S. B. West, PhD
Teacher-Scholar
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Spanish​
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Gender, Sexuality, & Race
Maya Literature​
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Critical Theory​
My intellectual work is focused on breaking away from traditional approaches to the study and engagement of the “Latin American” literary and cultural canon. To that end, I am interested in expanding the geopolitical space known as "Latin America" to reflect the already unbounded nature, or the increasingly global orientation of society, culture, and politics. My work is organized around theoretical frameworks—specifically, those with roots in abolitionist, decolonial and trans feminisms—that question and challenge the colonial, cisheteronormative underpinnings of gender, class and race relations.
PhD I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2017, Spanish
Certificate in
Critical and Interpretative Theory
BA & MA I Ohio University
2007, Spanish
My classes ask students to approach fiction, imagination, and art as central to the production of our lived realities.
My current book length project, "Caste War" Now & Never: Unreading Gender, Race, and Land in Yucatán presents an alternative narrative of Yucatán’s nineteenth-century textual register that critiques the very existence of the so-called Caste War conflict. My reading is contextualized by contemporary Maaya T'aan [Yucatec Maya] narratives, including essays, the production of regional museums, and community-controlled podcasts.
