Alejandra Vela-Martínez
Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures (Spanish)
Specializations:
20th-21st Century Mexican Cultural Studies
Transnational mass culture, archives, feminine periodicals and literature
Diasporic and border feminine literature
their reception and preservation throughout Latin American Modernity
Course idea:
Open to collaborating on a topic related to formations of identity and/or popular culture
My research critically examines the construction of symbolic value in Latin American literature and culture, with a particular focus on Mexico, through the lens of Gender, Women, and Sexualities Studies. I explore the creation of symbolic capital using two main approaches: historical research based on archival work with understudied materials, and critical readings informed by reception theory and affect theory to highlight biases in cultural consumption. My analyses question the institutionalized margins of official culture from a gendered perspective.
As a whole, my research questions the Latin American cultural field by examining how different "counter-archives," as I call them in my current book manuscript, illuminate literary and cultural history involving feminine writers and materials. I defend the need, within the Humanities, to celebrate the ways femininity has intervened in the public sphere, while rethinking the limits of what is considered Literature and Culture. This is a necessary step towards a reconceptualization of intellectual history based on feminized aesthetics that uncover numerous female and women writers, editors, and readers formerly excluded from the canon.
My interests lie at the intersection of Literary History, Women and Gender Studies, and the History of Material Culture. I challenge prevailing feminist historical perspectives that dismiss cultural products as too conservative or patriarchal, advocating for the recognition of diverse forms of feminine participation in the public sphere throughout history. This approach seeks to restore the agency of women and other feminine subjects in shaping their destinies.
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Shoniqua Roach
Assistant Professor, African and African American Studies & Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis
Specializations:
Black Feminist Theory
Black Studies
Queer and Sexuality Studies
Performance Studies
Racial Capitalism
Course idea:
None specified
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Patricia Davis
Associate Professor, Media & Design, Northeastern
Specializations:
Memory
Race
Gender
Representation
Visual culture
Material culture
Corporeality
Media studies
Course idea:
Memory and Gender: this course will explore the ways in which women have used various modes of historical production to represent their experiences of and perspectives on the past. It will include studies of women's performance, visual and material culture, filmmaking, literature, and other forms of memory work.
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K.J. Rawson
Associate Professor, English, Northeastern University
Specializations:
Digital humanities
Rhetoric
LGBTQ+ and Feminist Studies
Archives
Course idea:
None specified
K.J. Rawson is founder and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, an award-winning online repository of trans-related historical materials, and he is the co-chair of the editorial board of the Homosaurus, an international LGBTQ linked data vocabulary.
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Stacey Sloboda
Associate Professor, Art, Umass boston
Specializations:
18th Century Art
Architecture and Design History
Cross-cultural context and imperialism
Cultural geography
Women and art patronage
Course idea:
None specified
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Hillary Chute
Distinguished Professor, English, Northeastern University
Specializations:
Visual culture and feminisms
Comics and graphic narratives
Contemporary literature
Course idea:
None specified
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David Sherman
Associate Professor, English, Brandeis University
Specializations:
Global modernism
Elegy and the politics of commemoration
Public sphere theory
Comedy
Literature in the criminal justice system
Literature and philosophy
Course idea:
Death and Feminism. A course on feminist and queer mortuary politics, including attention to literature, visual art, performance, and other expressive practices as sites of cultural intervention in the lives of the dead.
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Nick Montfort
Professor and Poet, Comparative Media Studies and Writing, MIT
Nick Montfort develops computational poetry and art and has participated in dozens of literary and academic collaborations. Recent books include The Future and Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities (MIT Press) and several books of computational poetry: Hard West Turn, The Truelist, #!, the collaboration 2x6, and Autopia. He has worked to contribute to platform studies, critical code studies, and electronic literature.
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Specializations:
Digital Media
Course idea:
To guest lecture and discuss digital art & literary works that deal with gender.