Core Faculty

  • Portrait
  • Carlos U. Decena, Ph.D.
  • Associate Professor
  • LCS
  • WG&SS
  • Email
  • Office: B204, Lucy Stone Hall, Livingston Campus
  • Phone: 848-445-3812

Education

Ph.D. 2004, New York University, American Studies

B.A. 1994, University of Pennsylvania, English

Research Interests

Sexuality and Queer Studies, Migrant communities, Cultural studies, Dominican Studies, Public Health 

Biographical Information

Carlos Ulises Decena is an interdisciplinary scholar, whose work straddles the humanities and social sciences and whose intellectual projects blur the boundaries among critical ethnic, queer and feminist studies, social justice and public health. His areas of interest include critical theory as well as social and cultural analysis, with a particular emphasis on transnationalism and diaspora in the American continent, US Latinoamerica and the Caribbean. His first book, Tacit Subjects: Belonging and Same-Sex Desire among Dominican Immigrant Men, was published by Duke University Press in 2011. He is currently at work on Circuits of the Sacred, a project that articulates Latin@, queer, and Afro-diasporic theologies in the service of a non-denominational, sex and body-affirmative notion of the divine for queers of color. 

Courses Regularly Taught

  • Introduction to the Critical Study of Masculinities
  • The Color of AIDS: The Politics of Race during the AIDS Crisis
  • Dominican Transnational Cultures
  • Gender and Sexualities in the Caribbean
  • Immigrant States: Jersey's Global Routes 

Publications

decena cover

2011. Tacit Subjects: Belonging and Same-sex Desire among Dominican Immigrant Men. Durham, NC: Duke University
Decena border next door 2006. The Border Next Door: New York Migraciones. (edited with Margaret Gray) Durham, NC: Duke University Press 

Articles

  • 2012. "Code-Swishing". Journal of Language and Sexuality. 1 (1): 59-78.
  • "Dominican-Americans and the Politics of Empowerment by Ana Aparicio". American Anthropologist. 110 (1): 83.
  • 2008. "Tacit Subjects". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 14 (2): 339-359.
  • 2006. ""Los Hombres no Mandan Aquí" Narrating Immigrant Genders and Sexualities in New York". Social Text. (88): 35-54.Date.
  • 2006. "Putting Transnationalism to Work: An Interview with Filmmaker Alex Rivera". Social Text. (88): 131-138.

Reviews

  • 2010. "[Review of] Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality, and AIDS in the Dominican Republic". American Ethnologist. 37 (1): 167-168.
  • 2008. "Dominican-Americans and the Politics of Empowerment". American Anthropologist. 110 (1): 83 

Media Appearances