Arts & Humanities

Michelle Armstrong-Partida

Education: B.S., Texas A&M University, Marine Biology; M.A., University of Iowa, History; Ph.D., University of Iowa, History

Dissertation: Misbehaving Clerics: Sexuality, Masculinity, and Pastoral Care in Fourteenth-Century Catalunya

Thesis Advisor: Constance Berman, Professor of History, University of Iowa

Research Topic: Priests and their Concubines: Clerical Families in Fourteenth-Century Catalunya

Mentor: Teofilo Ruíz, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles

Current Position: New Faculty Fellow, American Council of Learned Societies

Ofelia Ortiz Cuevas

Education: B.A., University of California, Berkeley, Interdisciplinary Studies; M.A., University of California, San Diego, Ethnic Studies; Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, Ethnic Studies

Dissertation: Mortifications of the Flesh:  Racial Discipline in a Time of Crisis

Thesis Advisors: Denise Ferreira Da Silva, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego and Yen Le Espiritu, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego

Research Topic: Visual Regimes of Punishment: The Racial Body, Crisis and the State

Mentor:   Dylan Rodriguez, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Riverside

Current Position: Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Chicana & Chicano Studies, UC Los Angeles

Michelle Erai

Education: B.A., Victoria University, Sociology and Women's Studies; M.A., Victoria University, Social Science Research; Ph.D., University of California , Santa Cruz , History of Consciousness (Feminist Studies)

Dissertation: In the Shadow of Manaia: Colonial Narratives of Violence against Maori Women, 1820-1870

Thesis Advisor: Angela Y. Davis, Professor of History of Consciousness (Feminist Studies), University of California, Santa Cruz

Research Topic: E Rua, Wahine Whakataparepare: Two Framings of Maori Women – A Narrative Picture-book, and Mihiwera: Theorizing Violence in the Pacific

Mentor: Piya Chatterjee, Professor of Women's Studies, University of California, Riverside

Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Women's Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

David G. García

Education: B.A., University of California, Los Angeles, Sociology; M.A., University of California, Los Angeles, Latin American Studies; Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, U.S. History

Dissertation: The Evolution of a Critical Race Theater: Culture Clash and Chicana/o Performance Art, 1965-2005

Thesis Advisor: Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles

Research Topic: Culture Clash: Critical Race Satire for Urgent Times

Mentor: George Lipsitz , Professor of Sociology and Black Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Current Position:   Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

Brian Klopotek

Education: B.A., Yale University, Anthropology; Ph.D, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, American Studies

Dissertation: The Long Outwaiting: Federal Recognition Policy in Three Louisiana Indian Communities

Thesis Advisor: Brenda Child, Professor of American Studies, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Research Topic: Recognition Odysseys: Race, Sovereignty, and the Politics of Federal Recognition of American Indian Tribes

Mentor: Tom Biolsi, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of Oregon

Karina Oliva Alvarado

Education: B.A., University of California, Berkeley, English; M.A., University of California, Berkeley, Ethnic Studies; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, Ethnic Studies

Dissertation: Transnational Lives and Texts: Writing and Theorizing U.S./ Central American Subjectivities

Thesis Advisor: José David Saldivar, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Research Topic: A Literary and Historical Analysis of Novels, Testimonio and Poetry produced by First and Second Generation of Central American Born and/or Raised in the U.S. that Explores Emergent Issues of Subjectivity as New American “Border” and “Transnational” Identities.

Mentor: Rafael Perez-Torres, Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles

Current Position: President's Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles

Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

Education: B.A., Tufts University, English; M.A., Cornell University , History; Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, History

Dissertation: “‘Jim Crow’ Cars, Passport Denials and Atlantic Crossings: African-American Travel, Protest and Citizenship at Home and Abroad, 1827-1865”

Thesis Advisor: Patricia Cline Cohen, Professor of History, University of California, Santa Barbara

Research Topic: “Disabled Citizenship,” African-American Mobility and the Debates over Black Citizenship before the Civil War. 

Mentor: Cheryl Harris, Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles

Current Position: President's Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles

Hilda Mercedes Romero

Education: B.A., Barnard College, English; M.A., University of California, Berkeley, Ethnic Studies; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, Ethnic Studies

Dissertation: Wonder's Collapse

Thesis Advisor: Jose David Saldivar, Professor of Ethnic Studies and English, University of California, Berkeley

Research Topic: “Still Life: Black Radical Movement and Courtroom Drawings, 1971”

Mentor: Gina Dent, Professor of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz

Current Position: Lecturer, Department of Feminist Studies, UC Santa Cruz

Daphne Taylor-García

Education: B.A. (Honors), Trent University, Indigenous Studies/Cultural Studies; B.Ed., Queen's University, Concurrent Education; M.A., University of California, Berkeley, Ethnic Studies; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, Comparative Ethnic Studies

Dissertation: The Emergence of Racial Schemas in the Americas: Sexuality, Sociogeny and Print Capital in the Sixteenth Century Atlantic

Thesis Advisor: Laura E. Perez, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Research Topic: The Articulation of Geopolitical Difference in Early Colonial Nahuatl Print Culture

Mentor: Chela Sandoval, University of California, Santa Barbara

Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego