Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies; Faculty Associate of Latina/o Studies Program
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About
Dr. Andrea Bolivar is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of Latinx studies, Transgender Studies, and Feminist Studies. Her book manuscript, “We Are a Fantasy:” Trans Latina Ways of Knowing, Being, and Loving (New York University Press, forthcoming), ethnographically examines the experiences of sex working transgender Latinas in the Chicago metropolitan area. It centers sex working trans Latinas’ epistemologies and ontologies, especially concerning five interrelated themes: fantasía, life/death, the body, immigration, and race--particularly Blackness and anti-Blackness. Further, We Are a Fantasy demonstrates how sex working trans Latina ways of being and knowing not only defy racist-cisgenderism more broadly, but also offer potentialities beyond transnormativity and normative Latinidad. Dr. Bolivar’s work is published in journals such as Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Feminist Anthropology, Latinx Talk and edited volumes on queer nightlife and Latinx ethnography. Dr. Bolivar received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis, and held an LSA Collegiate Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She is the 2022 recipient of the Junior Faculty Outstanding Scholarship and Engagement Award from ALLA (Association of Latina/Latino/Latinx Anthropologists). As the first in her family to graduate high school, Professor Bolivar is committed to supporting diversity in academia.