People
LLS Faculty
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Clara E. Irazábal-Zurita(816) 235-2541 Haag Hall 204G |
Clara Irazábal is the Director of the Latina/o Studies Program and Professor of Planning with tenure in the Department of Architecture, Urban Planning + Design (AUPD) at the University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC). Before joining UMKC, she was the Latin Lab Director and Associate Professor of Urban Planning in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, New York City. She got her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley and has two master degrees. In her research and teaching, she explores the interactions of culture, politics, and placemaking, and their impact on community development and socio-spatial justice in Latin American cities and Latino and immigrant communities. Irazábal has published academic work in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. She is the author of Urban Governance and City Making in the Americas: Curitiba and Portland (Ashgate, 2005) and the editor of Transbordering Latin Americas: Liminal Places, Cultures, and Powers (T)Here (Routledge 2014) and Ordinary Places, Extraordinary Events: Citizenship, Democracy, and Public Space in Latin America (Routledge 2008, 2015). Irazábal has worked as consultant, researcher, and/or professor in multiple countries of the Americas, Europe, and Asia. |
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Theresa Torres(816) 235-1492 Haag Hall 204C |
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Dr. Theresa Torres
is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Latina/Latino
Studies Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Her areas of expertise are Latina Latino Studies, immigration, race
and ethnic relations, religious studies, sociology, and gender studies.
She is currently working on a book on Latina spirituality and
resilience based on interviews of Latina leaders. her book,
The Paradox of Latina Religious
Leadership in the Catholic Church (Palgrave 2014), is an in-depth
description of the on-going dynamics of religious identity and gender among
Kansas City Latinas and includes a history of Latina/os in Kansas City. She
has successfully received grants through the Missouri Humanities Council (2
grants), Francis Family Foundation, UMKC Women and Gender Studies Grant,
UMKC Online Teaching Grant, UMKC Teaching Grant, UMKC Faculty Research
Grant, and National grant from Social Science Research Training Fellowship,
Office of Research for Religion in Society & Culture at City University of
New York.
As an interdisciplinarian scholar, she teaches Latina Latino Studies, Women
and Gender Studies, and Sociology and she assists and serves on boards of
non-profit agencies that serve the Latina/o community of Kansas City.
You may contact her at
torresth@umkc.edu.
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LLS Affiliated Faculty |
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Matthew EdwardsDepartment of Foreign Languages and Literatures Matthew Edwards is a graduate of McGill University and the University of Ottawa, and, he received his doctoral degree from Emory University (2009) in Contemporary Latin American Literature. He has published articles focusing on literary representations of hyper-masculinity in the context of Cuba's Special Period and the implications of writing and reading marginal historiography in 20th and 21 century Argentina. His first book, titled Queer Argentina: Moving Towards the Closet in a Global Era (Palgrave MacMillan 2016), is forthcoming and it discusses how the closet has become the preferred space of community formation in moments of social, political and economic crisis over the past three decades. |
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Stephen R. ChristHonors College Stephen R. Christ is an Assistant Teaching Professor of
Social/Behavioral Science in the UMKC Honors College. In his research, Dr.
Christ examines the everyday experiences of Mexican immigrants in the United
States that contribute to Mexican-American identity formation. More
specifically, how Mexican Americans experience daily life at home, at work,
in public life and in how these experiences impact their sense of personal
identity, their relationships with natives, their interactions with their
families and community, and the identity work that goes into producing such
categories and social worlds. Dr. Christ's current book project, Authentic Imitations: Culture
and Society in a Globalized World, examines the negotiated construction of
authenticity among Latino/a immigrants employed in the Mexican restaurant
industry, a site in which authenticity is a major theme. Dr. Christ
has presented his original research at regional, national, and international
conferences and has been awarded several research awards, including the
Hispanic Scholarship Fund Dissertation Scholarship, John D. Bies
International Travel Research Award, and the Robert W. Habenstein
Dissertation Fellowship. His sole authored work has appeared in peer
reviewed journals such as Organizational Cultures: An International Journal,
Rural Sociology, Qualitative Sociological Review, and has been featured in
over 60 national and international news sources including the Los Angeles
Times, The Atlantic, and NPR. |
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Sandra I. Enríquez
Department of History Sandra I. Enríquez is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She received her BA in History and a Minor in Spanish and an MA in U.S.-México Border History from the University of Texas at El Paso, and earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Houston in 2016. Her research and teaching interests include Chicana/o and Latina/o History, Urban History, Social Movements, and Public History. Her manuscript project examines Mexican American grassroots approaches to preserve the neighborhoods of South El Paso, Texas in the 1960s and 1970s, and how these fights served as stages for political and social empowerment. Enríquez has also served in several Public History initiatives including the NEH funded Civil Rights in Black and Brown Oral History Project, the NEH funded Gulf Coast Food Project, and Museo Urbano--a community based museum that celebrates the history and heritage of ethnic Mexicans in El Paso. |
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Viviana L. GriecoDepartment of History Prof. Grieco is a colonial historian whose work on the political economy and political culture of Spanish America challenges widespread assumptions about Latin America's path to development. She is currently working on her second book that studies how household and political governance affect the decision-making process in Spanish America. She teaches Latin America and Women's History from the pre-colonial period to the present. Her work has been funded by multiple grants included two from the University of Missouri Research Board. Prof. Grieco was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, obtained her BA from the University of Buenos Aires and her MA and Ph.D. from Emory University in Atlanta, GA. She is also a runner and soccer mom. |
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Maude S. WahlmanDepartment of Art and Art History Maude Wahlman teaches traditional and contemporary
African, African American, Meso-American, and Native American art history,
and American folk arts, as well as Arts Administration. She advises
undergraduate art history majors, MA students writing on Non-Western arts,
and Art History I.Ph.D. students. Andrea
Lee, Pearl Johnson, Cristie Barron, and Licia-Clifton-James completed their
I.Ph.D. degrees. Three of her students are currently in the I.Ph.D. Program.
She participated planning the new Humanities Consortium, and is also a
faculty member for Black Studies and Women's
and Gender Studies. She designed and has offered 5 times, a new on-line
version of her ART-History 315 class,
The Arts of Africa and New World Cultures (African American, Meso-American,
and Native American). Her 5th book, Mojo Working: An Introduction to African and African American Protective
Charm Traditions, is about to be under contract with an academic press.
The second edition of Wahlman's book
Signs and Symbols: African Images in African-American Quilts, was
published by Tinwood Books in 2001. She received the Louis T. Beneset Award
for Career Achievement from the Alumni Association at Colorado College in
2004, and the Award for Distinguished Research from the Folk Art Society of
America in 2003. Maude Wahlman has
also co-authored 3 books, written 12 exhibition catalogs, 18 refereed
articles, and 21 invited articles, curated 24 exhibits, presented 22
refereed papers, 14 invited papers, 44 invited university lectures and 35
invited public lectures, and had 22 media interviews.
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Alberto VillamandosDepartment of Foreign Languages and Literatures Dr. Alberto Villamandos is an Associate Professor at the Department of
Foreign Languages and Literatures. He teaches undergraduate and graduate
classes on Spain's 20th century literature and culture. His research focuses
on intellectual elites during late-Franco regime and the Transition to
democracy. Dr. Villamandos has worked on graphic fiction, gender studies,
and immigration studies. He is the author of El Discreto Encanto de La
Subversión: Una Crítica Cultural de La Gauche Divine (2011) and
coedited Un Hispanismo Para El Siglo XXI (2011). His most recent
publications are the following:
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LLS Staff |
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Alejandro Garay Huaman |
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Graduate Research Assistant Ph.D. Candidate in Economics |
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Monica Oh |
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Graduate Teaching Assistant Ph.D. Candidate in Counseling Psychology |
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Veronica Duarte-RiosWork Study StudentSenior, Business Administration
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