Amelia María de la Luz Montes

Research Abstract

Amelia María de la Luz Montes is an Americanist (Chicanx/Latinx) LGBTQ scholar and creative writer who is interested in narrative contexts that complicate and contradict normative constructions of national, social, and personal identities. Hemispheric or transnational studies are also terms that describe such explorations. Her geographic focus encompasses North America, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. During the 2017/2018 calendar year, she was a Fulbright Scholar in the former Yugoslavia where she taught a graduate seminar in Chicanx/Latinx literature, and conducted interviews/research on connections among and between both cultures. She is completing her monograph, La Llorona on the Danube: A Mexi-Yugo Memoir (The Ohio University Press) and a chapter from this memoir, “Defining La Rumorosa and Borderlands,” (Fifth Wednesday Journal) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Recent Publications

Books

Critical Edition of Who Would Have Thought It? by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, 1872. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.

María Amparo Ruiz de Burton: Critical and Pedagogical Perspectives. Co-edited volume with Anne Elizabeth Goldman. University of Nebraska Press, 2004.

Critical Writings

“So Far From Nation: Borders and Immigration.” Transnational Latinx Perspectives on Ana Castillo. Eds. Bernadine M. Hernández and Karen R. Roybal. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021, pgs. 113-121.

“Birthing Mi Mamá.” Latinx Subjectivities: a Multi-Genre Anthology. Eds. Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs and Cristina Herrera. San Diego State University Press, In Press for Fall 2021. 

“Latino Studies and Ethnic Studies at Midwestern Colleges and Universities,” The Latino Midwest Reader. Ed. Omar Valerio-Jiménez, Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez, and Claire F. Fox. Champaign:  University of Illinois Press, 2017, 413-444.

“Rituals of Health.” The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Popular Culture. Ed. Frederick Luis Aldama.  New York: Routledge, 2016, 256-266.

Creative Work

“La Omaha Mariachi Dyke.” Afro Hispanic Review.  Vanderbilt University, 2021.  

“Ted Kooser’s Near South History Tour,” More in Time: A Tribute to Ted Kooser, Eds. Jessica Poli, Marco Abel, Timothy Schaffert, University of Nebraska Press, 2021, pgs. 16-21.

“Trigger Warnings.” Don’t Look Now: Essays on What We Wish We Hadn’t Seen, Eds. Kristen Iversen and David Lazar, The Ohio State University Press, 2020, pgs. 153-163. 

“Defining La Rumorosa and Borderlands.” Fifth Wednesday Journal. Ed., Vern Miller and Ana Castillo, Issue 23, (2018): 54-59.

Selected Online Publications

“¡La Literatura de Puerto Rico! Interview with Novelist and Literary Critic, Dr. Luis Othoniel Rosa,” La Bloga, July 19, 2020. https://labloga.blogspot.com/2020/07/la-literatura-de-puerto-rico-interview.html

“Teeth Never Sleep: Interview with Poet, Ángel García.” La Bloga. September 15, 2018. https://labloga.blogspot.com/2018/09/teeth-never-sleep-interview-with-poet.html

“A Chicana Returns to Nebraska from the Former Yugoslavia.” La Bloga. August 19, 2018. https://labloga.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-chicana-returns-to-nebraska-from.html

“What Borders Look Like on the Ground.” La Bloga. August 5, 2018. https://labloga.blogspot.com/2018/08/what-borders-look-like-on-ground.html

Selected Conference Papers

“The Sound of Revolt: El Grito in Chicanx Musica y Letra.” American Studies Association (ASA) Conference: Creativity Within Revolt. San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 7-10, 2021. 

“TransBorder Histories: Chicana and Former Yugoslavian Women’s Border Stories.” International Conference: Gloria E. Anzaldúa: Traduire les Frontiéres. University of Paris, France. May 16-18, 2019. 

“A Confluence of Diasporic, Immigrant Writers: Reclaiming, Regaining Our Agency and Voice.” Race and Pedagogy Conference: Radically Re-Imagining The Project of Justice.  University of Puget Sound.  September 28, 2018. 

“In A State of Movement at All Times.” Conference: Transnational Americas: Home(s), Borders, and Transgressions.University of Szeged, Hungary. November 16-17, 2017.

“Divergent Thinking:  Reclaiming, Rethinking Ancestral and Indigenous Healing Practices in the Poetry of ire’ne lara silva.”  The Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa (SSGA). San Antonio, Texas.  November 4, 2016.

Awards, Fellowships, and Grants

Fulbright Scholar

UNL Annis Chaikin Sorensen Award, 2021

UNL College of Arts and Sciences Mentoring Award, 2020

Pushcart Prize Nominee

Benson Library Archives Summer Fellowship

Nebraska Humanities Council Grant