Faculty Profiles

A multi-generation Tejano from Houston, TX, where the oil and gas industry is foremost, I am interested in the impact of modern extraction economies on cultural production and organization. Broadly, I look at how the apex of 19th century European imperialism encoded extractive modes across the globe that we are still grappling with today. From this top-down viewpoint, my research seeks to locate areas of tension and resistance to the imperialist, homogenizing project. How, when, and where were there efforts to subvert or convert the economic rationales of extraction and how do these alternatives offer a different 'world' in which to exist is the key question I seek to answer.

I am also affiliated with the Rutgers Translation Studies Initiative. For more information on how my literary work intersects with Translation Studies you can click here.