Ariana Ruiz

Ariana Ruíz received her Ph.D. in English and a graduate minor in Latina/o Studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2015. Ruiz was involved in two major grant projects funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation—she was a co-principal investigator of the Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures Grant, “Imagining Latinidades: Articulations of National Belonging,” and was a key participant in the Humanities Without Walls Consortium Grant, “Building Sustainable Worlds: Latinx Placemaking in the Midwest.” Her research and teaching areas include: Chicanx/Latinx literary and cultural studies; cultural citizenship; feminist and gender studies; critical race theory; and cultural geography. She is particularly interested in how travel and mobility are explored in Latina/x cultural expression.

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Languages: English, Spanish

Books

• (In Preparation) In Transit: Travel and Mobility in Chicana Literature and Culture

Articles & Book Chapters

• “Death at and Afterlives of the Silver Dollar Café in Chicanx Cultural Production.” Latinx Literature in Transition. Eds. John Alba Cutler and Maríssa K. Lopez. Cambridge UP (2025).
• “Queer Chicana Feelings, Longings, and Community through Mosquita y Mari.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 29.2 (2023).
• “A Chicagolandia Zine Community.” Building Sustainable Worlds: Latinx Placemaking in the Midwest. Eds. Theresa Delgadillo, Geraldo Cadava, Claire Fox, Ramón Rivera-Servera. U of Illinois P, 2022.
• “Ex-Voto #7: Print Culture and the Creation of an Alternative Latinidad in the Work of Jim Mendiola.” Latinx Ciné: Filmmaking, Production, and Consumption in the 21st Century. Ed. Frederick Luis Aldama. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2019.

Book Reviews

• Rev. of The Sense of Brown, by José Esteban Muñoz. Criticism: 64.2 (2022).
• Rev. of Dissonant Divas in Chicana Music: The Limits of La Onda, by Deborah R. Vargas. Latino Studies 12.1 (2014).

Public Humanities Works

• Marking Hispanic Heritage Month in San Diego (KPBS Midday Edition, 2024)  LINK
• Exploring The 'X' in Latinx: A Conversation On Identity (KPBS, 2021)  LINK

Digital Humanities

• Imagining Latinidades  LINK

• Ph.D. in English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015
• Graduate Minor in Latina/o Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014
• B.A. in Literature, University of California Santa Cruz, 2006