Andy Alfonso

Program in Latin American Studies, Princeton University

Andy Alfonso is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Princeton University. He holds a B.A. (summa cum laude) from Cornell University. His research interests lie at the intersection of historiography, critical theory, and cultural studies, with a special focus on diasporic, circum-Atlantic exchanges from the colonial period to the present. Andy’s dissertation deals with archival methodologies, cheap or forced labor, and colonial necropolitics in the midst of the Cuban Revolution. He is particularly concerned with the “shadow lives” in post-1959 Cuba, that is, journeys and discourses that exceed the limits of official and counter-official narratives while challenging the linear, organic teleology of History and the Nation. Andy has published some of his research in Cuban Studies, the Afro-Hispanic Review, and Cuba Counterpoints. Read more »

Elaine Penagos

Graduate Division of Religion, Emory University

 

Elaine Penagos is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. She received her B.A in religious studies from the University of Miami and her M.A in religious studies from the University of Denver. Her work examines African heritage and Latinx religious practices, narratives, popular culture, and aesthetics. Her dissertation research explores orisha stories from La Regla de Ocha (Santería) as a form of religious poetics that demonstrate the power, potential, and theo-sociological implications of the reimagining of religious worlds. Read more »