QS affiliated faculty - dr. Beatriz Cortez

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Beatriz Cortez is Associate Professor of Central American Studies at California State University, Northridge.

Born and raised in El Salvador, I migrated to the United States in November, 1989. I studied visual arts (drawing and painting), and hold a B.A. in Latin American History (1993). For my graduate studies I completed an M.A. (1996) and a Ph.D. (1999) in Latin American Literature from Arizona State University, where I specialized in contemporary Central American narratives and the application of queer theory (particularly the definition of identity in ambiguous terms) to the construction of national identity in Central America.

I am interested in the intersections between class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and culture. One of the issues that I explore in my work is the construction and imposition of a rigid and fixed identity on constructed spaces such as the nation. Therefore, my work on the exclusion of Indigenous people in Central America is often based on the application of queer theory and theoretical approaches to gender performativity to the concept of national identity, ethnicity and the culturally diagrammed space of the nation. I am currently revising the final manuscript of my book-length study, Aesthetics of Cynicism: Post-_War Central American Fiction, for publication both in English and in Spanish. I have published a number of articles on literature, gender, culture, exile, and the construction of identity. Among them:

1. "Hybrid Identities and the Emergence of Dislocated Consciousness: Deporting the Divas by Guillermo Reyes." Chicano/Latino Homoerotic Identities. David William Foster. New York: Garland, 1999. 131-45.

2. "Sadomasoquismo y travestismo en El público de Federico García Lorca: un reto al heterosexismo compulsivo." (SM and Crossdressing in El público by Federico García Lorca: A Challenge to Compulsive Heterosexism). Hispanófila. 133 (2001): 31-42.

3. "La monja alférez: una historia de travestismo a la luz de El Salvador actual." (The Nun / Sargent Pallbearer: A History of Crossdressing in the Context of Contemporary El Salvador). Tendencias. 78 (1999): 43-44.

4. "El travestismo de Rosaura en La vida es sueño y de Loenor en Valor, agravio y mujer: el surgimiento de la agencialidad femenina y la desnaturalización del binarismo del género." (Rosaura’s Crossdressing in La vida es sueño and Leonor’s Crossdressing in Valor, agravio y mujer: The Emergence of Femenine Agency and the De-Naturalization of Gender Binarism). Bulletin of the Comediantes. 50.2 (1998): 371-85.

5. "Los Cuentos sucios de Jacinta Escudos: la construcción de la mujer como sujeto del deseo." (Cuentos sucios by Jacinta Escudos: The Construction of Woman as a Subject of Desire). Afrodita en el trópiuco: amor y erotismo en la obra de autoras centroamericanas. Ed. Oralia Preble-Niemi. Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica, 1999. 111-22. (Reprinted in Cultura 84, 1999, 184-92).

Prior to my arrival at California State University, Northridge in August, 2000, I worked as Assistant Professor of Central American Literature at Wayne State University in Detroit. Since my arrival at CSUN I have been an active member of the Central American community in the area. I currently serve as advisor for the Central American United Student Association (CAUSA). Since 2004 I serve as Coordinator of the Central American Studies Program at California State University, Northridge.

 

 

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