Congratulations to UCSB graduate students attending the Crossing Latinidades summer institute!

The Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative is the anchoring program of the consortium of the twenty-one Carnegie designated top tier Research 1, Hispanic Serving Institutions. The multi-institutional model of research and training expands opportunities for the growing populations of students to support a national cohort of doctoral students in U.S. Latino/a/x Humanities Studies as they commit to a pathway to the professoriate and professional goals. The program is designed to engage both faculty and Ph.D. students in exploring broader topics within Latino/a/x Studies. By fostering the creation of comparative knowledge across various subfields and strategic areas of inquiry, UIC aims to shift the focus from single-group regional perspectives to a more inclusive and expansive approach to public scholarship and pedagogy.

A standout component of the program is the annual Summer Institute, which serves as an intellectual incubator for doctoral candidates. The Summer Institute offers a dynamic environment for intellectual exploration and exchange. Participants engage in intense dialogue on theoretical, methodological, and epistemological models, facilitating the development of fresh, unique approaches to their research. 

This summer, UCSB graduate students Michael A. Parra (English) and Alejandra Valencia Medina (Chicana/o studies) will be joining this elite group of scholars!

Michel is a third-year English Ph.D. student at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), with doctoral emphases in Global and Feminist studies.  Between undergraduate and doctoral programs, he worked in graduate admissions and fellowships at UCB, while serving in volunteer leadership roles in Lambda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity, Inc.—the first and largest Latin fraternity in the US. His doctoral research broadly centers on the tensions between empirical reality, world-making, and identity formation in Chicano, Latino, and Latin American literary and cultural studies, by employing a critical masculinity studies analysis of male cultural workers from the Americas. 

Alejandra Valencia Medina (she/her/ella) is a third-year PhD student in the Department of Chicana/o Studies. Alejandra was raised in Chicago and moved to California to get her Bachelor's degree in Chicanx/Latinx Studies from Pomona College. Her research focuses on Latina sexuality. Using an intersectional and decolonial Chicana feminist lens, she is interested in examining how various cultural texts (fiction, creative nonfiction, and popular media) represent Latina sexuality. Specifically, she is drawn to exploring questions around agency, power, and desire.