Cristina Pérez Jiménez

Assistant Professor, English

Cristina Pérez Jiménez (Ph.D. 2016, Columbia University) is an assistant professor of English at Manhattan College. She specializes in U.S. Latinx and Caribbean literatures and cultures, with a strong subspecialty in theories of race and ethnicity, as well as migration and diaspora studies.

Dr. Pérez Jiménez is a 2019-2020 Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. She is also the recipient of the 2016 Bancroft Dissertation Prize, the 2017 Latin American Studies Association’s Latino Studies Section Outstanding Dissertation Award, the 2018 Biennial Puerto Rican Studies Association Dissertation Award. Her scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, Post45, CENTRO Journal: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Diálogo: An Interdisciplinary Studies Journal, and American Quarterly, and she is working on a book project titled Here To Stay: The Making of Latinx New York that explores the emergence of a distinctive New York Latino cultural identity during the sociopolitical conjuncture of the 1930s and 1940s.  

Education

  • Ph.D. in Latin American and Iberian Cultures and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, 2016.
  • M.Phil. in Latin American and Iberian Cultures and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, 2014.
  • M.A. in Latin American and Iberian Cultures and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, 2011.
  • M.A. in Comparative Literature, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2009, with high honors.
  • B.A. in English, Manhattanville College, 2006, summa cum laude
  • PHD, Columbia University
  • MPHIL, Columbia University
  • MA, Universidad Complutense Madrid
  • BA, Manhattanville College

Courses Taught

  • ENGL 150: Roots: Literature
  • ENGL 212: Latino/Latina Literature
  • ENGL 306: Introduction to Literary Study
  • ENGL 380: Growing Up Ethnic: The Ethnic-American Bildungsroman
  • Research

    Research areas include: U.S. Latinx literatures and cultures; Afro-Latino/a studies; Hispanic Caribbean literatures and cultures, esp. Puerto Rico; the postcolonial Caribbean; Critical Race Theory, esp. comparative race and ethnicity in the U.S. and the Caribbean; U.S. ethnic history; Transnational and Diaspora studies.

    Her current book project explores the emergence of a distinctive New York Latino cultural identity during the sociopolitical conjuncture of the 1930s and 1940s through appropriations of the era’s transnational frameworks, including proletarian fraternalism, Pan-Americanism and anti-fascism.  

  • Publications and Scholarly Activities
    • Co-Editor (and author of the "Critical Introduction"), Bilingual edition of Guillermo Cotto-Thorner’s Trópico en Manhattan/Manhattan Tropics, Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Series, Arte Público Press at the University of Houston, (2019).
    • “Puerto Rican Colonialism, Caribbean Radicalism, and Pueblos Hispanos’ Inter-Nationalist Alliance,” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 23.3 (November 2019). 
    • “The Early Latinx Camp Aesthetics of Pedro Caballero’s Paca Antillana (1931),” Puerto Rican Queer Sexualities, special issue of CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies 30.2 (Summer 2018): 42-63. 
    • “From the archives: On two ‘lost’ poems by Julia de Burgos.” CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies 29.2 (Summer 2017): 76-91.
    • “CENTRO Journal: Three Decades of Struggle and Scholarship in Support of Puerto Rican Studies.” Diálogo: An Interdisciplinary Studies Journal 20:2 (October 2017): 33-46. 
    • “Voices That Challenge Views: On Nuyorican Poet’s Aesthetic Radicalisms.” Book Review. The NACLA Report 47:3 (Fall 2014): 72-4.
    • “On Thinking Cruelty: An Interview with Jean Franco.” American Quarterly 66:3 (September 2014): 791-800.

     

  • Professional Experience and Memberships
    • 2018-2022 Race and Ethnicity in the Profession Representative, Delegate Assembly of the Modern Language Association 
    • Member, Modern Language Association
    • Member, Latino Studies Association 
    • Member, Latin American Studies Association
    • Member, Puerto Rican Studies Association
  • Honors, Awards, and Grants
    • 2019-20 Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship
    • 2019 First Book Institute, Penn State's Center for American Literary Studies 
    • 2018 Biennial Puerto Rican Studies Association Dissertation Award 
    • 2018 Faculty Research Summer Grant
    • 2017 Latin American Studies Association’s Latino Studies Section Outstanding Dissertation Award 
    • 2017 Columbia University GSAS’s Nominee for a CGS/Proquest Distiguished Dissertation Award in the Humanities and Fine Arts category
    • 2017 Faculty Development Plan Grant, Manhattan College
    • 2016 Bancroft Dissertation Award, Columbia University
    • 2015-2016 GSAS Teaching Scholar, Columbia University
    • 2015-2016 Senior Lead Teaching Fellow, Columbia University
    • 2015 Ángel del Río Prize for best dissertation chapter, LAIC, Columbia University
    • 2015 LAIC Scholarly Writing Fellowship, Columbia University
    • 2014-2015 Lead Teaching Fellow, Columbia University
    • 2013 Chavkin Chang Global Core Fellowship, Columbia University
    • 2010-2016 Faculty Fellowship, Columbia University