Deborah Paredez

Deborah Paredez (Ph.D., Northwestern University) is a poet and scholar who teaches courses about race and performance in the Department of Theatre, Department of African Diaspora Studies, and the Center for Mexican American Studies. She is the author of Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory (Duke University Press 2009), winner of the 2010 Latino Studies Book Award Honorable Mention sponsored by the Latin American Studies Association. Her articles include: “Remembering Selena, Re-membering Latinidad,” (Theatre Journal 2002), “Becoming Selena, Becoming Latina” (Women and Migration in the US-Mexico Borderlands, Duke University Press 2007), and “All 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). Her recent research explores the work of Black and Latina divas; her current articles in process include “'Queer for Uncle Sam': Anita's Diva Citizenship in West Side Story” and “Keeping Diva Time with Ms. Jomama Jones.” She is the recipient of a 2008-09 AAUW Postdoctoral Fellowship.

She is also the author of the poetry collection, This Side of Skin (Wings Press, 2002), recipient of the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation Writing Award founded by Sandra Cisneros. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Daughters of the Fifth Sun: A Collection of U.S. Latina Fiction and Poetry (Putnam, 1995), This Promiscuous Light (Wings Press, 1996), Floricanto Sí! A Collection of Latina Poetry (Penguin, 1998), The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (University of Arizona Press, 2007) and Mandorla: Writing from the Americas (2011). She is currently at work on her second poetry volume, After the Light. Beyond the university, Deborah has taught writing workshops with young people of color in a range of venues and is a founding member of CantoMundo, a national organization dedicated to fostering Latina/o poets and poetry.

Deborah has held a number of administrative posts including the Director of Arts and Community Engagement (2007-2010) and Associate Director of the Center for Mexican American Studies (2009-2010). She is currently serving as the Interim Director of the Center for Mexican American Studies.