BRENDA SELENA LARA, PH.D.
Cultural Historian, Literary Theorist, Philosopher
ABOUT ME
Ph.D. Chicana/o and Central American Studies UCLA
Brenda Selena Lara (she/they/ella) is a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Santa Cruz’s Literature Department. She received her doctoral degree from UCLA’s Cesar Chavez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies with an emphasis in Gender Studies and Critical Theory. Born and raised in South Los Angeles, her upbringing influences her historical, theoretical, and literary research analyzing LGBTQ+ Latinxs’ lives, knowledge, and deaths. Her projects have been awarded the IUPLR/UIC Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, UCLA’s Dissertation Year Fellowship, and the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship.
PUBLICATIONS
Selected Papers
HUESERAS, MESTIZAS, AND LLORONAS: SURVIVING DEADLY OCCUPANTS AND SÉANCING FEMINIST SPECTERS IN THE BORDERLANDS
This article intersects Chicana Feminism, Latinx folklore, and hauntology to analyze cultural production that centers on Chicana, Mexican, and Indigenous women's supernatural occupancy of women's bodies and homes. Utilizing borderlands theory alongside hauntology, I contend that Latina feminist writers and directors utilize specters to demonstrate the borderlands' violent and liberatory contradictions in the United States, Mexico, and Central America.
MUJERES Y MADNESS: DECONSTRUCTING CHICANA TEORIA ON LOCURA, QUEERNESS, AND LOVE
I explore the intersections of Chicanidad, queerness, and mental health as I navigate locura as a "typology in Borderlands." Drawing from queer Chicana feminist theorists, including Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherrie Moraga, and Alicia Gaspar de Alba, explicate locura teoria within Chicana scholarship.
CIGUANABAS, REFUGEES, AND OTHER HAUNTINGS: THREE SALVADORAN WOMEN'S RESISTANCE AGAINST HETEROPATRIARCHY
This article highlights the experiences, testimonies, and memories of three Salvadoran women refugees. Among these women is Reyna Marroquin, who migrated to the United States in the 1960s and who was murdered in New York City by her employer, who hid her body in a barrel for decades. Alongside Marroquin, I examine the lives of Jade Quintanilla and Francia Camila, two trans women who are currently residing in Tijuana, Mexico seeking asylum into the United States as a survival strategy against transphobic violence.
PRESENTATIONS
Selected Academic Conferences
Ghostly Love in Academia: Dr. Lora Romero's Archival Justice, Activist Solidarity, and Public Haunting
American Studies Association
Haunting Pedagogies: Teaching Hauntology as Feminist Praxis & Resistance
National Women's Studies Association
Mis Ninos!: A Content Textual Analysis of La Llorona Oral Histories
National Chicana and Chicano Studies Association
INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE
Email: bslara@ucsc.edu