Maria Acosta Cruz
Professor, Language, Literature & Culture
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Born and raised in Cabo rojo, Puerto Rico, Maria Acosta Cruz received a B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1980 and 1984, respectively. She teaches all levels of Spanish Language and literature. Her main research and teaching interests are Caribbean and Latino cultures. She explores issues such as cultural responses to disaster and climate change in Puerto Rico and beyond; the making and marketability of identities; Puerto Rican cultural history; and national and gender-based stereotypes. Her book Dream Nation: Puerto Rican Culture & the Fictions of Independence (Rutgers University Press 2014 is also part of the American Literatures Initiative from NYU, Fordham, Temple and Virginia University Presses). The series has funding from Mellon Foundation. She has been at Clark since 1986 and is affiliated with the programs in Women's and Gender Studies and Race and Ethnic Relations.
Professor Acosta Cruz specializes in contemporary Latino and Latin American literature and culture, particularly the Hispanic Caribbean islands, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic during 19th-21th centuries. Her work focuses on issues of gender, identity, and history. Her special areas of research and teaching include Caribbean fiction, Latino literature in the United States and women's writing.
Degrees
- Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, State University of New York, Binghamton, 1984
- M.A. in Comparative Literature, State University of New York, Binghamton, 1980
- B.A. in Comparative Literature, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, 1978
Affiliated Department(s)
- Language, Literature & Culture
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Scholarly and Creative Works
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Keynote Speaker. Presentation on ecocriticism and Puerto Rican culture for 60 high school teachers who teach early college (AP) classes.
Early College Experience program
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University of Connecticut
March
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2024
Sponsored by UConn Spanish Language and Culture Program, Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages
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Book Manuscript: Disaster Nation: An Ecocritical Study of Puerto Rican Culture Across Five Centuries. The ms is with Rutgers University Press.
The published book will be included in the Critical Caribbean Studies series edited by Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, Carter Mathes, and Kathleen López.
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2024
Rutgers University Press
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Peer Review. “Race and Nation in Three Canonic Texts of Puerto Rican Literature: Luis Palés Matos’s Tom-Tom of Kinky Hair and Black Things, José Luis González’s The Four-Storeyed Country and Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá’s Cortijo’s Wake”
LCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
Fall
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2023
Purdue University
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Keynote speaker at the Hispanic Studies Department of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, the most venerable and prestigious center of higher education in Puerto Rico. I presented the keynote address at conference Jornadas de Literatura Puertorriqueña in honor of a famous Puerto Rican writer, Magali García Ramis, who was herself part of the conference.
Jornadas de Literatura Puertorriqueña
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Hispanic Studies Department of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, the flagship campus of the UPR
November
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2023
Sponsored by University of Puerto Rico
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Fall, 2021 Review of essay “Representations of Puerto Rican Identity and Agency in Ricanstruction: Reminiscing and Rebuilding Puerto Rico”
CENTRO Journal, Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, CUNY
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2021
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Manuscript Review: "Latinx TV in the Twenty-First Century" (525 pages)
University of Arizona Press
Spring
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2021
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La nubosidad del cráneo: El enfoque decolonial en Encancaranublado y otros cuentos de naufragio (1983)
Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures
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2021
Indiana University Press
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“Sandra Cisneros. A conversation on writing, on the house on Mango Street, on activism, on the heart breaking over and over until it stays open“
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April
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2021
Sponsored by Four Libraries in Connecticut sponsored this event
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Book Review of Glass Eye, a novel by Yolanda Gallardo (Arte Público Press, 2019)
Revista Camino Real, which has an external and anonymous evaluation board. The Instituto Franklin de la Universidad de Alcalá is the only University Institute for Research on North America in Spain
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2020
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"Pulp Fiction and Puerto Rican History in War Against All Puerto Ricans"
Published in Small Axe
summer/fall
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2020
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Disaster Nation. Puerto Rican Culture from 1508 to 2022: An Ecocritical Study.
Submission under consideration by Rutgers University Press. -
Evaluation of book proposal and one chapter of Responses to Femicide in Puerto Rico
Palgrave Macmillan
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Manuscript review "Beautiful States: Gender, Performance, and Nationalism in Colombia" by Stacey L. Hunt
NYU Press
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Essay review “Viviendo happy: Una visión radical de la felicidad en negracubanateniaqueser.com, un blog de Sandra Abd’Allah-Álvarez Ramírez” for
Cincinnati Romance Review
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Awards & Grants
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Barbera Fellowship
LLC
Mar. 26, 2024 - Mar. 26, 2025
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Research grant
Higgins School of Humanities
Dec. 18, 2023 - Dec. 18, 2024
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Higgins School of Humanities
Honorarium for virtual speaker for Spanish 237
Oct. 24, 2023 - Oct. 24, 2023
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mini-grant
Higgins School of Humanities
Mar. 24, 2023 - Mar. 25, 2023
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Faculty Development Fund
Clark University
Mar. 8, 2023 - Mar. 10, 2023
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