Biography

Vialcary Crisóstomo Tejada is an assistant professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature and an affiliate faculty member at the Frederick Douglass Institute and Department of Black Studies and the Latin American Studies minor. She received her PhD in Latin American and Caribbean Literature and Cultures from the University of Connecticut. Her areas of specialization include Afro-Caribbean studies, Latinx studies, Latin American literature, decolonial feminism, and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. She is working on her first book, Spaces of Resistance, in which she analyzes representations of Black and gender non-binary bodies in feminist Caribbean literature as contestations to hegemonic notions of race, gender, sexuality, and the naturalizing effects of space endorsed by the State. The monograph dialogues with notions of cimarronaje (marronage) and proposes a relational and collective conception of identity. Her current research focuses on Black and feminist collectives in the Caribbean, Abya Yala and its diasporas. She is also the co-founder and former co-editor-in-chief of Candela Review, a peer-reviewed and open-access Afro-Feminist journal.

Research Overview

Research Interests

• Twentieth and twentieth-first century Caribbean Literature and Cultures
• Latin American and Latinx Studies
• Decolonial Feminism and Praxis
• Black Feminism
• Race, Ethnicity, and Politics
• Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Afro-Caribbean Studies
• Africana Philosophy
• Literary Theory and Criticism

Courses Offered (subject to change)

• SPAN 235:  Caribbean Women Writings: Words on Freedom, Unfreedom and Radical Love (Spring 2024)
• SPAN 200:  Advanced Spanish Composition (Spring 2024)
• CLTR 389:  Major Seminar (Spring 2023)
• SPAN 282-1:  Latinx Literature and Thought (Spring 2023)
• SPAN 251:  Subversive Narrative of the Afro-Caribbean (Fall 2022)

Selected Publications

Articles

• “Colectivo Ayllu: A Practice of Liberation For.” Caliban’s Reading (2023).
• “La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción: Puerto Rico Antiracist & Feminist Movement.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies (2021).
• “Fanon y la literatura: L’œil se noie un prólogo a Peau noire, masques blancs.” Revista EntreLetras, vol. 11.2, 2020.
• “Le jour où le gouvernement dominicain a privé la communauté dominico-haitienne de son humanité.” AlterPresse, (2019).

Journal Issues

• Co-Editor. “silencio-grito-re/inspiración.” Candela Review, no.3, 2023.
• Co-Editor. “insurgencias, indisciplinas.” Candela Review, no.2, 2022.
• Co-Editor. “bordes, resistencias.” Candela Review, no.1, 2021.