Mariela Méndez, Ph.D. (University of Massachusetts Amherst):

I am an Associate Professor of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Richmond. My research engages comparative literary studies and feminist and queer theories to interrogate representations of genders and sexualities in print culture throughout Latin America. In particular, I address the various ways in which women writers have used the press to craft alternative spaces of cultural, aesthetic, and political intervention that disrupt heteronormative ideologies. I teach at the intersection of Latin American Studies, Performance Studies, Transnational Feminisms, Queer Theory, and Feminist New Materialisms, and I am also interested in the political potential of a transnational feminist critical practice.