Past guests:
Richard T. Rodriguez, 2024
In this talk, Richard T. Rodríguez discussed his recent book A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad and its reception since publication. Published by Duke University Press, the book explores the relationship between British post-punk musicians and their Latine audiences in the United States since the 1980s. Melding memoir with cultural criticism, Rodríguez spotlights a host of influential bands and performers whose music and styles hold significant sway on generations of fans enthused by their matchlessly pleasurable and political reverberations.
Richard T. Rodríguez is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. Beginning fall 2025, he’ll join the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles as Professor of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. He is the author of Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics (2009) and A Kiss across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad (2022), both published by Duke University Press. The author of numerous articles about Latine cultural expression and politics, he is currently finishing a book of poems about his time living in Chicago titled Exemplars and Accomplices.
Floridalma Boj Lopez, 2024
In her talk, Dr. Floridalma Boj Lopez discussed the origins of Mobile Archives of Indigeneity (MAI) as an analytic that emerged from an engagement with Critical Indigenous Studies and her personal lived experience as a member of the Maya diaspora from Guatemala. She will also discuss the ways that MAI requires flexible methods that prioritize community centered projects and discuss how MAI is applied in her upcoming monograph. She will specifically examine how Maya textiles act as a Mobile Archive of Indigeneity in the diaspora and consider the layered gender, historical, political, and economic context of the textiles.
Floridalma Boj Lopez is an Assistant Professor in Chicana/o and Central American Studies. Dr. Boj Lopez’s work uses a community centered approach to analyze the experiences of Maya migrants as they cross settler colonial borders and encounter distinct racial hierarchies in the United States. Her research examines cultural production among the Guatemalan Maya diaspora with a particular emphasis on how Maya communities respond to structures of state violence and understand their relationship to Indigeneity in diaspora. She is connected to her K’iche’ community in Xela (Quetzaltenango) and works to share her research and resources across borders.