Campus Directory

Pronouns he/him

Division Humanities Division

Department/ College/ Unit Literature Department
Latin American & Latino Studies

Title Associate Dean of Humanities
Professor

Affiliation Faculty

Other UCSC Campus Affiliation Latin American & Latino Studies
Spanish Studies

Faculty Type Regular Faculty

Areas of Expertise American Studies
Literature
Archives, Archival Practices
Latin American and Latino Studies
History
Immigration

Primary Office Location Humanities Building 1
639

Office Hours for Students/ Office Hours Tues 5-6 and by Appt, zoom or in-person

Mail Stop Literature Department

Biography, Education and Training

Born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, I arrived in California at the age of 8. I grew up in Los Angeles and did my undergradute work in history at Occidental College. I received a a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University before taking a position as a staff writer at the Miami Herald during years when newspapers were still a major source of communication. After four years in newspapers, I earned an MA and PhD in English at the University of Maryland, where I was supported by a fellowship and caring mentors. My first academic job was at Miami University in Ohio; I then moved to the University of California, Irvine as a professor of English from 2004 - 2023. In my final year at Irvine, I served as Interim Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In the fall of 2023, I moved to UC Santa Cruz and  now teach courses in English and Spanish. This year I am serving as associate dean in Humanities, and I am director/PI of a Graduate Success Initiative to support doctoral diversity. 

Summary of Expertise

I am a scholar of American literature and culture broadly conceived across the Americas, with specialties in the nineteenth century, print culture, and archival studies. Most of my rearch is on writers who cross the Americas and conceptualize new ways to publish and circulate their writing, often with the goal of enacting social and political transformation. My research is in dialogue with migration studies, Latin American Studies, Latinx studies, and US literary history. I am currently writing a book titled, Clandestine Spectacle: Torture Culture and the Language of Despotism, which considers the history of torture writing to shed light on post-9/11 cultures of US torture. My most recent published book is Letters from Filadelfia: Early Latino Literature and the Trans-American Elite, which won the best book in Early American Literature in 2022. I have edited special issues for the journals Leviathan and Early American Literature, and I am a general editor of The Broadview Anthology of American Literature.  

Research Interests

Current Projects:

Writing a book-length study titled, Clandestine Spectacle: Torture Culture and the Language of Despotism 

Other Projects: 1) An article about Gabriel García Márquez's The General in his Labyrinth 2)  Article on J. Delgado Lopera's Fiebre Tropical

Teaching Interests

I teach courses in US literature and culture, Latin American literature, Latinx literature, and archival theory/practice.

In 2026-27, I am teaching the following courses: Lit 119, American Archives (Fall), Lit 1, Introduction to Literature (Spring), Moby-Dick: Senior Seminar (Spring).

I work with several doctoral students on their dissertations and run a campuswide program to support doctoral diversity.

Awards, Honors and Grants

Selected:

2026 - Doctoral Diversity Initiative Grant, UC HSI, PI and director of a program to support graduate students

2022 - Best Book in Early American Literature - Letters from Filadelfia: Early Latino Literature and the Trans-American Elite (U of Virginia Press, 2020)

2012 - Faculty Mentoring Award, Associated Graduate Students of UC Irvine

2001-2002 - National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship

Selected Publications

Books:

Letters from Filadelfia: Early Latino Literature and the Trans-American Elite. U of Virginia Press, 2020

Writing to Cuba: Filibustering and Cuban Exiles in the United States. U of North Carolina Press, 2005

The Latino Nineteenth Century, co-edited with Jesse Alemán. NYU Press, 2016.

 Selected Articles:

"Cultures of US Torture:" The Cambridge Companion to American Ltierature and Empire, edited by Anna Brickhouse and Susan Gillman. Cambridge University Press, 2026.

“Still Anonymous: Jicotencal and the Authority of Labor” Early American Literature 58.3 (2023): 703-717.

“Israel Potter Deported.” Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies 22.1 (March 2020): 146-165.

“Migrant Archives: New Routes in and Out of American Studies,” in States of Emergency: The Object of American Studies, ed. Russ Castronovo and Susan Gillman. University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

Courses Literature 119, American Archives (Fall)
Literature 1, Intro to Literature (Spring)
Moby-Dick: Senior Seminar (Spring)