Deborah Paredez

Deborah Paredez (Ph.D., Northwestern University) is a poet and scholar who teaches courses about race and performance in the Department of English.  She is an affiliated faculty member in the Departments of African Diaspora Studies and Theatre and Dance and in the Centers for Mexican American Studies and Women's and Gender Studies.  She is the author of the poetry collection, This Side of Skin (Wings Press 2002) and the critical study, Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory (Duke 2009), which was the recipient of the 2010 Latina/o Studies Book Award Honorable Mention and the 2011 National Association of Chicana/o Studies Honorable Mention.  Her recent publications include, "About My (Absent) Mother: Latina Aspirations in Real Women Have Curves and Ugly Betty," Beyond El Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o America (NYU Press 2010) and poems appearing in Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, Poet Lore, and Mandorla: New Writings from the Americas.  She is currently at work on a poetry collection called After the Light and a critical study about Black and Latina divas in American culture.  She is the co-founder of CantoMundo, a national organization dedicated to Latina/o poets and poetry.  On campus, she has served as Director of Arts and Community Engagement (2007-2010) and Associate Director (2009-2010) and Interim Director (2011) of the Center for Mexican American Studies.