Juana María Rodríguez
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Juana María Rodríguez is a Cuban-American professor of Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and Performance Studies at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. Her scholarly writing in queer theory,
critical race theory Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goa ...
, and
performance studies Performance studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses performance as a lens and a tool to study the world. The term ''performance'' is broad, and can include artistic and aesthetic performances like concerts, theatrical events, ...
highlights the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and embodiment in constructing subjectivity.


Biography

Born Juana María de la Caridad Rodríguez y Hernández in
Placetas, Cuba Placetas () is a city in the Villa Clara Province in the center of Cuba; before the change in the country's government in 1959 the province was called Las Villas. The town is also known as ''La Villa de los Laureles'' because of its wild laurel tr ...
, Rodríguez emigrated to the United States in 1963 with her family.''Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces''. New York: NYU Press, 2003, p. 126. She has two siblings: her sister Dinorah de Jesús Rodríguez,an experimental filmmaker and visual artist who works between Havana and Miami, and her brother René. Rodríguez identifies as queer and bisexual, and has published work about what she terms "bisexual erasure."


Education and career

Describing herself as an "accidental academic" in reference to her working class upbringing, Rodríguez attended
City College of San Francisco City College of San Francisco (CCSF or City College) is a State school#United States, public community college in San Francisco, California. Founded as a Junior college#United States, junior college in 1935, the college plays an important local ...
before graduating with a bachelor's degree from
San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
in Liberal Studies. Her graduate degrees include a Masters in English and Comparative Literature from
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
where she studied with
Norma Alarcón Norma Alarcón (born November 30, 1943) is a Chicana author and publisher in the United States. She is the founder of Third Woman Press and a major figure in Chicana feminism. She is Professor Emerita of Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of ...
,
Judith Butler Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler ...
, VèVè A. Clark, and
Gerald Vizenor Gerald is a male Germanic given name meaning "rule of the spear" from the prefix ''ger-'' ("spear") and suffix ''-wald'' ("rule"). Variants include the English given name Jerrold, the feminine nickname Jeri and the Welsh language Gerallt and Iri ...
. Before joining the faculty at Berkeley, Rodríguez was an Assistant Professor of English at
Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...
, and an Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the
University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...
where she served as Director of the Cultural Studies Graduate Group. At Berkeley, she is affiliated with the Center for Race and Gender, the Center for New Media, the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture and the Haas Institute for a Fair and Equitable Society, where she was a founding member of the LGBTQ Citizen Cluster. In 2014, she was appointed to the
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...
President's Advisory Committee on LGBT Students, Staff, and Faculty Member by
Janet Napolitano Janet Ann Napolitano (; born November 29, 1957) is an American politician, lawyer, and university administrator who served as the 21st governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009 and third United States secretary of homeland security from 2009 to 20 ...
.


Academic contributions

The author of two books, ''Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces'' (
NYU Press New York University Press (or NYU Press) is a university press that is part of New York University. History NYU Press was founded in 1916 by the then chancellor of NYU, Elmer Ellsworth Brown. Directors * Arthur Huntington Nason, 1916–1932 ...
, 2003) and ''Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings'' (NYU 2014), Rodríguez has also published essays in '' GLQ: a Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies; Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory;
Radical History Review ''Radical History Review'' is a scholarly journal published by Duke University Press. The journal describes its position as "at the point where rigorous historical scholarship and active political engagement converge".
; PMLA;
MELUS Melus (also ''Milus'' or ''Meles'', ''Melo'' in Italian) (died 1020) was a Lombard nobleman from the Apulian town of Bari, whose ambition to carve for himself an autonomous territory from the Byzantine catapanate of Italy in the early eleventh ...
; Profession'' and others''.'' Rodríguez's work is considered part of
queer of color critique #REDIRECT Queer of color critique {{Rcatshell, {{R from move{{R from alternative capitalisation ...
, an intervention into queer theory that argues that sexuality can not be understood or analyzed outside of the ways it is mutually constituted by race and other dimensions of difference.


''Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces''

Rodríguez's first book, ''Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces'' (
NYU Press New York University Press (or NYU Press) is a university press that is part of New York University. History NYU Press was founded in 1916 by the then chancellor of NYU, Elmer Ellsworth Brown. Directors * Arthur Huntington Nason, 1916–1932 ...
, 2003) introduced the idea of queer ''
latinidad ''Latinidad'' is a Spanish-language term that refers to the various attributes shared by Latin American people and their descendants without reducing those similarities to any single essential trait. It was first adopted within US Latino studies by ...
'' as a way to disarticulate the ways that history, geography, colonialism, ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, legal status, immigration status, class, color, and the politics of location exist to complicate facile notions of Latino identity. In that book, Rodríguez identifies three case studies that involve different understandings of ethnic and sexual identity: activism through the queer Latino/a HIV prevention agency
Proyecto ContraSIDA por Vida Proyecto ContraSIDA por Vida (also known as PCPV and Proyecto) was a non-profit HIV-prevention agency located in the Mission District of San Francisco that provided community-based healthcare for the Latino/a and LGBT communities. It was one of sev ...
; law through the
asylum Asylum may refer to: Types of asylum * Asylum (antiquity), places of refuge in ancient Greece and Rome * Benevolent Asylum, a 19th-century Australian institution for housing the destitute * Cities of Refuge, places of refuge in ancient Judea ...
case of Marcelo Tenorio, a gay Afro-Brazilian who was granted political asylum in the United States based on sexual persecution; and cyberspace by examining the internet chatrooms of the
IRC Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called ''channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and ...
(Internet Relay Chat) an early form of digital connectivity.


Queering Spanish language

In her chapter on the IRC, "'Welcome to the Global Stage': Confessions of a Latina Cyber-Slut" in ''Queer Latinidad'', Rodríguez documents the use of the "@" or arroba in words like Latin@, amig@s, or nostr@s seen in the Spanish language digital spaces she studied, as a "creative linguistic intervention in the highly gendered structure of Spanish." She writes, "Unlike the slash in words such as Latinos/as or amigas/os, which maintains a gender binary while attempting to be inclusive, the @ or "at sign," literally marks where an individual is at in terms of gender." She has also discussed the use of the "x" in terms such as Latinx and other approaches to the ungendering or queering of Spanish, although she also argues that gender can also be a site of pleasure and affirmation.


''Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings''

Rodriguez's second book ''Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings'' (NYU Press 2014) looks at queer kinship practices, sodomy laws in
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
,
Latin dance Latin dance is a general label, and a term in partner dance competition jargon. It refers to types of ballroom dance and folk dance that mainly originated in Latin America. The category of Latin dances in the international dancesport competi ...
styles,
commercials A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...
,
pornography Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,
,
burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.
, queer pride marches, alongside sexual practices such as
BDSM BDSM is a variety of often erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged ...
,
polyamory Polyamory () is the practice of, or desire for, romantic relationships with more than one partner at the same time, with the informed consent of all partners involved. People who identify as polyamorous may believe in open relationships wit ...
, daddy-play, and
butch-femme ''Butch'' and ''femme'' (; ; ) are terms used in the lesbian subculture to ascribe or acknowledge a masculine (butch) or feminine (femme) identity with its associated traits, behaviors, styles, self-perception, and so on. The terms were founde ...
role playing to examine the relationship between sexual politics and sexual practices. In the book and elsewhere, she highlights how the politics of respectability that surround sexuality inhibit the potential for more radical interventions into public policy and law around sexuality. Throughout the book, she uses the idea of
gesture A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or ot ...
to emphasize non-verbal ways of communicating gendered and ethnic identity, and as a metaphor to think about activist practices that are partial, in-process and incomplete. The book features queer performance artist
Xandra Ibarra Xandra Ibarra (born 1979), who has sometimes worked under the alias of La Chica Boom, is a performance artist, activist, and educator. Ibarra works across video, sculpture and performance. She is based in Oakland, California. About Born in 1979 ...
, and explores the taboo subject of racialized sexual violence.


Sexual practices

Rodríguez's work is often specifically praised for the ways in which it deals explicitly with queer sexual practices and forms of gender expression such as
butch and femme ''Butch'' and ''femme'' (; ; ) are terms used in the lesbian subculture to ascribe or acknowledge a masculine (butch) or feminine (femme) identity with its associated traits, behaviors, styles, self-perception, and so on. The terms were found ...
.Dorrance, Jess. "Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings." ''Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory'' 0.0 (2016): 1–3. ''Taylor and Francis+NEJM''. Web. 5 Nov. 2016. Dominguez, Pier. "The Potentiality of the Latina Femme Gesture." ''GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies'' 22.1 (2016): 143–145. ''glq.dukejournals.org''. Web. 10 Dec. 2015. She frequently uses her own sexual experiences, or what she terms "sexual archives" to illuminate her ideas on racialized abjection, feminine subjection, sexual vulnerability, and femme identity. In her writing, she often references the sensory, particularly touch, as a way to articulate an embodied sexual practice and a writing practice rooted in sociality.Dahl, Ulrika. "The Latina Femme Promise of Vulnerability and Access." ''Lambda Nordica'' 1-2 (2016): 191–196. In reviews of her work, reviewers frequently remark on her lyrical use of language.


Other accomplishments


Awards

In 2022, Rodríguez received the
Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies (formerly known as ''Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies'' or ''CLAGS'') was founded in 1991 by professor Martin Duberman as the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study ...
Kessler Award, given every year to a scholar and/ or activist who has produced a substantive body of work that has had a significant influence on the field of LGBTQ Studies. In Fall 2021, Rodríguez was awarded the Berlin Prize by the
American Academy in Berlin The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...
. In 2015, her book, ''Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings'' won the Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize, by the GL/Q Caucus of the
Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "st ...
and was a Lambda Literary Foundation Finalist for LGBT Studies. At the University of California, Berkeley, she has won the Social Science Division, Distinguished Teaching Award and the Graduate Assembly's Faculty Mentor Award.


Professional affiliations

A member of the
American Studies Association The American Studies Association (ASA) is a scholarly organization founded in 1951. It is the oldest scholarly organization devoted to the interdisciplinary study of U.S. culture and history. The ASA works to promote meaningful dialogue about t ...
, the
Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "st ...
, and the
National Women's Studies Association The National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) is an organization founded in 1977, made up of scholars and practitioners in the field of women's studies also known as women's and gender studies, feminist studies, and related names in the 21st c ...
, she was chair of the
Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "st ...
's Committee on the Status of Literatures of People of Color in the United States and edited a collection of essays entitled the "Affirmative Activism Project" on diversity in higher education. She was also elected to the National Council of the
American Studies Association The American Studies Association (ASA) is a scholarly organization founded in 1951. It is the oldest scholarly organization devoted to the interdisciplinary study of U.S. culture and history. The ASA works to promote meaningful dialogue about t ...
for a three-year term in 2013.


Public engagement

A frequent public speaker and writer, Rodríguez has also published articles on the
Orlando nightclub shooting On , 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man, killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Orlando Police officers shot and killed him after a three-hour standoff. In a 9- ...
, diversity in Higher Education, gay marriage, and bisexuality.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriguez, Juana Maria Year of birth missing (living people) Living people City College of San Francisco alumni Queer women Bisexual women University of California, Berkeley faculty San Francisco State University alumni Columbia University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Bryn Mawr College faculty University of California, Davis faculty Cuban emigrants to the United States People from Placetas Cuban LGBT writers Cuban non-fiction writers Queer writers Ethnic studies LGBT Hispanic and Latino American people Queer theorists LGBT academics American bisexual writers