Hispanic Studies Program Faculty
Professors
Elena Castro, Professor
Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 2001
Twentieth and twenty-first century Spanish Peninsular Poetry and Poetics, gender and
sexuality, women studies. Twentieth and twenty-first century Spanish Peninsular Literatures,
Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary approaches to Hispanic Literatures. Contemporary
Latin American Poetry and Poetics
Alejandro Cortazar, Associate Professor
Ph.D., The University of Iowa, 1997
Literature and culture of Mexico; nation building and cultural identity formation
in nineteenth-century Spanish America; Hispanic women writers
Christian Fernández-Palacios, Associate Professor, Hispanic Studies Director, and Associate Department Chair
Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University, 1999
Colonial Latin American studies, Latin American narratives, Cultural theory, post-Colonial
studies, transatlantic and comparative studies
Dorota Heneghan, Associate Professor
Ph.D., Yale University, 2008
Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Spanish Peninsular Literature and Culture, Interdisciplinary
Approaches to Modern Spanish Culture, Comparative Literature, Contemporary Spanish
Women Writers, Women and Gender Studies, Transatlantic Studies, Art History
Jeremy King, Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2006
Spanish Linguistics, Pragmatics, Historical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics
Laura Martins, Professor
Ph.D., University of Maryland at College Park, 1996
Contemporary Latin American literature and film; Luis Buñuel’s works; cinema and human
rights in Argentina, cinema and labor, cinema and visual arts, the poetry-film nexus;
neoliberal culture in Latin America.
Carmela Mattza, Associate Professor
Ph.D., The University of Chicago, 2009
Romance Languages and Literatures
Andrea Morris, Associate Professor
Ph.D., Washington University, 2003
20th century literature and culture of the Hispanic Caribbean and Central America,
Afro-Hispanic literature, cultural studies
Rafael Orozco, Professor and Department Chair
Ph.D., New York University, 2004
Spanish in the United States, Latin American Spanish, Sociolinguistics, historical
linguistics, bilingualism, Colombian Spanish
Instructors
Kim Breaux, Distinguished Instructor
M.A., Louisiana State University, 1995
Nohora Byrd, Senior Instructor
M.A., Louisiana State University, 1999
Rebecca Carrero Figueroa, Instructor
Ph.D., University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, 2021
Matthew Freeman, Instructor
M.A., Louisiana State University, 2019
Maria Garcia de la Torre, Instructor
M.A., Louisiana State University, 2019
Sheldon Lotten, Distinguished Instructor
M.A., Middlebury College, 1981
Ph.D. Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia, 2021
Ph.D., Università degli Studi di Macerata, Macerata, Italy, 2001
Edgar Martinez Hernandez, Instructror
M.A., University of Missouri, 2018
Isabel Matus, Distinguished Instructor
M.A., Louisiana State University, 2003
Liliana McGuffin-Naranjo, Instructor
Ph.D., Tulane University, 2020
M.A., Louisiana State University, 2020
M.A., Florida State University, 2011
José Rojas, Instructor
Ph.D., Louisiana State University, 2020
Claudia Alejandra Sanford Galindo, Instructor
Ph.D., New Mexico State University, 2021
M.A., Georgia Southern University, 2020
M.A., University of New Orleans, 2010
Sarah Sullivan, Senior Instructor
M.A., Louisiana State University, 2010
Latasha Valenzuela-Hernández, Instructor
M.A., Louisiana State University, 2021
M.A., University of Phoenix, 2012
Allison White, Instructor
Ph.D., Tulane University, 2017
Matthew Whitehouse Gordillo, Instructor
Ph.D., Duke University, 2020