With playful, theoretically-nuanced performance and prose, Xiomara Cervantes-Gómez writes and performs with hemispheric Latin American and Latinx literary and artistic cultures at the interstices of continental philosophy, performance studies, and queer theory.

ABOUT

Xiomara Cervantes-Gómez earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture at the University of Southern California. She also holds a masters in theology and Religions of the Americas from Harvard University. She is assistant professor of Latin American literatures and cultures in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to the University of Illinois, she was a Predoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard and Visiting Research Associate in the Programa Universitario de Estudios de Género at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

She’s author of Bottoms Up: Queer Mexicanness and Latinx Performance (NYU Press, forthcoming August 2024). In this book, she explores a queer way to be with others in a world of loss, proposing an aesthetics of risk and ethics of exposure. Her work has also been published in the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Men and Masculinities, Chasquí: Revista de literatura latinoamericana, ASAP/Journal, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Journal of Visual Culture, and Routledge Handbook for Material Religion. Complementing her research, she is also a performance artist who has presented creative work at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, Foro Tecuicanime in Mexico City, Harvard Divinity School, conferences, and various showcases.

She and her work have also appeared across articles, podcasts, and publications. She has been featured as a guest on The Tyra Banks Show, including interviews with ABC News, CNN, Details Magazine, PBS’ In The Life, Telemundo, and several other media outlets.