Maria Duran

Assistant Professor of Latinx Cultural Studies

Departments/Programs

Romance Studies
Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Degrees

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Ph.D.
George Mason University, B.A.

Expertise

Latinx Studies
Latinx Literatures and Cultures
Latinx Theater and Performance
U.S. Third World Feminisms

Profile

María J. Durán teaches courses on Latinx literatures and cultures. Her research focuses on political agency and the performance of resistance in 20th- and 21st-century U.S. Latinx cultural productions. Her other research interests include Latinx theater, Latinx speculative fiction, and third world feminisms. Durán is currently working on her solo-authored monograph, which examines structural violence and grief in contemporary Latinx theater and performance to theorize mourning as a decolonial tool. She is a proud first-generation Latina and advocate for under-represented students.

Durán received her doctorate in English and Comparative Literature from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she worked for the Latina/o Studies Program and MURAP (Moore Undergraduate Research Program). She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English (Cultural Studies) from George Mason University, VA.

Courses Taught

HISP	85a	Introduction to U.S. Latinx Literatures and Cultures
HISP	158a	Latina Feminisms
HISP	163b	Narratives of the Borderlands and Border Crossers
HISP	178b	Latinx Futurisms
HISP	196a	Topics in Latinx Literature and Culture

Scholarship

Durán, María J. ""Slow Violencia: Environmental Justice, Climate Change, and Latinx Literature"." Latinx Literature and Critical Futurities, 1992-2020. Ed. Laura Lomas and John Morán González. Cambridge University Press, 2022 (forthcoming)

Durán, Maria J.. "Alien Orientations and Disruptions in William Alexander’s Ambassador (2014)." Label me Latina/o 11. (2021).

Durán, María J.. "Book Review." Rev. of Encuentro: Latinx Performance for the New American Theater, by Trevor Boffone, Teresa Marrero, and Chantal Rodriguez. Hispanic Research Journal vol. 41 2021: 468-470.

Durán, María J.. "Bodies That Should Matter: Chicana/o Farmworkers, Slow Violence, and the Politics of (In)visibility in Cherríe Moraga's Heroes and Saints." Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 42. 1 (2017): 45-71.