Hi, I’m Esbi.
Teacher-Scholar
Gender Studies
/
"Latin American" Literatures and Cultures
/
Abolition and Autonomy
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 focus on breaking away from the traditional literary canon to attend to commonly marginalized texts in meaningful ways. My courses are organized around decolonial, liberatory frameworks that question the cisheteronormative, colonial/modern underpinnings of gender, class and race relations.
My current project, Caste War Textualities: Race, Gender, Land & Maya, is a rereading 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, Museums, and podcasts.
