiting Assistant Professor
My research and teaching interests include Contemporary Ethnic
American Literature specifically Mexican American and Caribbean
American Literature and Popular Culture. My research explores the
dynamic relationship between popular cultural forms and literary
production. My dissertation examines how Chicana authors integrate
aspects of the telenovela genre while simultaneously altering the
narrative formula and contesting traditional notions of romance and
heteronormativity upheld within the popular form. My methodology
incorporates feminist and gender studies, popular cultural studies,
radio, television and film theory, as well as genre studies.
I am also interested in the issues of nationality, migration,
Diaspora, violence, loss, language and assimilation. Among the authors
I teach regularly are Ana Castillo, Helena María Viramontes, Edwidge
Danticat, Toni Morrison, and Jhumpa Lahiri. In my Ethnic American
literature courses, I encourage students to look at how different
cultural and historical forces have both constrained and enabled
authors' creative expressions. By paying proper attention to close
textual readings, as well as the historical moments in which these
works are occurring, I hope to help students develop a sense of the
aesthetic and political stakes of Ethnic American literary production.
I earned my B.A. in English and Humanistic Studies at Saint Mary's
College of Notre Dame, my M.A. in Comparative Literature and my Ph.D.
in English at The University of Texas at Austin.
Teaching Fields
- American, Mexican American and Ethnic Literature and Popular Culture
Office Hours
SPRING 2012
- MW 12:00-1:00
Teaching Schedule
SPRING 2012
- 2710/101 MWF 8:00-8:50 EC117
- 2710/103 MWF 10:00-10:50 DS369
- 2520/101 MWF 11:00-11:50 DS369
Research Interests
- Latina/o Literature
- Popular Culture
- Feminist and Gender Studies
Selected Publications
Honors/Awards
English Department
