People

Core Faculty

Core Faculty

  • Ulla Berg, Ph.D.
  • Ulla Berg, Ph.D.
  • Associate Professor
  • Department Chair
  • LCS
  • Anthropology
  • Office: A-262, Lucy Stone Hall, Livingston Campus
  • Phone: 848-445-4230

Education 

Ph.D. 2007, New York University, Anthropology
Certificate Program 2005, New York University, Culture and Media
M.A. 2001, University of Copenhagen, Anthropology
B.A. 1998, University of Copenhagen, Anthropology

Research Interests

Migration and (Im)mobilities, Detention and Deportation, Borders, Citizenship, Surveillance and Technology, Visual Anthropology, Ritual and Performance, Affect Theory, Peru, Ecuador, Latin America, Latinx Studies

Biographical Information

Professor Ulla D. Berg is an Associate Professor at the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Department of Anthropology and former Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Rutgers (2015-2021). As a sociocultural and visual anthropologist specializing in Latin America and in Latino communities in the U.S., Prof. Berg's research focuses on historical and contemporary processes and experiences of migration and mobility within Latin America and between this region and the United States. Her first book, Mobile Selves: Race, Migration, and Belonging in Peru and the U.S., examined how transnational communicative practices and forms of exchange produce new forms of kinship and sociality across multiple borders among racialized global labor migrants. She has also edited several edited volumes including El Quinto Suyo: Transnacionalidad y Formaciones Diaspóricas en la Migración Peruana (with Karsten Paerregaard), Transnational Citizenship Across the Americas (with Robyn Rodriguez), Migración (with Irére Ceja and Soledad Alvarez Velasco), Latinas/os in New Jersey: Histories, Communities, and Cultures (with Aldo Lauria Santiago), and Elizabeth Detention Center: A Social History of Immigration Detention in New Jersey and the United States (with Carolina Sánchez Boe). Her book, Figures of Deportation, is forthcoming with Duke University Press.

Berg is currently working on two new research projects: The first is a collaborative project with Ana Ramos-Zayas (Yale University) on the migrant “crisis” and the concept of sheltering in New York City. The second project is a study of AI-assisted technologies in South American migration and border governance.

Prof. Berg is an active member of several professional organizations. She was the Program Co-Chair for the LASA Congress 2023 in Vancouver and currently co-convenes EASA’s Anthropology of Confinement Network. She regularly contributes to local organizations involved in immigrant rights including as board member of First Friends of New Jersey and New York and Envision Freedom Fund (formerly the Brooklyn Bail Fund).

 

Undergraduate Courses Regularly Taught

595:402 Documenting Latino Lives: Video Production Seminar
595:307 Latinx Ethnography
595:298 Latinos and Migration
595:101 Introduction to Latino Studies

 

Publications

Books

Latinas/os en New Jersey 2025. Latinas/os en New Jersey: Histories, Commmunities, and Cultures. Edited with Aldo Lauria Santiago. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Award: Best Edited Work 2025, New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance. Award: New Jersey Historical Commission’s 2025 Richard P. McCormick Prize
Migración 2021. Migración. Edited by Iréri Ceja, Soledad Alvarez Velasco and Ulla Berg. Colección Palabras Clave. Ciudad de Mexico: CLACSO & UAM Cuajimalpa
Sujetos Móviles 2016. Sujetos Móviles:Raza, Migración y Pertenencia en el Perú y los Estados Unidos. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Berg mobile selves 2015. Mobile Selves: Race, Migration, and Belonging in Peru and the U.S. New York University Press.
Berg transnation cover 2013.Transnational Citzenship Across the Americas. Eds. Ulla D. Berg and Robyn Rodriguez. London and New York: Routledge
berg quintosuyo 2005. El Quinto Suyo: Transnacionalidad y Formaciones Diasporicas en la Migración Peruana [The Fifth Region: Transnationality and Diasporic Formations in Peruvian Migration]. Eds. Ulla Berg and Karsten Paerregaard. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.

Recent Articles

  • 2025. Berg, Ulla D., Carolina Sánchez Boe, and Darren Byler. “Guest Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue: Global Futures of Digital Confinement,” Special issue of Surveillance and Society, Vol. 23(4): 391-397
  • 2022. Berg, Ulla D., Sarah Tosh, and K. Sebastian León. Remote Ethnography in Carceral Settings: Local Configurations of Migrant Detention during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Ethnography, online first: https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211072414
  • 2022. Berg, Ulla D. and Gioconda Herrera. Transnational Families and Return in the Age of Deportation: The Case of Indigenous Ecuadorian Migrants. Global Networks, Vol 22(1):36-50 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/glob.12323.
  • 2021. Tosh, Sarah R., Ulla D. Berg, and K. Sebastian León. 2021. Migrant Detention and COVID-19: Pandemic Responses in Four New Jersey Detention Centers. Journal on Migration and Human Security, 9(1): 44- 62. https://doi.org/10.1177/23315024211003855
  • 2019. Berg, Ulla D. Documenting Latinx Lives: Visual Anthropology and Latinx Studies. Latino Studies 17(1):108-117. DOI 10.1057/s41276-018-00170-y
  • 2015 “Racializing Affect: A Theoretical Proposition.” Co-authored with Ana Ramos-Zayas. Current Anthropology, Vol. 56, No. 5 (October 2015)

Book Chapters

  • 2026. Ramos-Zayas, Ana and Ulla D. Berg. “Racialized Affect: Endurance and Transformation of a Theoretical Perspective.” In J. Rahier and J. Pierre (eds): The Cambridge Handbook on Race and Ethnicity, pp. 317-338. Cambridge University Press.
  • 2024. Berg, Ulla D. El poder de los milagros: migración transnacional y religiosidad entre los peruanos en Nueva York. In Alejandro Málaga (ed): Qué soles se acercaban al pasado: Homenaje a Luis Millones. Lima: Biblioteca National del Perú / Universidad Cesar Vallejo.
  • 2023. Berg, Ulla D. COVID-19 and Immobility Across the Americas: A Hemispheric Affective Public. In M. Lünenborg and B. Röttger-Rössler (eds). Affective Publics: Places, Network, Media. London and New York: Routledge.
  • 2023. Berg, Ulla D. COVID-19 and Spaces of Confinements. In T. Politano (eds.): The Year That Changed Everything: 2020 at Rutgers and Beyond. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
  • 2023. Herrera, Gioconda and Ulla D. Berg, Vulnerability and (Im)mobilities: US Deportation and Post-deportation Lives among Ecuadorian Transnational Families. In D. Bryceson, J. Cienfuegos and R. Brandhorst (eds): Handbook of Transnational Families Around the World: Entangled Inequalities, Gender Roles, and New Actors on the Global Scale, pp. 299-311. Springer, Sociology and Social Research Series [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-15278-8_19]
  • 2022. Berg, Ulla D. and Lucía Pérez-Martínez. The Legality of (Im)mobility: Migration, Coyoterismo and Indigenous Justice in Southern Ecuador. In Herrera G. and C. Gómez (eds): Migration in South America, pp. 145-166. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11061-0_7
  • 2021. Berg, Ulla D. The Afterlife of U.S. Disciplining Institutions: Transnational Structures of (Im)mobility among Peruvian Deportees. In Rúa and Ramos-Zayas (eds): Critical Dialogues in Latinx Studies, 392-403. New York and London: New York University Press.

Films

  • Domingo de Ramos. Documentary-in-progress on the Peruvian poet Domingo de Ramos (director and producer)
  • Waiting for Miracles (2003). Documentary that follows a Peruvian Catholic brotherhood as it prepares for its yearly procession honoring the Lord of Miracles in NYC. This film explores the power of faith in the lives of immigrants in New York City (Director, Producer, and editor. NYU, Culture and Media)

Online Multimedia Projects

  • 2020. Covid-19 y (In)movilidad en las Américas / Covid-19 and (Im)mobility in the Americas. A collective online archive about the impact of the global pandemic on mobile populations and migratory situations across the Americas: https://www.inmovilidadamericas.org/
  • 2019. Documenting Latinx Lives. On-line archive of the student documentary films made in the video production seminar “Documenting Latino Lives” at Rutgers University (available at: https://vimeo.com/album/5141847

Media Appearances

berg

  • Kaysha Corinealdi
  • Kaysha Corinealdi
  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies

Read more: Kaysha Corinealdi, Ph.D.

  • Carlos U. Decena, Ph.D.
  • Carlos U. Decena, Ph.D.
  • Professor I
  • LCS
  • WG&SS
  • 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

  • Zaire Dinzey-Flores, Ph.D.
  • Zaire Dinzey-Flores, Ph.D.
  • Associate Professor
  • LCS
  • Sociology
  • Office: A-261, Lucy Stone Hall, Livingston Campus
  • Phone: 848-445-4229

Education

PhD. 2005, University of Michigan, Public Policy & Sociology
M.U.P. 2003, University of Michigan, Urban Planning
M.A. 1997, Stanford University, Sociology
B.A. 1995, Harvard University, Sociology, cum laude

Research Interests

Housing Policy & Design, Urban Planning, Race & Ethnicity, Space & Place, Qualitative & Quantitative Methods, Crime & Social Control, Social Policy, Latin America & Caribbean, African Diaspora

Biographical Information

Professor Dinzey-Flores is an Associate Professor in Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Department of Sociology. Her research focuses on understanding how urban space mediates community life and race, class, and social inequality. She uses an interdisciplinary lens (sociology, urban planning, public policy), mixed-method approaches, and often a comparative Caribbean-U.S. framework, to investigate the processes that cement the built environment and unequally distribute power. She is particularly interested in housing and urban residential (housing and neighborhood) design: the underlying logics and policies that drive design, how design is interpreted, used, and experienced, and the consequences for inequality among communities and residents of cities. Her book, Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City (University Of Pennsylvania Press: 2013), winner of the 2014 Robert E. Park Award of the Community and Urban Sociology Section (CUSS) of the American Sociological Association and an Honorable Mention of the 2014 Frank Bonilla Book Award of the Puerto Rican Studies Association, examines race and class inequality as they are recreated, contained, and negotiated through urban policy, the physical built environment, and community gates in private and public housing. Dinzey-Flores is currently working on two projects: the first is a mixed-method examination of how race is articulated in residential real estate practices in demographically changing neighborhoods in Brooklyn, NY; the second, looks at the transatlantic circulation of housing planning and design ideals in the middle of the 20th Century. She is also collaborating on a mobile data project seeking to understand racial segregation as it occurs in motion and a mixed-media project on construction in the Caribbean.

Courses Regularly Taught

  • Caribbean Urbanism
  • Caribbean Societies

Publications

Bookdinzey locked

  • Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City (University of Pennsylvania Press: 2013)

Articles

  • 2012. “Where Rights Begin and End: Community and Democracy behind Puerto Rico’s Gated Communities” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography. 33 (2): 198–211.
  • 2012. “Islands of Prestige, Gated Ghettos, and Urban-less Lifestyles in Puerto Rico,” Latin American Perspectives.
  • 2011. “Criminalizing Communities of Poor, Dark Women in the Caribbean: The Fight against Crime through Puerto Rico’s Public Housing”. Crime Prevention and Community Safety. 13(1): 53–73
  • 2008. “De la Disco al Caserío: Urban Spatial Aesthetics and Policy to the Beat of Reggaetón.” Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. 20(2): 35-69.
  • 2007. “Temporary Housing, Permanent Communities: Public Housing Policy and Design in Puerto Rico.” Journal of Urban History. 33(3) 467-492

Book Chapters

  • 2010. "Spatio-Temporal Rhythms: The Ecology of Housing & Work in Elena Padilla.” In Rúa, Mérida (Ed.) Latino Urban Ethnography and the Work of Elena Padilla. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
  • 2007. “Cache vs. Cas[h]eríos: Puerto Rican Neighborhoods under Siege.” In Rivke Jaffe (Ed.) The Caribbean City. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers.

Reviews

  • 2008. “Latinos as Protagonists in American Urban History and Planning Practice.” Journal of Urban History. 34(4): 731-744.
  • Priscilla Ferreira, Ph.D.
  • Priscilla Ferreira, Ph.D.
  • Assistant Professor
  • Geography
  • LCS
  • Office: Office: Lucy Stone Hall, Room TBD, Livingston Campus
  • Phone: (848) 445-4376

Read more: Priscilla Ferreira, Ph.D.

  • Aldo A. Lauria-Santiago, Ph.D.
  • Aldo A. Lauria-Santiago, Ph.D.
  • Professor, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies
  • LCS
  • History
  • Office: B-200 | Lucy Stone Hall, Livingston Campus
  • Phone: 848-445-3824

Read more: Aldo A. Lauria-Santiago, Ph.D.

  • Kenneth Sebastian León, Ph.D.
  • Kenneth Sebastian León, Ph.D.
  • Associate Professor
  • LCS and Criminal Justice Program
  • Office: Office Room: A-259, Lucy Stone Hall, Livingston Campus
  • Phone: (848) 445-4242

Read more: Kenneth Sebastian León, Ph.D.

  • Johana Londoño, Ph.D.
  • Johana Londoño, Ph.D.
  • Associate Professor
  • Undergraduate Director
  • LCS
  • Office: Office: Lucy Stone Hall Room A258
  • Phone: (848) 445-4344

EDUCATION

2012 | PhD, American Studies, Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University

2004 | BFA, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

 

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Latinx Urban Culture and History; Barrios; Gentrification; Comparative Ethnic Studies; Social and Cultural Theory; Architecture and Urban Design; Aesthetics and Visual Culture.

 

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Professor Londoño is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She holds a PhD in American Studies from NYU and a BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Her research examines how Latinx cultures are produced and visualized in the built environment. Londoño is the author of Abstract Barrios: The Crises of Latinx Visibility in US Cities (Duke University Press: 2020), which received funding from the Graham Foundation and the 2021 Best Book Award from the Latin American Studies Association—Latino Studies Section. Her work is included in several edited volumes, such as The Routledge Companion to Architectural Pedagogies of the Global South (Routledge), Latino Urbanism (NYU Press), and Race and Retail (Rutgers Press). Her articles on Latinx urbanisms appear in the journals American Quarterly, Social Semiotics, and Identities. Her research has previously benefited from the Princeton-Mellon Foundation Fellowship in Architecture, Urbanism, and Humanities, the Ford Foundation Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellowships, and the Northeast Consortium for Faculty Diversity, among other fellowships and grants. She has served on the Líderes Board of the LatinoJustice Organization (PRLDEF), as co-chair of the Latina/o Studies Section of LASA, and as board member of the Urban History Association. Londoño is a founding member of the US Colombianidades Editorial Collective, with which she co-edited the first journal issue to inaugurate the scholarly field of US Colombianidades (published in Latino Studies Journal in 2020) and is currently working on an edited book on the same topic. Born in Medellin, Colombia and raised since the age of one in Union City, NJ, Londoño is also interested in contributing to the scholarship on Latinx and Caribbean diasporas in New Jersey.

 

COURSES

595:101 Latino Studies

595:295 Latinx/Caribbean Cultural Studies 

 

PUBLICATIONS

BOOK

Abstract Barrios: The Crises of Latinx Visibility in Cities (Duke University Press, 2020) https://www.dukeupress.edu/abstract-barrios

Winner of the 2021 Best Book Award from the Latin American Studies Association—Latino Studies Section

Picture1 

CO-EDITED BOOK IN PROGRESS

Ariana Ochoa Camacho, Maria E. Cepeda, Jennifer Harford Vargas, and Johana Londoño, US Colombianx Studies. (In progress).

 

EDITED JOURNAL ISSUE

Lina Rincon, Johana Londoño, Jennifer Harford-Vargas, and Maria Elena Cepeda, eds. “US

Colombianidades and the Future of Latinx Studies.” Special Issue, Latino Studies Journal, 18(2020): 301-325.

Londoño, Johana and Arlene Dávila, eds. 2010. “Race and the Cultural Spaces of

Neoliberalism.” Special Issue, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power Journal 17, no. 5 (Sept.-Oct.): 455-457.

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ARTICLES (REFEREED)

Londoño, Johana. “Critical Latina/o Urban Studies in Metropolitan Perspective: The Case

of Latina/o-majority Union City, NJ.” In “Race and Space,” eds. Wendy Cheng and Rashad Shabazz, special issue, Occasion (Arcade: A Digital Salon, Open Access Journal at Stanford University), no. 8 (August 2015): 1-13.

Londoño, Johana. “The Latino-ness of Type: Design Identities and their uses in

Contemporary Culture.” In “Typographic Landscaping: Creativity, Ideology and Movement,” ed. Johan Järlehed and Adam Jaworski, special issue, Social Semiotics, 25.2 (March 2015):142-150.

Londoño, Johana. “Barrio Affinities: Transnational Inspiration and the Geopolitics of

Latina/o Design.” In “Americas Quarterly,” eds. Macarena Gómez-Barris and Licia Fiol-Matta, special issue, American Quarterly, 66.3 (September 2014):529-548.

Londoño, Johana. “Latino Design in an Age of Neoliberal Multiculturalism: Contemporary

Changes in Latin/o American Urban Cultural Representation.” In “Race and the Cultural Spaces of Neoliberalism,” eds. Johana Londoño and Arlene Dávila, special issue, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power Journal, 17.5 (Sept.-Oct.2010): 487-509.

 

BOOK CHAPTERS

Londoño, Johana. "The Global South in the North: A Call for Latinx Urbanism in the US

Architecture Curriculum," in The Routledge Companion to Architectural Pedagogies of the Global South, eds. Harriet Harriss, Ashraf M. Salama, and Ane Gonzalez Lara. New York: Routledge, 2022.

Londoño, Johana. “Urban Designers and the Politics of Latinizing the Built Environment.” In Critical Diálogos in Latina and Latino Studies, ed. Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas and Merida Rua. New York: NYU Press, 2021.

Londoño, Johana and Erualdo Gonzalez. “The Changing Politics of Latino Consumption:

Debates in Santa Ana’s Revitalization.” In Race and Retail: Consumption Across the Color Line, eds. Mia Bay and Ann Fabian, 176-199. New Brunswick: Rutgers Press, 2015.

Londoño, Johana. “Aesthetic Belonging: The Latinization and Renewal of Union City, NJ.” In

Latino Urbanism: The Politics of Planning, Policy and Redevelopment, eds. David Diaz and Rodolfo Torres, 47-64. New York: NYU Press, 2012.

 

AWARDS

  • Best Book Award from the Latin American Studies Association—Latino Studies Section, 2021
  • Best Dissertation Prize from the Latino Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association, 2013
  • Honorable Mention for Best Dissertation from the Puerto Rican Studies Association, 2012

 

SELECTED FELLOWSHIPS

  • Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in the field of American Studies, Host institution: Columbia University, 2017-18
  • Inaugural Fellow of the Princeton-Mellon Foundation Fellowship in Architecture, Urbanism, and Humanities at Princeton University, 2014-2015
  • Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in the field of American Studies, 2010-2011
  • Visiting Dissertation Scholar-in-Residence, Northeast Consortium for Faculty Diversity, Host campus: Northeastern University, School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, 2010-11
  • Smithsonian Latino Museum Studies Program Fellow Summer, 2010
  • MacCracken multi-year fellowship award for a PhD in American Studies, 2004–2009
  • NYU The Graduate School of Arts and Science Dean’s Supplement Fellowship, 2004–07

 

SELECTED GRANTS

Role: Principal Investigator

Project: Latin American, Caribbean and Latina/o Knowledge Creation Support

Source: SSRC/NEH Sustaining Humanities Infrastructure Program

Time Period: April 2022 – May 2023

Total Funding: $99,763

Role: Principal Investigator

Project: Book titled, Abstract Barrios: Visualizing the Crises of Latinx Belonging in Cities

Source: The Graham Foundation Production Grant

Time Period: March 2017

Total Funding: $7500

 

  • Kathleen López, Ph.D
  • Kathleen López, Ph.D
  • Associate Professor
  • LCS
  • History
  • Office: A-263, Lucy Stone Hall, Livingston Campus
  • Phone: 848-445-4207

Education

Ph.D. University of Michigan, History
M.A. Cornell University, Asian Studies
B.A. University of Virginia, History

Research Interests

Latin American and Caribbean History, Asians in Latin America and the Caribbean, Race and Ethnicity in the Americas, Diaspora and International Migration, Latinx History, Public Humanities

Biographical Information

Professor López is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Department of History. She specializes in the historical intersections between Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. Her book Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History examines Chinese migrants in Cuba from the mid-nineteenth century to the present through archival and ethnographic research in Cuba, China, and the United States and received the 2014 Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Prize of the Caribbean Studies Association. She is currently working on two projects, one on Chinese migrants, gender, and citizenship across Caribbean societies in the twentieth century (with a focus on Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago) and the other on the diversity of the Cuban diaspora in the United States (including Chinese Cubans). Professor López is Co-Director of the Rutgers Latino Studies Research Initiative and is collaborating on the recovery of the history of Latinx people and organizations at the university and in New Jersey. She is involved with the SAS Global Asias Initiative, the Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies, and the Center for Latin American Studies. She was a Faculty Fellow for the 2015-2016 Center for Cultural Analysis Archipelagoes Seminar. She is also an editor of two book series: Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia, with Ignacio López-Calvo (Palgrave Macmillan) and Critical Caribbean Studies, with Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel and Carter Mathes (Rutgers University Press). 

Courses Regularly Taught

01:595:100 Introduction to Caribbean Studies
01:595:101 Introduction to Latino Studies
01:595:212 Introductory Topics in Latino and Caribbean Studies: "Cuba Today"
01:595:215 Research Methods in Latino and Caribbean Studies
01:595:205/01:508:272 History of the Caribbean since 1898
01:595:390/01:508:370 History of Cuba
01:595:393/01:508:393 Global Diasporas in Caribbean History
01:595:412 Seminar in Latino and Caribbean Studies: Latinos in New Jersey
01:506:402 History Seminar: Asians in the Americas / Immigrants in the Americas
16:510:541 Graduate Colloquium in Global History: Global Mobilities
16:510:631 Graduate Colloquium in Latin American History: Hemispheric Mobilities
16:510:637 Graduate Seminar in Latin American History

Publications

Bookchinesecubans

Articles

Special Journal Issue

  • 2008. Guest Editor with Evelyn Hu-DeHart. Special Issue on "Afro-Asia," Afro-Hispanic Review 27(1). Hu-DeHart, Evelyn and Kathleen López, "Asian Diasporas in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Historical Overview." 9-21. Reprint and Spanish translation: “Diásporas asiáticas en América Latina y el Caribe: Una reseña histórica.” In Estudios avanzados, edited by Carol Chan and Monica DeHart. [In Production]

Book Chapters

  • López, Kathleen and Espinosa Luis, Mitzi. “Hakka Imprints in Cuba.” In Proceedings of the 2nd Global Hakka Studies Alliance International Biennial Conference. Taipei, Taiwan. [In Production]
  • 2025. “From Puerto Rican to Latino Studies at Rutgers University: Fifty Years of Student Activism.” In Latinas/os in New Jersey: Histories, Communities, and Cultures. Edited by Aldo A. Lauria-Santiago and Ulla D. Berg. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
  • 2019. “Gatekeeping in the Tropics: U.S. Immigration Policy and the Caribbean Connection,” In A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: U.S. Society in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965. Edited by Maddalena Marinari, Madeline Y. Hsu, and Maria Cristina Garcia, 45-64. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
  • 2018. Section introductions to Afro-Asian Connections in Latin America and the Caribbean. Edited by Luisa Ossa and Debbie Lee-DiStefano. Lexington Books, 2018.
  • 2016. Section introductions to Imagining Asia in the Americas. Edited by Zelideth María Rivas and Debbie Lee-DiStefano. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016. Part I “Moving Past Encounters: People of Asian Descent in the Americas” 9-12; Part II “Historicities” 83-84; Part III “Lives/Representations” 133-34.
  • 2016. “Remesas y retornos: la importancia de la migración a Cuba para los pueblos cantoneses” [Remittances and Return: The Significance of Migration to Cuba for Cantonese Villages]. In Huellas de China en este lado del Atlántico [Footprints from China on this Side of the Atlantic]. Edited by Mitzi Espinosa Luis, 172-80. La Habana: Editorial José Martí.
  • 2016. “The Asian Presence in Mestizo Nations: A Response.” In Critical Terms in Caribbean and Latin American Thought: Historical and Institutional Trajectories. Edited by Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, Ben. Sifuentes-Jáuregui, and Marisa Belausteguigoitia, 125-31. Palgrave-Macmillan. Response to José F. Buscaglia’s essay “Race and the Constitutive Inequality of the Modern Condition.” [Spanish edition Boston: Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana, 2018]
  • 2014. “In Search of Legitimacy: Chinese Immigrants and Latin American Nation Building.” In Immigration and National Identities in Latin America 1850-1950. Edited by Nicola Foote and Michael Goebel, 182-204. Gainesville: The University Press of Florida.
  • 2013. "Renace el sueño: Remaking Havana's Barrio Chino." In Orientalism and Identity in Latin America: Fashioning Self and Others from the (Post)Colonial Margin. Edited by Erik Camayd-Freixas, 160-73. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
  • 2007. "Transnational Histories: A Dual-Sided Approach to Researching Early-Twentieth- Century Chinese Migration to Cuba." In Chinese Overseas: Migration, Research and Documentation. Edited by Tan Chee-Beng, Colin Storey, and Julia Zimmerman, 167-198. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
  • 2006. "The Chinese in Cuban History." In Essays on the Chinese Diaspora in the Caribbean. Edited by Walton Look Lai, 105-29. Trinidad & Tobago: History Department, University of the West Indies.
  • 2004. "'One Brings Another': The Formation of Early-Twentieth-Century Chinese Migrant Communities in Cuba." In The Chinese in the Caribbean. Edited by Andrew R. Wilson, 93-127. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers.

Public History 

  • Co-Director, Latino Studies Research Initiative
  • Exhibit: 50 Years of Latino and Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University (1973-2023)
    Opening Date: September 28, 2023 (Lucy Stone Hall, Rutgers University)
    Examines origins, development, and struggles of Department of Puerto Rican Studies at Livingston College from 1970s to the present.
    (Co-produced with LCS Department and Ambar C. Dinzey-López, Class of 2026)
  • Exhibit: Lucy Stone Hall Murals
    Opening Date: September 28, 2023 (Lucy Stone Hall, Rutgers University)
    Examines history of People’s Painters collective at Livingston College and 1970s murals against backdrop of campus activism, New Brunswick corporatization, and U.S. imperialism.
    (Co-produced with LCS Department and Ambar C. Dinzey-López, Class of 2026)
  • New Jersey Historical Commission and Revolution NJ Professional Development Webinar Series: "Movement of People" (2022)                                         Examines history of migration in New Jersey from Revolutionary Era to the present.
    Webinar, essay, FAQ, and syllabus of select readings and online resources.
  • Rutgers Latino and Caribbean Memory Project

Other Media

  • Michelle Stephens, Ph.D.
  • Michelle Stephens, Ph.D.
  • Executive Director
  • Professor, English and LCS
  • Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice
  • Office: Room 008, Murray Hall, College Avenue Campus
  • Phone: (848) 932-7974

Education

Ph.D. 1999, Yale University, American Studies
B.A. 1991, State University of New York at Stony Brook, English with a minor in Philosophy

Research Interests

Caribbean, American, Black Diaspora, Women and Gender Studies, Critical Race Theory and Psychoanalytic Theory

Biographical Information

Professor Stephens is a Professor I in the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Department of English. She is the author of Black Empire: The Masculine Global Imaginary of Caribbean Intellectuals in the United States, 1914 to 1962 (Duke University Press, 2005) and Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis and the Black Male Performer (Duke University Press, 2014), She also co-edited the special issue of the Radical History Review, “Reconceptualizations of the African Diaspora” (Jan 2009) and is co-editor with Brian Russell Roberts of the essay collection, Archipelagic American Studies: Decontinentalizing the Study of American Culture (forthcoming). Professor Stephens is a member of the editorial collective of the Radical History Review, a series editor, along with Yolanda Martinez San Miguel and Nelson Maldonado Torres, of the book series in Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University Press, and on the editorial board of the book series Rethinking the Island at Rowman & Littlefield Press. She writes regularly on black literary and performance studies, Caribbean art and visuality, and the emerging field of Archipelagic American Studies.

Courses Regularly Taught

  • Caribbean Literatures in English
  • The American Novel in a Global Context
  • Race and Sexuality in Caribbean and American Literatures
  • Literature of the Colonial Caribbean Atlantic
  • Women in Worlds of Color
  • 19th Century Literature of the Black Atlantic
  • Islands of Empire: Caribbean Colonial and Postcolonial Literature
  • New World Literature of the 18th Century
  • Race and Psychoanalysis (graduate)
  • Archipelagic American Studies (graduate)

Publications

Books

stephens black 2005. Black Empire: the Masculine Global Imaginary of Caribbean intellectuals in the United States, 1914-1962. Durham: Duke University Press. Stephens SkinActs 2014. Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis and the Black Male Performer. Durham: Duke University Press.

Articles

  • March 2015. “New Points of Recognition: Stuart Hall’s Gift to the Study of Blackness.” Small Axe.
  • 2013. “Archipelagic American Studies and the Caribbean.” With Brian Russell Roberts. Journal of Transnational American Studies. Special Forum: American Studies: Caribbean Editio
  • July 2013. “What is an Island?”: Caribbean Studies and the Contemporary Visual Artist. Small Axe.
  • April 2013. “Gestures Beyond Local Color: A Caribbean Calligraphy: Vladimir Cybil Charlier.” ARC: Art. Recognition. Culture.
  • Camilla Stevens, Ph.D.
  • Camilla Stevens, Ph.D.
  • Professor
  • LCS and Spanish and Portuguese
  • Office: A257, Lucy Stone Hall
  • Phone: (848) 445-3873

Education

PhD, 2000, University of Kansas, Hispanic Literature
M.A. 1994, University of New Mexico, Hispanic Literature
B.A. 1992, Tulane University, Latin American Studies and Spanish

 

Research Interests

Caribbean Literature * Latin(o) American Theater and Performance Studies * Migration and Citizenship * Colonialism and Race

 

Biographical Information

Camilla Stevens holds a joint appointment with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and is the former director of the Center for Latin American Studies. She specializes in Latin(o) American drama, theater and performance studies, and Caribbean literature. Her research highlights the role of theater in the cultural politics of constructing, defining, and remembering collective identities. Her book Family and Identity in Contemporary Cuban and Puerto Rican Drama offers a comparative analysis of how domestic drama allegorizes divergent views of Cuban and Puerto Rican national experience during the second half of the 20th-century. In Aquí and Allá: Transnational Dominican Theater and Performance, professor Stevens explores how contemporary Dominican theater and performance artists portray a sense of collective belonging shaped by the transnational connections between the homeland and the diaspora. She has also co-edited a two-volume collection of Latin American women playwrights and currently serves on the editorial board of the Latin American Theatre Review.

 

Courses Regularly Taught

595:100 Introduction to Caribbean Studies
595:270 Introduction to Caribbean Literature
595:341 Theater of the Hispanic Caribbean: Migration and Memory
595:342 Post-colonial Caribbean Theater and Performance (as graduate seminar, 940:659)
940:215 Introducción a la Literatura Hispánica
940:331 Literatura y Cultura del Caribe Hispano (siglos 15-19)
940:332 Literatura y Cultura del Caribe Hispano (siglos 20-21)
940:450 Teatro Hispanomericano (as graduate seminar, 940:555)

 

Publications 

stevens family

Books

  • 2019. Aquí and Allá: Transnational Dominican Theater and Performance (University
    Press of Pittsburgh). https://www.upress.pitt.edu/authors/camilla-stevens/
  • 2016. Escrito por mujeres. (1951-2010). Vol II. Co-edited anthology of Latin American
    Women Playwrights. Latin American Theater Today Books (with May Summer
    Farnsworth and Brenda Werth).
  • 2013. Escrito por mujeres. (1911-1942). Vol I. Co-edited critical anthology of Latin
    American Women Playwrights. Latin American Theater Today Books (with May
    Summer Farnsworth and Olga Martha Peña Doria).
  • 2004. Family and Identity in Contemporary Cuban and Puerto Rican Drama (University
    Press of Florida).

 

Articles and Book Chapters

  • 2016. “Hispanic Caribbean Theatre on the Move: Crossing Borders, Redefining
    Boundaries.” Latin American Theatre Review 50.1: 11-27.
  • 2014. “Caribbean Drama: A Stage for Cross-Cultural Poetics,” in Re-imagining the
    Caribbean: Teaching Creole, French, and Spanish Caribbean Literature. Eds. Valérie
    Orlando and Sandra Cypess. Lexington Books.
  • 2013. “‘Get up, Stand up, Stand up for your Rights’”: Transnational Belonging and
    Rights of Citizenship in Dominican Theater,” in Imagining Human Rights in Twenty-
    First Century Theater: Global Perspectives. Eds. Florian Becker, Paola Hernandez, and
    Brenda Werth. Palgrave.
  • 2009. “Theater Transformations: Reading Race in Abelardo Estorino's Parece blanca,” in
    Trans/acting: Latin American and Latino Performing Arts. Eds. Jacqueline Bixler and
    Laurietz Seda. Bucknell University Press.
  • 2007. “Ponernos el espejo por delante: Staging Race in Alejandro Tapia y Rivera’s La
    cuarterona.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos. 31(2): 231-52.
  • 2006. “The Haunted Puerto Rican Stage: Lucy Boscana in Vejigantes and La carreta.”
    Latin American Theatre Review 38 (1): 5-22. (reprinted in: Revista del Archivo Nacional
    de Teatro y Cine del Ateneo Puertorriqueño, 2006).

 

  • Shantee Rosado, Ph.D.
  • Shantee Rosado, Ph.D.
  • Assistant Professor
  • Africana Studies and LCS

Read more: Shantee Rosado, Ph.D.

  • Omaris Z. Zamora, Ph.D.
  • Omaris Z. Zamora, Ph.D.
  • Assistant Professor
  • LCS and Africana Studies
  • Phone: (848) 445-4232

Read more: Omaris Z. Zamora, Ph.D.