 | This article is written like a story.(April 2010) |
Angie Chabram-Dernersesian is a full professor at the University of California, Davis. [1]
| This article is written like a story.(April 2010) |
Angie Chabram-Dernersesian is a full professor at the University of California, Davis. [1]
She was reared by her mother and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley (California) along with three siblings. She attended St. Joseph's elementary school and Bishop Amat Memorial High School. Like her two older brothers, nephew and aunt, she attended UC Berkeley. After traveling to Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico as an undergraduate, she fulfilled a lifelong dream and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish in 1976. Professor Chabram-Dernersesian received the departmental commendation for excellence in Spanish and was the keynote speaker for the Chicana/o graduation. While at Berkeley, also helped to catalog the newspaper collection at The Chicana/o Studies Library.
Upon graduation, Professor Chabram-Dernersesian was admitted to the doctoral program of the Literature Department at the University of California at San Diego. Under the direction of Professor Rosaura Sánchez she pursued doctoral studies in the fields of Chicana/o, Mexican, and Latin American literature. As a graduate student Professor Chabram-Dernersesian also developed a keen interest in Chicana/o theory and criticism. She published seminal articles in this field after accepting a tenure-track position at the University of California at Davis in the Fall of 1984.
At UC Davis Professor Chabram-Dernersesian worked with students in the Spanish for Native Speakers Program and developed the Chicana/o Literature Series which emphasizes poetry, theater, and the novel. She also worked to develop the Chicana/o Studies Program, both in terms of its curriculum and faculty, and was instrumental in its acquisition of departmental status. As an Assistant Professor Chabram-Dernersesian was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute of American Cultures/The Chicana/o Research Center. As a result of this fellowship and the collaborations it facilitated, her interest turned to cultural studies and she edited a special issue of the journal, Cultural Studies, (1990) in conjunction with Professor Rosa Linda Fregoso. She also published an entry for the book, Cultural Studies, edited by Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler (2002), as well as a number of other articles.
Her interest in cultural studies became central to a new research agenda which now focused on cultural representations of gender, identity, Chicana/o studies, race, ethnography, and multiculturalism. In 1999 Professor Chabram-Dernersesian edited a second special issue of Cultural Studies and was subsequently invited to participate in the special tribute to Stuart Hall, Without Guarantees (2000). In 2006 Professor Chabram-Dernersesian edited The Chicana/o Cultural Studies Reader (Routledge), which introduces readers to the contentious dialogues and alternative legacies of (Chicana/o) cultural studies with various critical entries. In 2007 she published what can be seen as a companion text: The Chicana/o Cultural Studies Forum (New York University Press). This Forum, which is the result of a number of interviews obtained and edited by Chabram-Dernersesian, includes lengthy introductions on the topic and a spoken intellectual history of the practices of Chicana/o cultural studies in our worlds. In addition, this edited book incorporates a valuable comparative context with the inclusion of interventions of practitioners from Black, American, Latina/o, Asian American, and Mexican cultural studies.
In 2008 Professor Chabram-Dernersesian turned her attention to cultural narrative and edited Speaking from the Body: Latinas on Health and Culture (University of Arizona Press) in collaboration with Adela de la Torre. This book argues that Latinas "experience illness within a narrative, or story, that gives meaning to what they are feeling, moment to moment" (Donald, 1998). Speaking from the Body also includes the stories of Latinas living with hypertension, breast cancer, obesity, diabetes, depression, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, dementia, Parkinson's, lupus, and hyper/hypothyroidism. In recognition of the importance of her work, Professor Chabram-Dernersesian was selected for the Davis Humanities Institute Seminar on Health, Medicine, and Culture in a Globalizing World.
Professor Angie Chabram-Dernersesian's current research and teaching are firmly located in Chicana/o (feminist) cultural studies, a critical intervention which she views as including representations of the body, community, health, and illness. Generally speaking, she is interested in promoting transnational/ global cultural studies networks and collaborative work teams that provide critical literacy for marginalized and subaltern communities that have not had access to higher learning and are underrepresented within the primary of circuits of cultural production.
At the University of California at Davis Professor Chabram-Dernersesian focuses her attention on mentoring undergraduate as well as graduate students. She has consistently participated in the Murals Program, the Graduate Group of Cultural Studies, and the Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research. She hopes to collaborate with scholars and students alike to create a state of the arts curriculum that creates bridges instead of borders and challenges students to pursue education as a form of social inquiry and change. Her work as a Professor is inspired in the example of her mother who encouraged her children to work hard, do the best they could, and to go to high school and college—despite the odds. Her support ethic is credited to her sister whose consistent "presence" made it possible for her to seek a path of higher education.
Cherríe Moraga is a Xicana feminist, writer, activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English since 2017, and in 2022 became a distinguished professor. Moraga is also a founding member of the social justice activist group La Red Xicana Indígena, which is network fighting for education, culture rights, and Indigenous Rights. In 2017, she co-founded, with Celia Herrera Rodríguez, Las Maestras Center for Xicana Indigenous Thought, Art, and Social Practice, located on the campus of UC Santa Barbara.
Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa was an American scholar of Chicana feminism, cultural theory, and queer theory. She loosely based her best-known book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), on her life growing up on the Mexico–Texas border and incorporated her lifelong experiences of social and cultural marginalization into her work. She also developed theories about the marginal, in-between, and mixed cultures that develop along borders, including on the concepts of Nepantla, Coyoxaulqui imperative, new tribalism, and spiritual activism. Her other notable publications include This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981), co-edited with Cherríe Moraga.
Helena Maria Viramontes is an American fiction writer and professor of English. She is known for her two novels, Under the Feet of Jesus and Their Dogs Came With Them, and is considered one of the most significant figures in the early canon of Chicano literature. Viramontes is currently the Goldwin Smith Professor of English at Cornell University.
Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement, theory, and praxis that scrutinizes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections impacting Chicanas and the Chicana/o community in the United States. Chicana feminism empowers women to challenge institutionalized social norms and regards anyone a feminist who fights for the end of women's oppression in the community.
The Chicanx Latinx Law Review is a student-edited and produced law journal at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. Established in 1972, it is the first law journal in the United States to focus primarily on how law and policy affect the Chicana/o and Latina/o community within the country. Today, the student publication includes reputable scholarly work on an array of topics, such as affirmative action and education, Spanish and Mexican land grants, environmental justice, language rights, and immigration reform. It has been cited as a persuasive authority in courtrooms across the country.
Alicia Gaspar de Alba is an American scholar, cultural critic, novelist, and poet whose works include historical novels and scholarly studies on Chicana/o art, culture and sexuality.
Roberta Fernández is a Tejana novelist, scholar, critic and arts advocate. She is known for her novel Intaglio and for her work editing several award-winning women writers. She was a professor in Romance languages & literatures and women's studies at the University of Georgia.
Lorna Dee Cervantes is an American poet and activist, who is considered one of the greatest figures in Chicano poetry. She has been described by Alurista as "probably the best Chicana poet active today."
Rosa-Linda Fregoso is the Professor and former Chair of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
La Loca is a literary mythotype of the mad heroine found in Chicana literature related to La Llorona. Authors using the figure include Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros and Monica Palacios, as well as in the poem "La Loca de la Raza Cósmica" by the pseudonymous La Chrisx.
Chela Sandoval, associate professor of Chicana Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, is a noted theorist of postcolonial feminism and third world feminism. Beginning with her 1991 pioneering essay 'U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World', Sandoval emerged as a significant voice for women of color and decolonial feminism.
Adela de la Torre is an American professor and university administrator. She has served as the ninth president of San Diego State University in San Diego, California, since 2018. She is the first woman to serve in the role.
Yreina Cervantez is an American artist and Chicana activist who is known for her multimedia painting, murals, and printmaking. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Mexican Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
Tara J. Yosso is a professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. Yosso's research and teaching apply the frameworks of critical race theory and critical media literacy to examine educational access and opportunity. Specifically, Yosso is interested in understanding how communities of color have historically utilized an array of cultural knowledge, skills, abilities, and networks to overcome structural discrimination and pursue educational equality. She has authored numerous collaborative and interdisciplinary chapters and articles, publishing in venues such as the Harvard Educational Review,International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education,Journal of Popular Film and Television, and The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities. She has been awarded a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for Diversity and Excellence in University Teaching, and honored with a Derrick Bell Legacy Award from the Critical Race Studies in Education Association. She is extensively cited within and beyond the field of education.
Hijas de Cuauhtémoc was a student Chicana feminist newspaper founded in 1971 by Anna Nieto-Gómez and Adelaida Castillo while both were students at California State University, Long Beach.
Carla (Mari) Trujillo is an American fiction writer, noted for her first novel What Night Brings, about the cultural contradictions of a Chicana lesbian growing up in a Catholic home. She is an administrator at the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught courses in Women's Studies.
Patricia Zavella is an anthropologist and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Latin American and Latino Studies department. She has spent a career advancing Latina and Chicana feminism through her scholarship, teaching, and activism. She was president of the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists and has served on the executive board of the American Anthropological Association. In 2016, Zavella received the American Anthropological Association's award from the Committee on Gender Equity in Anthropology to recognize her career studying gender discrimination. The awards committee said Zavella’s career accomplishments advancing the status of women, and especially Latina and Chicana women have been exceptional. She has made critical contributions to understanding how gender, race, nation, and class intersect in specific contexts through her scholarship, teaching, advocacy, and mentorship. Zavella’s research focuses on migration, gender and health in Latina/o communities, Latino families in transition, feminist studies, and ethnographic research methods. She has worked on many collaborative projects, including an ongoing partnership with Xóchitl Castañeda where she wrote four articles some were in English and others in Spanish. The Society for the Anthropology of North America awarded Zavella the Distinguished Career Achievement in the Critical Study of North America Award in the year 2010. She has published many books including, most recently, "I'm Neither Here Nor There, Mexicans"Quotidian Struggles with Migration and Poverty, which focuses on working class Mexican Americans struggle for agency and identity in Santa Cruz County.
Vicki Lynn Ruiz is an American historian who has written or edited 14 books and published over 60 essays. Her work focuses on Mexican-American women in the twentieth century. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal.
Emma Pérez is an American author and professor, known for her work in queer Chicana feminist studies.
Mary Romero is an American sociologist. She is Professor of Justice Studies and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University, with affiliations in African and African American Studies, Women and Gender Studies, and Asian Pacific American Studies. Before her arrival at ASU in 1995, she taught at University of Oregon, San Francisco State University, and University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Professor Romero holds a bachelor's degree in sociology with a minor in Spanish from Regis College in Denver, Colorado. She holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Colorado. In 2019, she served as the 110th President of the American Sociological Association.