Christofer A. Rodelo
Assistant Professor, Chicano/Latino Studies
School of Social Sciences
School of Social Sciences
B.A., Yale University, 2015, American Studies
B.A., Yale University, 2015, Ethnicity, Race & Migration
M.A., Harvard University, 2017, English
Ph.D., Harvard University, 2022, American Studies
B.A., Yale University, 2015, Ethnicity, Race & Migration
M.A., Harvard University, 2017, English
Ph.D., Harvard University, 2022, American Studies
Email: crodelo@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine
359 Social Science Tower
Mail Code: 5100
Irvine, CA 92697
359 Social Science Tower
Mail Code: 5100
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Theater and Performance History; Latinx and Black Latinx Literary and Cultural Studies; 19th Century American Literary and Cultural History; Relational Studies of Race and Ethnicity; Disability Studies; Feminist and Queer Theory
Research Abstract
I am a performance and literary historian who examines Latinx and Black Latinx expressive cultures in the nineteenth and twentieth century. My research focuses on the role of the spectacular body—as represented in literature, drama, popular culture, and historical memory— in shaping U.S. formations of race, gender, nation, and migration. Trained in American Studies, I use interdisciplinary methods, including archival research, performance analysis and close literary reading, to reconstruct aesthetic genealogies and situate them within racial formations at national and transnational levels. While rooted in the past, I highlight the influence of historical performance on contemporary cultural practices and political actions. My work charts new directions for critical race studies scholarship at the intersection of Latinx & Black Latinx Studies, Theater & Performance Studies, and U.S. Literary & Cultural History.
My current book project, Spectacles of Relation: Race, Performance, and the Latinx Nineteenth Century, illuminates a genealogy and critique of Latinx racialization based on spectacular displays of the body within U.S. performance culture from the 1840s to the early 1900s. It historically indexes 19th century minoritarian aesthetic practices, theorizes the affective and material contours of whiteness, blackness and indigeneity, and rubs together the methodological tenets of literary and performance studies for an archivally-grounded reading of textual, performative, and visual ephemera.
My current book project, Spectacles of Relation: Race, Performance, and the Latinx Nineteenth Century, illuminates a genealogy and critique of Latinx racialization based on spectacular displays of the body within U.S. performance culture from the 1840s to the early 1900s. It historically indexes 19th century minoritarian aesthetic practices, theorizes the affective and material contours of whiteness, blackness and indigeneity, and rubs together the methodological tenets of literary and performance studies for an archivally-grounded reading of textual, performative, and visual ephemera.
Awards and Honors
Research Awards and Honors (selected):
ACLS Fellowship, 2024-2025
Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, Princeton University, 2024-2025
UC Underrepresented Scholars Fellowship, University of California Humanities Research Institute, 2024-2025
Grant-in-Aid, US Latino Digital Humanities and Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, 2024
Short-Term Fellowship, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 2023
Faculty Fellow, “The Latinx Past: Archive, Memory, Speculation” Working Group, Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative, University of Illinois Chicago and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2023-2024
Faculty Fellow, Center for Liberation, Anti-Racism, and Belonging, UC Irvine, 2023-2024
Honorable Mention, Outstanding Dissertation Award, Latinx Studies Section, Latin American Studies Association, 2023
MMUF Dissertation Grant, Institute for Citizens & Scholars, 2021-2022
Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship 2020-2021
Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin, 2019
Helen Krich Chinoy Dissertation Fellowship, American Society for Theatre Research , 2018
Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Yale University, 2013
Teaching/Mentoring Awards and Honors (selected):
UCI School of Social Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award for Chicano/Latino Studies 125: Latinx Performance, Spring 2024
UCI School of Social Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award for Chicano/Latino Studies 62: Chicano Studies II, Spring 2024
UCI School of Social Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award for Chicano/Latino Studies 146: Latinx Racial Formations, Winter 2024
Nominee, Outstanding Emerging Faculty Mentorship Latino Excellence and Achievement Dinner (LEAD), UC Irvine, 2024
ACLS Fellowship, 2024-2025
Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, Princeton University, 2024-2025
UC Underrepresented Scholars Fellowship, University of California Humanities Research Institute, 2024-2025
Grant-in-Aid, US Latino Digital Humanities and Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, 2024
Short-Term Fellowship, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 2023
Faculty Fellow, “The Latinx Past: Archive, Memory, Speculation” Working Group, Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative, University of Illinois Chicago and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2023-2024
Faculty Fellow, Center for Liberation, Anti-Racism, and Belonging, UC Irvine, 2023-2024
Honorable Mention, Outstanding Dissertation Award, Latinx Studies Section, Latin American Studies Association, 2023
MMUF Dissertation Grant, Institute for Citizens & Scholars, 2021-2022
Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship 2020-2021
Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin, 2019
Helen Krich Chinoy Dissertation Fellowship, American Society for Theatre Research , 2018
Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Yale University, 2013
Teaching/Mentoring Awards and Honors (selected):
UCI School of Social Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award for Chicano/Latino Studies 125: Latinx Performance, Spring 2024
UCI School of Social Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award for Chicano/Latino Studies 62: Chicano Studies II, Spring 2024
UCI School of Social Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award for Chicano/Latino Studies 146: Latinx Racial Formations, Winter 2024
Nominee, Outstanding Emerging Faculty Mentorship Latino Excellence and Achievement Dinner (LEAD), UC Irvine, 2024
Short Biography
Christofer A. Rodelo is an assistant professor of Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, Irvine. A proud first-generation college student and queer Latinx scholar, he hails from the Inland Empire region of Southern California. He earned his Ph.D. in American Studies at Harvard University in 2022 and his BA in American Studies and Ethnicity, Race, & Migration from Yale College in 2015. His research and teaching interests include Latinx and Black Latinx Studies, theater and performance studies, pre-1900 literary and cultural history, and relational race and ethnic studies. His book project, Spectacles of Relation, offers an alternative genealogy and critique of Latinx racialization based on spectacular displays of the body in U.S. performance and literature during the second half of the nineteenth century. His writing appears in TDR/The Drama Review, ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture, and Journal of Homosexuality. His work has received funding from the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Institute for Citizens and Scholars, Social Science Research Council, Huntington Library, Harry Ransom Center, Newberry Library, and various sources at Harvard and UC Irvine. He received Honorable Mention for the 2023 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Latinx Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association. At UCI, he is the co-founder of the Latinx Humanities Research Cluster, a university-wide hub for scholars working in the Latinx humanities broadly defined. He is a faculty collaborator with “The Latinx Past: Archive, Memory, Speculation” Working Group, funded by the Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is also at work on a digital humanities project that uses digital tools to map and reimagine Latinx performance histories of the past.
Publications
"Reenacting Latinidad and Remembering Loreta," Latino Studies (Forthcoming in Summer 2025)
“Enfreaking Latinidad and the Spectacular Legacy of Julia Pastrana,” accepted publication for “New Directions in Latinx History” edited by Verónica Martinez-Matsuda and Luis Alvarez, Routledge Press
“Enfreaking Latinidad and the Spectacular Legacy of Julia Pastrana,” accepted publication for “New Directions in Latinx History” edited by Verónica Martinez-Matsuda and Luis Alvarez, Routledge Press
Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=7102
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=7102
Last updated
01/30/2025
01/30/2025