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Alicia Gaspar de Alba : Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies, English, and
Women’s Studies
Contact information: 7367 Bunche , (310) 206-3491, agdealba@ucla.edu, www.aliciagaspardealba.net |
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Areas of Interest
[Chicano/a Art] [Popular Culture] [Border Studies] [Gender & Sexuality]
[Writing] [The Maquiladora Murders]
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Education
[Ph.D.,
University
of
New Mexico
. American Studies 1994.]
[M.A., in English-Creative Writing Concentration, University of Texas at El Paso, 1983. ] [B.A., English, University of Texas at El Paso, 1980, Magna cum laude. ] [Dissertation: "Mi Casa [No] Es Su Casa": The Cultural Politics of the Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985, Exhibit.
Awarded Ralph Henry Gabriel Award for Best Dissertation in American Studies, 1994. |
| Reasearch Grants [Institute of American Cultures Grant, 2005-2006]
[UCMexus Small Grant, 2003-2004] [Institute of American Cultures (IAC) Grant, 2003-2004] [Rockefeller Fellowship for Latino/a Cultural Study at the Smithsonian, 1999]
[UCMexus Research Grant, 1998-99]
[Institute of American Cultures Grant, 1998-99]
[Minority Scholar-in-Residence Postdoctoral Fellowship, Pomona College, 1994-5] |
Awards
[International Latino Book Award for Best Spanish-Language Mystery for Sangre en el desierto: las muertas de Juárez, 2009]
Gold Shield Alumnae Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence, UCLA, 2008
[Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Best Lesbian Mystery of 2005]
[International Latino Book Award for Best English-Language Mystery of 2005]
[Best Historical Fiction for Sor Juana's Second Dream in the Latino Literary Hall of Fame, 2000.] [Roderick Endowed Chair in English, Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Texas at El Paso, Fall 1999.]
[Border-Ford/Pellicer-Frost Award for Poetry, 1998. ]
[Shirley Collier Prize for Literature (UCLA English Department award), 1998.]
[Dean's Marshal for the Social Sciences Division, UCLA, 1998.]
[Premio Aztlán for Mystery of Survival, 1994.]
[Massachusetts Artists Foundation Fellowship, Award in Poetry, 1989. ] |
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Books
Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera
Edited by Alicia Gaspar de Alba (with Georgina Guzmán)
Forthcoming Fall 2010 from University of Texas Press (Chicana Matters Series)
Since 1993, over five hundred women have been murdered and mutilated in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and at least a third have been sexually violated as well. Such violence has gone by uninvestigated, unpunished, and unresolved by Mexican authorities, thus creating an institutionalized and sanctioned violence against poor Mexican women and girls on an increasingly globalized U.S.-Mexico border.
Making a Killing: Femicides, Free Trade, and La Frontera will be the first anthology to focus exclusively on the Juárez femicides. Edited by UCLA professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba (author of the award-winning Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders), with Georgina Guzmán (ABD student in English researching immigrant family dynamics), the book has been conceptualized as a college classroom reader on the Juárez femicides, this first-ever anthology compiles several scholarly “interventions” about the Juárez femicides, all of which, from diverse perspectives and approaches, including feminism, Marxism, critical race theory, semiotics, and textual analysis, examine the social and cultural conditions that have lead to the heinous victimization of women on the border—from globalization, free trade, maquiladora working conditions, and border politics, to the traditional machismo and misogyny that pervade social attitudes towards the victims. Making a Killing also explores the crimes within different spheres of representation, such as mass media campaigns, films, television, music, and literature, and examines current ways in which femicide is being countered. Some of the essays analyze the evolving social movement that has been created by non-governmental organizations, mothers’ organizing, and other grassroots forms of activism related to these crimes. The book concludes with of a personal reflection of a forensic psychologist involved in the investigation of the crimes, an artist whose own artistic mission was given a new direction from witnessing the tragedy in Juárez, and the transcribed testimonies of two of the victims’ mothers. A final philosophical piece by a renowned feminist scholar contemplates the politics of “gynocide” as a patriarchal reenactment of “goddess murder” that connects the femicidal epidemic in Juárez to the escalating deadly violence against indigenous and other women of color across the world.
Neither the editor nor the contributors seek to identify individual culprits; rather, the essays deconstruct the broader social, cultural, political, and economic conditions that sanction daily violence against Mexican women and girls. In this way, the collection as a whole can be seen as an intervention, in the Freirian notion of “concientización,” and also, as its denotation suggests, as “an action undertaken in order to change what is happening or might happen in another’s affairs, especially in order to prevent something undesirable,” namely, the continued silence that protects the perpetrators and permits the crimes to continue unabated. This collection is an essential contribution to diverse fields of scholarly inquiry, such as Women’s Studies, Chicana/o Latina/o Studies, Border Studies, and Cultural Studies. Many of the contributors to the volume attended the 2003 “Who Is Killing the Women of Juárez?” Conference organized by Professor Gaspar de Alba under the aegis of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. Collectively, the book seeks to transform the social discourse that for over fifteen years has protected the perpetrators and blamed the victims. |
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Calligraphy of the Witch: A Novel (
St. Martin's Press, 2007 )
A spirited indentured servant gets tangled up in the 17th-century Massachusetts Bay Colony witch hunts in this ambitious historical drama. Halfway through her 15-year indenture at a Mexico City convent, Concepción Benavidez escapes only to be captured by pirates and taken to Boston, where she's sold into slavery. Nathaniel Greenwood, a local merchant, is impressed that the papist slave can write and purchases her to help his disabled father-in-law manage his chicken farm. Renamed Thankful Seagraves, Concepción, who was repeatedly raped by the pirate captain, soon discovers that she's pregnant. Greenwood's barren wife, Rebecca, covets Concepción's newborn daughter, Hanna, and sets out to take her away. As their struggle over the girl unfolds, witch hysteria grips the colony, and Concepción is drawn into the fray when Hanna fingers her for a witch. De Alba's recreation is undercut by thin characterizations—the men are mostly cruel and the women victims, the notable exception being Concepción, who clings to her dignity under the most trying conditions. But De Alba ( Sor Juana's Second Dream ) has a firm grasp of her historical material and portrays the pirate life as convincingly as the witch trials. Readers interested in the period will want to give this a look. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
UCLA Bookzone Online Interview with La Profe:
[www.uclastore.com/authors] |
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Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders (
Arte Publico Press, 2005 )
Ivon Villa, a women's studies professor who needs to finish her dissertation in order to keep her job, travels to her hometown of El Paso to arrange for an adoption for herself and her female lover. Just across the border, however, the pregnant Juarez factory worker who agreed to give up her baby becomes the latest victim in a long string of unsolved murders of Mexican women in the area. Ivon vows to get past the secrecy, coverups, and conspiracy surrounding the terror-inflicting murders while dealing with her mother's disapproval, her cousin's alcoholism, and a renegade priest's activism. Offering a powerful depiction of social injustice and serial murder on the U.S.-Mexican border, this is an essential purchase for both mystery and Hispanic fiction collections. A native of the Juarez/El Paso border, Gaspar de Alba (Sor Juana's Second Dream) is an associate professor of Chicano studies and English at UCLA. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. (from www. barnesandnoble.com) |
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La Llorona on the Longfellow Bridge: poetry y otras móvidas, 1986-2001
In her introduction, Gaspar de Alba explains that the poems and prose poems here track her travels, physical and metaphorical, between1981-2001. The writing serves as a "bridge" in her life's journey, while "La Llorina is the border." (La Llorona, the mythical Mexican mourner who wanders in search of her lost children, is voice, soul, grief, mother, and duende , that elusive and vital artistic force.) The poet invites us to travel with her — all we need is an "open palm." (from www. newpages.com ) |
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Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture & Chicana /o Sexualities
( Palgrave, 2003)
In Chicano/a popular culture, nothing signifies the working class, highly-layered, textured, and metaphoric sensibility known as "rasquache aesthetic" more than black velvet art. The essays in this volume examine that aesthetic by looking at icons, heroes, cultural myths, popular rituals, and border issues as they are expressed in a variety of ways. The contributors dialectically engage methods of popular cultural studies with discourses of gender, sexuality, identity politics, representation, and cultural production. In addition to a hagiography of "locas santas," the book includes studies of the sexual politics of early Chicana activists in the Chicano youth movement, the representation of Latina bodies in popular magazines, the stereotypical renderings of recipe books and calendar art, the ritual performance of Mexican femaleness in the quinceañera, and mediums through which Chicano masculinity is measured. (from the publisher) |
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Sor Juana's Second Dream (University of New Mexico Press, 1999)
In her first novel, poet and Chicano studies scholar Gaspar de Alba brings to life Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a prolific, brilliant, and complex author and nun of 17th-century Mexico. Although Sor Juana left behind several volumes of published writings, the more personal details of her life remainsketchy. Gaspar de Alba has artfully combined excerpts from the writings with explicit, fictionalized journal entries to create a vibrant, if sometimes anachronistic, account of a complex life. Long adored in Mexico, Sor Juana has only recently become popular in the United States. She is often considered North America's first lesbian feminist writer, and Gaspar de Alba clearly shares this view. Eminently readable, this book is recommended for larger public libraries; readers desiring a more conservative biography might prefer Nobel laureate Octavio Paz's Sor Juana; or, The Traps of Faith (LJ 9/1/88).--Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, OR Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information. (from Library Journal and www.barnesandnoble.com) |
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Chicano Art Inside/Outside The Master's House ( University of Texas Press, 1998) In the early 1990s a major exhibition--"Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985"--toured major museums across the United States. The exhibit attracted both praise and controversy. This book presents the first interdisciplinary cultural study of the CARA exhibit. Alicia Gaspar de Alba shows how the exhibit reflected, and serves as a model for, the cultural and sexual politics of the Chicano Movement. 20 color and 58 b&w photos. (from the publisher) |
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The Mystery of Survival and Other Stories (Bilingual Press, 1993)
In The Mystery of Survival and Other Stories, Gaspar de Alba considers the boundaries between sexes, lovers, cultures, generations, and beliefs and presents a body of work that allows her characters to both defy and celebrate these borders. This collection is peopled by those tenaciously exploring their places in the world: an ambitious young Mexican American reporter who quietly comes to understand the profound impermeability of this boundary as his Anglo editor refuses to see him as anything but an underling; a young woman haunted by the memories of her childhood along the United States/Mexico border; a boy who crosses the brittle line his parents have drawn between each other and chooses to show his allegiance to his mother. Gaspar de Alba reveals characters who, by exploring these boundaries, learn to define themselves and, ultimately, discover not just how to survive, but to flourish. (from the publisher) |
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Courses
Chicano Studies 10A, " Introduction to Chicano Life and Culture." ( Winter 2000, Fall 2002, Fall 2005 )
Chicano Studies 19, " Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars: Death, Gender, and U.S.-Mexico Border ." ( Fall 2005, Fall 2007 )
Chicano Studies 19-2, " Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars: Bad Girls in History: Research Workshop. " ( Fall 2008)
Chicano Studies 19-2, " Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars Chicano 19, seminar 2: Death, Gender, and Border: 320 Bodies and Counting (1993 to 2003)." ( Fall 2003 )
Chicano Studies 88S, " Yo Soy El Army: Chicanas, Chicanos, and the U.S. Military." ( Spring 2007 )
Chicano Studies 89, " Honors Seminars Chicano 89, seminar 1: Honors Seminar for Chicano Studies 10A, lecture 1 ." ( Fall 2005 )
Chicano Studies 97, " Variable Topics in Chicana and Chicano Studies." ( Winter 2008, Winter 2009)
Chicano Studies 101, " Theoretical Concepts in Chicana and Chicano Studies." ( Spring 2001, Spring 2004, Spring 2007 )
Chicano Studies 131, " Barrio Popular Culture." ( Fall 2001, Fall 2003, Fall 2006, Spring 2010)
Chicano Studies 132, " Border Consciousness ." ( Spring 2000, Winter 2002, Winter 2004, Spring 2006)
Chicano Studies 134," Exhibiting Cultures. ( Spring 2000 )
Chicano Studies 188SB-2, " Individual Studies for USIE Facilitators." ( Spring 2007 )
Chicano Studies 189, " Advanced Honors Seminars Chicano 189, seminar 1: Advanced Honors Seminar for Chicana and Chicano Studies 101, Lecture 1." ( Spring 2004, Spring 2007 )
Chicano Studies 197F, " Special Topics in Chicana and Chicano Studies Chicano 197F: Research Internship on Gender and Border." ( Winter 2003, Spring 2003 )
Chicano Studies 375, " Teaching Apprentice Practicum. " ( Spring 2007 )
Chicano Studies 495, " Learner-Centered Teaching in Chicana/Chicano Studies." ( Fall 2007 )
Chicano Studies M105B, " Recent Chicana/Chicano Literature ." ( Winter 2001 )
Chicano Studies M110," Chicana Feminism." ( Spring 2002, Spring 2003 )
Chicano Studies 132, " Border Consciousness." (Spring 2009)
Chicano Studies M133, " Chicana Lesbian Literature." ( Winter 2003, Winter 2006, Spring 2008, Fall 2009, )
Chicano Studies M135, " Bilingual Writing Workshop: A Novel Approach." ( Winter 2006, Winter 2009, Winter 2010)
Chicano Studies 188-3," Picket Lines, Boycotts, and Action Plans." (Spring 2009)
Chicano Studies M190," Bilingual Writing Workshop." ( Spring 2002 )
Chicano Studies M190-2," Bilingual Writing Workshop." ( Summer 2002 ) |
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