Education
- Ph.D., University of Oregon (English)
- M.A., University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (Literatures and Cultural Studies)
- B.A., University of Texas Pan American (English and Mexican American Studies)
Selected Publications
"Mapping the Decolonial: Community Cartography in Sandra Cisneros' Woman Hollering Creek," book chapter in 'jAy Tu!': Critical Essays on The Work and Career of Sandra Cisneros, Sonia Saldivar-Hull and Geneva Gano, eds., forthcoming.
"Invented Geographies: The Material and Immaterial Geopoetics of Sandra Cisneros' s 'Pilon,"' MELUS, vol. 45, no. 2, 2020, pp. 154-172.
Teaching Interests
I teach broadly across Chicanx and Latinx literature and cultural studies beginning with the 19th century. I draw from Women of Color feminist theories and border studies to critically approach the spatialized politics of "American" literature.
Teaching Philosophy
My diverse teaching experiences, which include teaching ESL/ELL GED courses, high school English AP courses, and college-level courses, continuously inform the ways I currently teach literature and writing. I prioritize three primary learning outcomes in all of my courses, which include equipping students with critical reading skills (taking a text or cultural studies object and understanding its modalities of production and the stakes of those productions), the scope and breadth of a field (undertaking the task of "defining a field" while also learning that these fields are in constant evolution and flux), and critical writing skills (being able to bridge what students have read and what students have learned in ways that responsibly and clearly articulate their distinctive contributions to ongoing conversations). Further, because I work through archives that are infrequently taught in both K-12 and at the university-level, part of my work is working with students to continue building, or at building for the first time, their understanding of the scope and breadth of Latinx and Multi-Ethnic literatures, theories, and cultural studies.
I center ethical argumentation in all of my courses to consider the intersecting discourses of race, gender, and culture within transdisciplinary materials like art, films, memoir, popular culture, social media, and scholarly essays. In my courses, I take a metacognitive approach that gives both English majors and non-majors opportunities to critically contend with questions of nationalism, citizenships, and language within Latinidad as one methodology with which to engage the necessary critiques of antiblackness and anti-indigenous sentiments within Chicanx and Latinx studies.