Sarah Quesada
Assistant Professor of English
Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Latino Studies
Specialties: Latino/a and Transnational Literature; Hispanic Caribbean Literature and Afro-Latina/o; African Diaspora Studies.
Degrees: BA, Hope College; MA, University of Georgia; PhD, Stanford University
Dr. Sarah Margarita Quesada’s research and teaching interests include 20th and 21st century Latina/o, Chicana/o, Transnational literatures and spatial theory. Her main focus is on the constructions of race, ethnicity, migration, and spiritual formation of the Latino/a African Diaspora in literature and film, read through a decolonial lens. Her book project explores the uneven distribution of slave trade memory across the Atlantic by drawing comparisons between West African heritage sites and Latin American and Latina/o storytelling. Examining mostly contemporary representations of transatlantic memory, Dr. Quesada's study reassesses the ontological nature of the transCaribbean narrative and conveys the many ways in which Atlantic history and cosmology are presented within the margins of texts, in the foundations of nation-building myths, but also at the intersection of conservation projects and fiction. Ultimately this project expands the limits of Latinidad into the Atlantic World, through works by Rudolfo Anaya, Gabriel García Márquez, Alejo Carpentier, Achy Obejas, Junot Diaz, and Dahlma Llanos Figueroa. Dr. Quesada is a former Postdoctoral Associate in the department of Latina/Latino studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and ACLS Andrew Mellon fellow.
Recent Publications
- “Revisiting the Congo in the Chicano Southwest: The Atlantic Imaginary in Tomás Rivera and Rudolfo Anaya,” Oxford Handbook of Latino Studies. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming.
- “El corpus poético de un ‘Afro-Caribe nerudiano’ de Canto general a Canción de gesta”/ “The Poetic Corpus of a Nerudian ‘Afro-Caribbean’ from Canto general to Canción de gesta.” Afro-Hispanic Review 37.1 (2018). Forthcoming.
- “A Planetary Warning?: A Multilayered Caribbean Zombie in Junot Díaz’s ‘Monstro.’” Junot Díaz and the Decolonial Imagination. Hana, Monica, Jennifer Hartford-Vargas & José David Saldívar. Eds. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2016.
- “An Inclusive ‘Black Atlantic: Revisiting Creole Formations in the Atlantic World.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, LACES 10.2 (2015): 226-246.
- “A Conversation with Poet Georgina Herrera. Her Beginnings, the Slave Trade, and Aspects of Race and Gender in Cuba/Una conversación con la poeta, Georgina Herrera. Sus comienzos, la trata esclavista, cuestiones de raza y la género en Cuba.” Afro-Hispanic Review 33.2 (2015).
- “Los ideales políticos-sociales de Michel-Rolph Trouillot y sus aportes crítico-históricos a la literatura.” Journal of Haitian Studies 19.2 (2013).
- “Trans-Americanity: Subaltern Modernities, Global Coloniality, and the Cultures of Greater Mexico, by José David Saldívar” Postcolonial Text 8.3 & 4 (2013). Web. January 2013.
- “Puentes verticales y horizontales a través de las Américas hemisféricas.” UNAM Punto en línea 44 (2013).
- “Georgina Herrera’s poems, ‘Africa,’ ‘Listening to old Oweni speak,’ ‘The Lady from Nigeria.’ Mantis: A Journal of Poetry, Criticism and Translation 11 (2013): 114-126.
- “Gloria Rolando, Revalorizando la memoria a través de los protagonistas de la historia.” Nuevo Texto Crítico 42 (2012): 187-202.
Recent Awards
- 2016-2017, Latina/Latino Studies Postdoctoral Associate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- 2015-2016, ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship ($32,000)
- 2014, Diversity Dissertation Research Opportunity Grant (DDRO), Stanford University
Contact Information:
213 Decio Faculty Hall
(574) 631-3817
squesada@nd.edu
Postal Address:
Department of English
233 Decio Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556