Featured Scholar - January 2022

 

What are you watching/streaming?
I've been re-watching some stunning Latin American films to prepare for my World Cinema course, including A Fantastic Woman, Birds of Passage, Ixcanul, and The Golden Dream. Some favorite series these days include Lovecraft Country, Pose, Never Have I Ever, Schitt's Creek, and Adventure Time.

What games are you playing?
My partner and I enjoy pausing every evening to find words with the NYT “Spelling Bee” game. When zoning out during Zoom meetings, I play digital Solitaire. Also, lots and lots of tug, fetch, and training games with our pandemic puppy Arthur brighten my days.

What are you listening to?
Fluffy audio books while I walk the dogs; comforting instrumentals (Zoe Keating, William Basinski) or vocalists (Perotá Chingó, Jorge Drexler, Natalie Merchant) while I write; and Dessa, Lizzo, Tune-Yards, or Guatemalan hip-hop artist Rebeca Lane when I'm washing the dishes or (more rarely) going for a run. I kick off my online classes with Selena, Bomba Estéreo, Calle 13, or a crowd-sourced playlist. 

What are you reading?
I have been deep into the works of Cristina Rivera Garza and Valeria Luiselli lately, two Mexican authors that have received an enormous amount of US attention in recent years. Most recently, I've enjoyed Rivera Garza's Autobiografía del algodón (Autobiography of Cotton), which traces her family history of transnational displacement and migration through state agricultural practices. I am also re-reading a number of Chicana classics such as Ana Castillo's So Far From God and Helena María Viramontes' Under the Feet of Jesus as I prepare for a graduate seminar focused on ecocriticism in Chicano/a/x literature. Last year's Humanities Center Forests theme inspired me to tackle Annie Proulx's Barkskins and Richard Power's The Overstory. For fun, I'm also reading everything by Maggie O'Farrell and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Jacqueline Winspear's entire Maisie Dobbs detective series.

What are you writing/thinking about?
My current projects explore bureaucratic violence (or how systems of documentation can operate as borders as much as physical walls) in Cristina Rivera Garza's writings, art and poetry produced by incarcerated women in Mexico and the US, and the (in)visibility of Mexican-American history and contributions in Lubbock. I am also working on editing a volume about transnational feminist solidarity in the digital age, and am thinking a lot about how mutual aid, caretaking, and activism fits into and is at times at odds with our positions within academic institutions. I'm always thinking about how to build balance, sustainable habits, and communities of support.