Etna Ávalos, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Spanish

Affiliate Faculty, Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

 

Biography

Dr. Ávalos specializes in contemporary Mexican and Latin American cultural productions, focusing on the representations of disability, gender identity, ethnicity, and exile as forms of resistance. Her second area of study examines transborder and diasporic narratives in Latino/a/x/e literature and cinema. She earned her Ph.D. in Spanish and Latin American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds a Master’s degree in Spanish and Latin American Literature from North Carolina State University and a Master’s degree in British Studies and English Literature from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. She completed her undergraduate degree in Communication and Journalism at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Her interdisciplinary research incorporates race, gender, colonial and postcolonial studies, disability theories, history, and philosophy to explore the representation of political and social issues in Mexican and Latin American cultural productions. Her work has been widely published in refereed journals such as Hispanófila, iMex: México Interdisciplinario, Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades, Mexican Studies, Romance Notes, and América sin nombre, among others.

Dr. Ávalos is currently working as the editor of a volume that explores how corporeal representations and bodily narratives of difference are connected to the diasporic experience in Latino/a/x/e literature written in Spanish in the United States.

 

Ph.D. Romance Studies (Spanish and Latin American Studies), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

M.A. Spanish and Latin American Literature, North Carolina State University.

M.A. British Studies, Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.

B.A. Media and Communication, National Autonomous University of Mexico.

 

Publications

Refereed Articles

• Ávalos, Etna. “Género y discapacidad como narrativas decoloniales en la literatura Latinx de Naida Saavedra, Melanie Márquez Adams y Jennifer Thorndike”. Hispanófila. Ensayos de literatura, vol. 200, Spring 2024, pp. 53-65.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Bordes desvanecidos: el espectro femenino como figura de resiliencia en “Real Women have Bodies” y “Eight Bites,” de Carmen Maria Machado.” Bordxs: representaciones de géneros, sexualidades y fronteras. Una aproximación a las literaturas y culturas fronterizas. Eds. Cynthia Meléndrez y Elizabeth Villalobos. California: Artificios, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, U of Colorado, 2023, pp. 17-38.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Mujeres ‘líquidas’: feminismos y metamorfosis de adaptación en la narrativa de Rosa Beltrán.” Rosa Beltrán: afectos literarios y el arte de narrar. Ed. Oswaldo Estrada. México: Bonilla Artigas, 2023, pp. 211-28.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Marcas de violencia: biopolítica, enfermedad y discapacidad en Teoría de las catástrofes de Tryno Maldonado.” iMex. Mexico Interdisciplinario, Artículos iMex, vol. 1, 2021, pp. 70-83.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Discapacidad, feminismo y sexualidad en Sangre en el ojo de Lina Meruane.” Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades, vol. 44, no.1, 2018, pp. 37-48.

• Ávalos, Etna. “El epíteto en la Grandeza Mexicana de Bernardo de Balbuena / The Epithet in the Grandeza Mexicana by Bernardo de Balbuena.” Calíope. Journal of the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry, vol. 23, no. 1, 2018, pp. 77-113.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Discapacidad y construcciones de género en Después del invierno de Guadalupe Nettel.” iMex. Mexico Interdisciplinario / Interdisciplinary Mexico, vol. 13, no. 1, 2018, pp. 113-126.

Book Reviews

• Ávalos, Etna. “Fronteras de violencia en México y Estados Unidos, by Oswaldo Estrada (ed.)” Estudios Mexicanos/Mexican Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2023, pp. 346-48.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Incurables. Relatos de dolencias y males, by Oswaldo Estrada (ed.)” Latino Book Review, August 24, 2020.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Adapting Gender. Mexican Feminisms from Literature to Film, by Ilana Dann Luna.” Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades, vol. 44, no.1, 2018, pp. 150-152.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Diferencias, alteridad e identidad. (Narrativa de la primera mitad de siglo XX), by Cecilia Eudave.” América sin nombre, No. 22, 2017, pp. 143-144.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Libre Acceso: Latin American Literature and Film through Disability Studies, by Susan Antebi and Beth E. Jörgensen.” Hispanófila. Ensayos de literatura, vol. 178, 2016, pp. 293-294.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Ciudad, género e imaginarios urbanos en la narrativa latinoamericana, by Lucía Guerra.” Romance Notes, vol. 56, no. 1, 2016, pp. 162-164.

• Ávalos, Etna. “Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa, by Hedy Habra.” Romance Notes, vol. 54, Special Issue, 2014, pp. 163-164.

Conference presentations

• “¿En dónde quedé yo?: La escritura del dolor de María Luisa Puga,” LX Conference of the Canadian Association of Hispanists, June 1-3, 2024, Montreal, Canada.

• “Decolonial Feminism in the Mexican-Peruvian Body Horror Film Huesera. The Bone Woman (2022),” NeMLA 55^th Annual Convention, March 7-10, 2024, Boston, MA.

• “Lesbianismo y maternidad disidente en el filme Huesera,” NeMLA 55^th Annual Convention, March 7-10, 2024, Boston, MA.

• “Feminismos líquidos en dos obras de Rosa Beltrán,” LIX Conference of the Canadian Association of Hispanists, June 3-5, 2023, Ottawa, Canada.

• “Towards a Genealogy of Female Monstrosity: Gender and Disability in Pandora and Cara de Liebre by Liliana Blum,” II Congreso Internacional de Estudios Literarios Femeninos y Feministas, May 10-13, 2023, University of Almeria, Spain.

• “Gender Violence and Recovery: Women’s Writing in Contemporary Latin America,” 2022 Interdisciplinary Dialogue: Humanities Speakers Series, March 4, 2022, MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta.

• “El retorno al cuerpo como insurrección femenina en El cuerpo en que nací de Guadalupe Nettel,” Conferencia de la Asociación de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades, Nov. 17-19, 2021, Santo Domingo, República Dominicana.

• “Discapacidad, género y decadencia política en la novela Rebelión de los fanáticos de César Gándara,” XXIV Congreso de Literatura Mexicana, March 7-9, 2019, University of Texas, El Paso, TX.

• “Biopolitics and Disability in the Novel Los rojos de ultramar by Jordi Soler”, Carolina Conference for Romance Studies, April 5-7, 2018, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC.

• “Discapacidad masculina como estigma de la violencia en Un año en el hospital de San Lázaro (1905) de Justo Sierra O’Reilly”, West Georgia Annual Interdisciplinary Conference in the Humanities, October 26-28, 2017, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA.

• “Disability and Gender in the novel Seeing Red by Lina Meruane”, Carolina Conference for Romance Studies, March 30- April 1, 2017, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC.