American Studies Association (ASA)

SoCal Latinx

Latina/o Studies Association

Modern Language Association (MLA)

Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS)

Lorna Dee Cervantes is a pivotal figure throughout the Chicano literary movement and this book gathers 30 years' worth of essays and articles about her as well as interviews with her. A fifth-generation Californian of Mexican and Native American (Chumasch) heritage, Cervantes is widely considered one of the most important Latina poets who drew tremendous power from her struggles in the literary and political trenches. This work explores the boundaries between language and experience and features a new collection of poems by the dynamic poet.

Stunned into Being: Essays on the Poetry of Lorna Dee Cervantes

Examining a wide range of source material including popular culture, literature, photography, television, and visual art, this collection of essays sheds light on the misrepresentations of Latina/os in the mass media.

The Un/Making of Latina/o Citizenship: Culture, Politics, and Aesthetics (Literatures of the Americas)

Humor and Latina/o Camp in Ugly Betty: Funny Looking expands the vista of critical approaches to comedy and representational politics on mainstream television from an interdisciplinary Latina/o studies approach. González and Rodriguez y Gibson examine how Ugly Betty uses humor and Latina/o camp to reframe socially charged issues on the show: representations of masculinity and familia, immigration, drag and queer subjectivities, Latina sexuality, and finally, a Latina feminist critique of the American Dream. Ugly Betty moves beyond the binaries of traditional representational politics and opens a vista of critical possibility applicable to all mainstream texts that portray people of color through comedy. This work will be of interest to scholars in media studies, Latina/o studies, and communication studies. 

Humor and Latina/o Camp in Ugly Betty: Funny Looking (Critical Studies in Television)

This book broadens the scope of Latina/o criticism to include both widely-read and understudied nineteenth through twenty-first century fictional works that engage in critical discussions of gender, race, sexuality, and identity. The essays in this collection do not simply seek inclusion for the texts they critically discuss, but suggest that we more thoughtfully consider the utility of mapping, whether we are mapping land, borders, time, migration, or connections and disconnections across time and space. Using new and rigorous methodological approaches to reading Latina/o literature, contributors reveal a varied and textured landscape, challenging us to reconsider the process and influence of literary production across borders.

(Re)mapping the Latina/o Literary Landscape (Literatures of the Americas)

Chicana Portraits: Critical Biographies of Twelve Chicana Writers

Located between the Pacific Ocean and downtown Los Angeles, Loyola Marymount University is a comprehensive university offering 60 major programs, 55 minor undergraduate degrees and programs. The Graduate Division offers 39 master’s degree programs and one education doctorate, one juris doctorate and 10 credential programs. 
 
Founded in 1911, LMU is ranked third in “Best Regional Universities (West)” by U.S. News and World Report. LMU is the largest Jesuit Catholic university for undergraduates on the West Coast, with more than 6,000 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate and law students. The state-of-the-art The William H. Hannon Library rates among the 20 best in the country according to The Princeton Review’s guide to “The Best 378 Colleges,” 2014. Bloomberg Businessweek ranks LMU sixth in the nation and third in the West in its 2013 Part-Time MBA rankings.

Loyola Marymount University

Eliza Rodriguez is Professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at LMU, and coauthor of Funny Looking: Humor, Queer Latina/o Camp, and Ugly Betty. She is the editor of Stunned Into Being: Essays on the Poetry of Lorna Dee Cervantes and coeditor of The Un/making of Latina/o Citizenship: Culture, Politics, and Aesthetics. Her latest book project, Style, Aesthetics, and the Body: Chicana/o/x Cultural Production and the Making of Latinidad examines the way style and aesthetics work on the body to create individual and collective forms of subjectivity, paying particular to the way Chicana/o/x cultural production works to articulate a critical, solidarity-driven Latinidad.  Her latest essay, “Technologies of Contagion: Mushrooms, Viruses, and the Queer Pleasures of Apocalypse” can be found in Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures 7.1 (Fall 2022)

Eliza Rodriguez

Media

Biography

Education

Cornell University

Cornell University

University of California at Los Angeles

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