Yomaira Figueroa, an associate professor of global Afro-Diaspora studies in the Department of English at Michigan State University, will present “Decolonizing Diaspora: Afro-Latinidades in Afro-Atlantic Contexts” on October 13 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. The webinar will be held via Zoom; registration is required.

Figueroa’s presentation will be based on her book, Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature (Northwestern University Press, 2020), which examines the textual, historical, and political relations between diasporic Afro-Puerto Rican, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Dominican, and Equatoguinean poetics.

A scholar and organizer, Figueroa is a founder of both the MSU Womxn of Color Initiative and the collaborative hurricane recovery project #ProyectoPalabrasPR. She also co-leads the MSU Mentoring Underrepresented Scholars in English Program (MUSE), which seeks to advise and recruit promising prospective Ph.D. students in an effort to shift the discipline and study of English.

The Virginia Tech faculty respondent for this webinar will be Javiera Jaque, an assistant professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures. Mauro José Caraccioli, an assistant professor of political science and a core faculty in Virginia Tech’s ASPECT program, will moderate.

The event is sponsored by El Centro, the Cultural and Community Center for the Latinx community at Virginia Tech.