Maria Cotera

Maria Cotera holds a PhD from Stanford University's program in modern thought, and an MA in English from the University of Texas. She is currently an associate professor in the Departments of Women's Studies and American Culture at the University of Michigan. She directed the University of Michigan Latina/o Studies Program from 2008 to 2011. She has served on the National Council for the American Studies Association (2007-2010), and has chaired the ASA's Ralph Henry Gabriel Dissertation Prize selection committee (2013-2014). Cotera's first book, Native Speakers: Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, Jovita Gonzalez, and the Poetics of Culture, (University of Texas Press, 2008) received the Gloria Anzaldìa book prize for 2009 from the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA). Professor Cotera is currently working two major research initiatives. The first, Chicana por mi Raza, is a national digital humanities project that seeks to create an online interactive archive of oral histories and material culture documenting Chicana Feminist praxis from 1965-1985. The second, El Museo del Norte, is a partnership with southwest Detroit arts and culture organizations with the aim of creating a "museum without walls” that documents Latino history in the Midwest. She is the lead curator for two exhibitions: Las Rebeldes: Stories of Strength and Struggle in southeast Michigan (2013) and Chicana Fotos: Nancy De Los Santos (2017).

Current Work:

Over the last several years, Dr. Cotera's research, writing, and teaching has been community-based and focused on exploring new avenues for scholarly exchange. Since 2009, she has been building a digital archive documenting Chicana feminist praxis from 1965 to 1985. The Chicana por Mi Raza (CPMR) project involves the digitization of oral histories and documents-photographs, posters, correspondence, written material (published and unpublished), ephemera-and the development of a flexible interface that allows users to access these materials for educational/scholarly uses. So far, the CPMR digital archive project has collected over 100 oral histories and 5,000 archival documents (gathered in Texas, California, Illinois, New Mexico, Wisconsi, and Michigan), making it one of the largest repositories of Chicana feminism in the world. While this repository is login-protected, Dr. Cotera's team has developed a public website where students working on the project create digital curations based on their research (www.chicanapormiraza.org). The CPMR project has garnered national attention not only for the wealth of resources that it offers on Chicana feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, but also for its potential to transform scholarly production and teaching in the "post-print" age. It is one of the few major digital humanities research initiatives that focuses on women of color. 

Dr. Cotera has also been working on a community-based project (El Museo del Norte) in collaboration with Detroit Latina/o arts and culture advocates. The goal of El Museo del Norte is to document the history of Latina/os in the Midwest and to build a museum and cultural center focused on community stories. Since 2009, she has spearheaded a broad-ranging conversation around community expectations and desires regarding the purpose, goals, and responsibilities of a Latina/o museum in Southwest Detroit, and curated and designed a series of innovative "pop-up museums" that utilize oral history and local archives to tell the stories of Latina/os in Michigan. Through these events, Dr. Cotera hopes to develop archival literacy among community members and grow both the audience for the museum and as its collection. For more on the project, please see: http://www.elmuseodelnorte.org/. Like the Chicana por mi Raza digital archive, El Museo del Norte has received national attention as a model for engaged scholarship that benefits communities at risk of losing their local history.

Research Area Keyword(s):

Latinx studies, women's studies, digital humanities, public humanities, American studies