Education / Studium

• March 2024:  PhD in North American Studies, UAH (Alcalá de Henares, ES) in co-supervision with CISAN-UNAM (Ciudad de México, MX)
• October 2018: 2nd level postgraduate MA in Public History, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia (IT)
• July 2017: MA in Languages and Cultures for International Communication and Cooperation, Università degli Studi di Milano (IT)
• July 2015: BA in Linguistic and Cultural Mediation, Università degli Studi di Milano (IT)

Current Projects / Aktuelle Projekte 

AvH Project “Ethnicity, Right-wing Populism and Anti-Immigrant Sentiments in Contemporary US Political Culture”

The project delves into how contemporary right-wing populism and far-right extremism leverage exclusionary discourses fueling sentiments against ethnoracialized groups, yet managing to involve and integrate staunch supporters belonging to the same minorities they target. The study examines the mechanisms that appeal to and lead ethnoracial minorities to take conflictive stances, in particular focusing on US Latinx voters and Trumpian supporters in relation to racism and anti-immigrant sentiments. The trajectory of the long-standing adaptable archetype of the Good Migrant is analyzed in its 21st-century iterations, as it has been shaped by the increased visibility and political weight of anti-immigrant positions, the rise of a politics of fear and the instrumentalization of emotions such as anxiety, shame, and inadequacy. As the human worth of Latin American migrants is erased by the necropolitical character of current border discourses and policies, US Latinx citizens inevitably find their own deservingness and proximity to Whiteness put in peril. Fraught with problematic discursive and cultural contradictions is as well the experience of the consistent share of Latinx officers employed in border enforcement agencies.

Conference Papers & Talks / Konferenzbeiträge & Vorträge 

• [25/11/2025] Obama’s Stand-Up Rhetoric and Discourse in Opposition to Trump’s 2024 Campaign. Invited lecture. Universidad de Valladolid, ES.
• [09/10/2025] Teenage Identities on the Border and Ethnoracial Monstrosity in Border Town. Annual Meeting of the German Society for Comics Studies. Universität Hamburg, DE. 
• [25/04/2025] The Latino Far Right in the Trump Era: Misogyny, Anti-Immigrant Stances and the Proximity to Whiteness. IAAS Annual Conference. Trinity College Dublin, IE.
• [21/03/2025] Multimodal Constructions of Hegemonic Masculinity Crossing the Border South in US American Cinema. The Bremen-Groningen Online Workshops on Multimodality. University of Groningen / University of Bremen.
• [22/01/2025] Cómo sobrevivir a una estancia de Investigación internacional: estrategias, cuidados y testimonios. SAASYS Workshop Series. Invited speaker. SAAS Young Scholars, virtual.
• [04/01/2025] Being a Good Migrant: A Critical Discourse Anatomy of Latinx Anti-Immigrant Sentiments in the Trump Era. 51st Annual Conference, American Politics Group of the UK Political Studies Association. Keele University, UK.
• [14/11/2024] Border-Crossing, Hybridity, and Ethnoracial Contamination in The Lone Ranger and Tonto (1994). Framing the Unreal: Exploring Graphic/Visual Science Fiction and Fantasy. Ca’ Foscari University, IT. 
• [08/11/2024] Purging the American Dream: Anomie and the Reinforcement of Whiteness in The Forever Purge. 47th AEDEAN Conference. Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla, ES. 
• [04/10/2024] Lone Star (1996) as De/Construction of Latinx Conservative Politics, Anti-Immigrant Sentiments, and “True” Americanness. ASANOR Conference 2024. Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, NO. 
• [16–17/05/2024] Migration, the US-Mexico Borderlands, Border Necropolitics and Their Representations / Latinx and Chicanx Heritage, Culture and Representations. Invited lectures. Universidad de Valladolid, ES.
• [08/05/2024] Cuerpos migrantes en la cultura popular: mujeres en la frontera mexicana. Lecture series Trazando Cuerpos. Invited speaker. Universidad de Salamanca, ES.
• [10/04/2024] “Nothing in life is completely confidential”: Privacy and Anti-Surveillance in The Private Eye. BAAS 69th Annual Conference, UK.
• [23/01/2024] Mexico as Locus of Horror and Savagery in US Popular Culture. Spring lecture series. Invited speaker. Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, NYC branch.
• [13/01/2024] Chicanx Gothic: Transnationality, Death, and the Journey to the Underworld. Undead Tropes – New Directions in Gothic Studies Workshop. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, DE.

Monographs / Monografien

(2026) The US-Mexico Borderlands in Contemporary Horror. With preface by Frederick Luis Aldama. Edinburgh University Press. 

(2026) Gone South: The American Experience of Mexico in US Cinema. SDSU Press.

(2024) Latinx Representation in Popular Culture and New Media. Edited volume. Brill. ISBN: 978-90-04-70869-3.

(2024) The Gothic in Twenty-First-Century American Popular Culture. Co-edited with M. Fuchs. Brill. ISBN: 978-90-04-69832-1.

Edited Books and Journal Issues / Herausgeberschaften 

(2026) “Digital Projections and Screened Identities in US American Culture.” Special dossier co-edited with L. Álvarez Trigo. REDEN 8.1. [in preparation]

(2026) “Borderlands and Boundaries of US Latinx Identity.” Special issue. Camino Real 18 (21). [in preparation]

(2024) “Darkness in the American Imagination.” Special dossier co-edited with L. Álvarez Trigo. REN Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos 28.

(2024) “Animals in the American Popular Imagination.” Special double issue co-edited with M. Fuchs. Comparative American Studies. An International Journal 21 (1–2).

Book Chapters / Beiträge in Sammelwerken

(2025) “What’s one more monster?”: Articulations of Latinx Monstrosity in Border Town. In Horror and Comics, edited by K. Kunyosying, J. Round, and B. Chamberlin, 135–55. University of Wales Press. 

(2025) Film, Memory, and Intermediality: Exploring the Andes in La cordillera de los sueños. In Global Mountain Cinema, edited by K. Haque, C. Quendler and C. Schaumann, 243–59. Edinburgh University Press. [with M. Fuchs] 

(2025) “Vacuna o muerte”: Latinx Political Cartoons as Vehicle to Raise COVID-19 Vaccination Awareness. In Coming to Terms with a Crisis: Cultural Engagements with COVID-19, edited by M. Butler et al., 193–218. Transcript. 

(2024) Journey to the Underworld: Death and the Quest for Identity in Chicanx Comics. In The Gothic in Twenty-First-Century American Popular Culture, 51–72. Brill.

(2023) On the “Good” Side: Hegemonic Masculinity and Transnational Intervention in the Representation of US-Mexico Border Enforcement. In Comics and Migration: Practices and Representation, edited by R. Kauranen et al., 153–66. Routledge. 

(2023) The US–Mexico Borderlands Heritage and the Wall: A Critical Approach to a Complex and Revived Challenge. In Other landscapes of Cultural Heritage(s): History and Politics, edited by N. Lopes, 43–62. University of Coimbra Press. 

(2022) Oaxacalifornia and the Shaping of Virtual Spaces for Collective Action. In Imagining Latinidad: Digital Diasporas and Public Engagement Among Latin American Migrants, edited by D. Dalton and D. Ramírez Plascencia, 42–58. Brill. 

(2022) The Materiality of the Wall(s): Mural Art and Counter-Space Appropriation in El Paso’s South Side. In Exploring the Transnational Neighborhood: Perspectives on Community-Building, Identity and Belonging, edited by B. Jung et al., 219–42. Leuven University Press.

(2022) American Dirt's Trumpian Discourse and the Latinx Parodic Response. In American Literature in the Era of Trump: Alternative Realities, edited by D. Resano, 223–45. Palgrave Macmillan.

(2022) Borderland Werewolves: The Horrific Representation of the US–Mexico Border in Feeding Ground. In Critical Approaches to Horror Comic Books: Red Ink in the Gutter, edited by F. Pagnoni Berns and J. Darowski, 116–27. Routledge.

Articles / Aufsätze

(2024) Tracing Dental Horror in Contemporary American Cinema. Horror Studies 15 (1): 9–24. 

(2024) The Slow Apocalypse in The Low, Low Woods. English Literature: Theories, Interpretations, Contexts 10 (1): 101–17. [with M. Fuchs]

(2023) Semiospheric Borders and the Erasure of Latinx Subjectivity in Culture Shock and Sleep Dealer. JAAAS: Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies 4 (2): 223–41.

(2023) From the Militarized City to the Alpine Refuge: Premediating the Covid-19 Pandemic and Anticipating a Post-Pandemic Future in The Fall. Conjuring a New Normal Special Collection, The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship 13(1). [with M. Fuchs]

(2023) Erotonoir, Pornographic Representation and Transxploitation in Howard Chaykin’s Black Kiss. Porn Studies 10 (3): 299–318. 

(2023) The Common Meat: Food Privilege, Extinction, and Waste in Starve. The New Americanist 2 (1): 56–74. 

(2022) The Disease Becomes the Host: Cattle Decapitation’s Pandemic Discourse from Song to Music Video. Popular Culture Review 34 (2): 77–112. [with M. Fuchs] 

(2022) Approaching an Expansion of Teaching American Studies through Popular Culture Texts. Porta Linguarum 37: 9–26. [with J. Cañero] 

(2022) Dystopias in the Trump Era: Anti/Immigration and Resistance in CALEXIT. SFRA Review 52 (1).