Decolonizing the Academy: Afro-Feminist Perspectives / Decolonizando la Academia: Perspectivas Afro-Feministas
Dr. Mayra Santos-Febres is an award winning contemporary Puerto Rican writer, literary critic, essayist, radio and television personality and community activist whose work spans multiple genres that include poetry, short story, novella, novel and essay. Santos Febres received her Masters and PhD from Cornell University and has taught in Puerto Rico , the United States, and Europe in institutions such as the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus, Cornell University and Harvard University. She has been recognized both in Puerto Rico and internationally for her work, receiving the 1994 Letras de Oro Prize (for her short story collection Pez de Vidrio /Urban Oracles) and the 1997 Juan Rulfo Prize. In 2007 her novel Cualquier miércoles soy tuya /Any Wednesday I’m Yours was longlisted for the IMPAC International Dublin Literary Award and in 2007 her third novel Nuestra Señora de la noche was awarded Puerto Rico’s 2007 Premio Nacional de Literatura. In 2009 Santos Febres was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for the Humanities. Her work has been translated into multiple languages, including English, Italian , French, German, Croatian and Icelandic and has been the subject of multiple dissertations, full length studies and essays, including a special volume on Sirena Selena published in 2003 (Vol. XV, No. 1, 2003) by the Centro Journal from the Center for Puerto Rican Studies fro the City University of New York. She was recently awarded the Mellon Foundation Fellowship to develop the UPR Rio Piedras program Afrodescendencia y Racialidad, and the Kellogg Foundation Fellowship to develop the educational program "Healing Race", about the construction of race in Afro-Latinx/ Afro-Latin American communities.
Sponsored by Spanish and Portuguese Studies; Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair; Race, Indigeneity, Gender & Sexuality Studies; Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies; Department of African American and African Studies