Vincent Cervantes, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, was recently awarded the competitive Criticism & Interpretive Theory Junior Research Fellowship for 2019-2021, from the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory.

This fellowship support is for his current book in progress, "A Body Exposed: The Aesthetics of Sex, Death, and Mexicanness." The fellowship will help Vincent undertake the research necessary to complete the manuscript, and as part of the award, he also will be named a Criticism and Interpretive Theory Junior Fellow and will receive discretionary research funds to be used toward the project. The Unit will also organize a manuscript workshop to assist him in the publication of his study.

Cervantes joined the Illinois faculty in 2018 after completing his PhD in Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture (Spanish and Latin American Studies) at the University of Southern California. His research interests include 20th and 21st-Century Latin American Literature and Culture; Modern Mexican Literary and Visual Cultures; U.S. Latina/o/x Literature and Culture; Queer Theory, Feminist Theory, and Gender and Sexuality Studies; Performance Studies; Critical Race Theory and Postcolonialism; and Continental Philosophy and Critical Theory.