People / Faculty

Core

Juana María Rodríguez

Professor

Comparative Ethnic Studies

Critical legal theory, Latinx media and popular culture, LGBTQ activisms, Racialized gender and sexuality

Ph.D. Ethnic Studies, UC-Berkeley, CA. August 1998
M.A. English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, New York, NY. May 1991
B.A. Liberal Studies, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA. January 1988

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Office:

536 Social Science Building

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Bio & Research Interests

Juana María Rodríguez is Professor of Ethnic Studies and Core faculty in Performance Studies at UC Berkeley. A graduate of the Ethnic Studies Ph.D. at Berkeley, her research focuses on racialized sexuality and gender; queer of color theory and activism; affect and aesthetics; technology and media arts; law and critical race theory; and Latinx and Caribbean literatures and cultures.  Professor Rodríguez is the author of three books, Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex (Duke UP 2023); Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings (NYU Press 2014) which won the Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize at the Modern Language Association and was a Lambda Literary Foundation Finalist for LGBT Studies and Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces (NYU Press, 2003) . She also served as a co-editor of the special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly on “Trans Studies en las Americas.” In addition to her publications in academic journals internationally, her work has been featured in Aperture; on NPR’s Latino USA, NBC.com, Canadian News Network, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Cosmopolitan for Latinas.

At Berkeley, Professor Rodríguez is affiliated faculty with the Berkeley Center for New Media; the Center for Race and Gender; the Center for Latin American Studies; the Latinx Research Center; the Haas Institute for Othering and belonging: LGBTQ Citizen Cluster; the Center for the Study of Sexual Cultures; the Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory; the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality; and has served on the President’s Advisory Council on LGBT Students, Faculty & Staff for the University of California. A former Chair, she is the proud recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Division of Social Sciences and a Distinguished Faculty Mentor Award from the Graduate Assembly at UC Berkeley.

Books

 

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Select publications

Journal Articles and Essays

“Keyword: Testimony,” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 30 (2019), Special Issue on #MeToo, edited by Robyn Wiegman: 119-125.

“Una evidencia queer: Trabajo sexual y metodologías afectivas,” Boletín de Arte: Universidad de Málaga 37 (2016): 23-34.

“Queer Politics, Bisexual Erasure: Sexuality at the Nexus of Race, Gender, and Statistics.” 2016. Lambda Nordica, no. 1-2: 169–82.

“Pornographic Encounters and Interpretative Interventions: Vanessa del Rio: Fifty Years of Slightly Slutty Behavior,” Women and Performance: a journal of feminist theory, February 2016: 315-335.

“Queering the Archive: A Roundtable Discussion,” Radical History Review 2015 (121), Spring 2015: 211-231.

“Viscous Pleasures and Unruly Feminisms.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 20, no. 4 (2014): 10-13.

“Our Chusma, Ourselves: On the Ghosts of Queerness Past.” boundary2, March 10, 2014. http://boundary2.org/2014/03/10/our-chusma-ourselves-on-the-ghosts-of-queerness-past/

“Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 17, no. 2 (2011): 331-48.

“Translating Queer Caribbean Localities in Sirena Selena Vestida De Pena.” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. 34, no. 3 (2009): 205-23.

“The Affirmative Activism Project.” Profession. December 2007: 156-166.

“Ethnic Scholarship, Transnational Studies, Institutional Locations.” PMLA 122 (2007): 812-14.

“Scripting Autobiographical Subjectivity Online: Confessions of a Latina Cyber-Slut.” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 15, no. 2 (2000): 223-47.

“Gerald Vizenor’s Shadow Plays: Narrative Mediations and the Multiplicities of Power.” Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture 25, no. 4 (1994). (Reprint)

“Gerald Vizenor’s Shadow Plays: Narrative Meditations and Multiplicities of Power.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 5, no. 3 (1993): 23-30.

Book Chapters

“Public Notice from the Fucked Peepo: Xandra Ibarra’s ‘The Hookup/Displacement/Barhopping Drama Tour.’” Queer Nightlife edited by Ramón Rivera Servera, Kemi Adeyemi, and Kareem Khubchandani.  211-221. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021.

“Activism and Identity in the Ruins of Representation.” In AIDS and the Distribution of Crisis edited by Jih-Fei Cheng, Alexandra Juhasz, and Nishant Shahani. 257-284. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019.

“tatiana de la tierra.”  Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, edited by Howard Chiang, 1567-1569. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2019.

“Latino, Latina, Latinx.” In Keywords for American Cultural Studies, 2nd edition, 3rd edition, edited by Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler.  NY: New York University Press, 2014, 2020.

“Sexuality.” In Keywords for Latino/a Studies edited by Deborah Vargas, Lawrence LaFountain-Stokes, and Nancy Mirabal.  NY: New York University Press, 2017. Anthology selected as a 2018 Choice Academic Title.

“Gesture and Utterance: Fragments from a Butch Femme Archive.” In A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies, edited by George E. Haggerty and Molly McGarry, 282-91. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

“Getting F****D in Puerto Rico: Metaphoric Provocations and Queer Activist Practices.” In None of the Above: Puerto Ricans in the Global Era edited by Frances Negrón-Muntaner, 129-45. New York: Palgrave, 2007.

“Welcome to the Global Stage: Confessions of a Latina Cyber Slut.” In An Introduction to Women’s Studies: Gender in a Transnational World, 2nd Edition edited by Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan, New York: McGraw Hill Publishing, 2005. (Excerpt Reprint)

“Vizenorian Jurisprudence: Legal Interventions, Narrative Shadows and Other Interpretive Possibilities.” In Loosening the Seams: Interpretations of Gerald Vizenor edited by A. Robert Lee, 246-62. New York: McGraw Hill Publishing, 2000.

“Vizenor’s Shadow Plays: Mediations and Multiplicities of Power.” In Native American Perspectives on Literature and History edited by Alan R. Velie, 107-16. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1995.

“From the House of Yemanjá: Mother, Myth, and Sexuality in Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.” In Let Go My Mouth: Breaking Silences in African Diaspora Studies. Proceedings of the First St. Clair Drake Graduate Cultural Studies Forum, Spring 1992 edited by VèVè A. Clark. Berkeley: African American Studies Department, UC, 1992.

Creative Work, Reviews, and Blogs (Selected)

“The Streets in Afterglow.”  Aperture Foundation NY. URL https://aperture.org/blog/star-montana/

Pulse.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 24:1.

“Voices: Gay Clubs Let Us Embrace Queer Latinidad, Let’s Affirm This.” Feature article, NBC News. June 16, 2016. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/voices-lgbt-clubs-let-us-embrace-queer-latinidad-let-s-n593191.

Brujería: The Queer Karaoke Remix.” Chicana/Latina Studies: Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social 14:2 (Spring 2015): 58-59.

“The Promise of Transformative Education.” Creating Connections Consortium, May 13, 2014 http://c3transformhighered.org/2014/05/#sthash.rWQ6mXBD.dpbs

Book Review. “Queer Latino Testimonio, Keith Haring, and Juanito Xtravaganza: Hard Tails.” CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies 20:1, Fall 2008: 270-272.

“The Complexity of Identity.” In The Complete Guide to Lesbian and Gay Parenting edited by Arlene Istar Lev., 157-58. New York: Penguin Press, 2004.

Book Review. “At Home in the World: Cosmopolitanism Now by Timothy Brennan.” Bryn Mawr Journal of Comparative Literature 1: 2. Summer 2000.

“Immigration.” Readers Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies edited by Timothy Murphy. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000.

Editorial Work

Co-Editor, Special Issue. “Trans Studies en las Américas.” TSQ: Trans Studies Quarterly (Spring 2019)

Awards & Honors

Kessler Prize, CLAGS Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, 2022

John P. Birkelund Fellow in the Humanities, American Academy in Berlin, Berlin Prize, 2021

Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize, Modern Language Association, GL/Q Caucus, 2015

Finalist, LGBT Studies, Lambda Literary Foundation Book Prize, 2015

Distinguished Teaching Award, Social Science Division, UC Berkeley, 2013

Distinguished Faculty Mentor Award, Graduate Assembly, UC Berkeley, 2013

Chancellor’s Public Fellow: American Cultures Engaged Scholarship Initiative, UC Berkeley 2010