Roseli Rojo

Assistant Professor of Spanish
256-782-5632
rrojo@jsu.edu 


Dr. Roseli Rojo is a graduate of the University of Havana, Cuba (B.A., Hispanic Literature, 2013), the National Autonomous University of Mexico (M.A., Latin American Studies, 2016), and Rutgers University (Ph.D., Spanish Literature and Culture, 2021). 

Dr. Rojo specializes in Latin American and Caribbean literature and culture from colonial times to the present. She studies the intersection of race, class, and gender in novels, newspapers, legal and medical documents by considering fashion, transportation, and urban settings. She explores the influence of women, Afro-descendants, and indigenous groups in the construction of Latin American and Caribbean nations. Her first book Contar Ayba Yala a los niños (Narrating Abya Yala to Children) (Letras Cubanas, 2020) won the Pinos Nuevos Essay Award in Cuba, 2019. It traces the representation of tikuna, huitoto, and yaguas cosmogonies in Latin American narratives to understand their depictions in contemporary children’s literature. She is currently working on her second monograph: Distressed Bodies in Colonial Caribbean (1790-1890): Technologies of race and gender in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. 

Dr. Rojo has received various scholarships to support her research. She was awarded the Goizueta Foundation Graduate Fellowship from the University of Miami and the Graduate Merit Award Scholarship from the Executive Women of New Jersey. During 2020-2021, she was a Fellow of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University.

Selected Publications:

“Historias latinoamericanas animadas: Los animales: música infantil mexicana y La flauta de Bartolo.” Nueve miradas al cine de Paul Leduc. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de México, 2021.

Contar Abya Yala a los niños. Letras Cubanas, 2020.

“Petimetres en la urbe: cuerpos en crisis en La Habana colonial (1790-1805).” Decimonónica: Journal of Nineteenth Century, vol. 17, no. 1 (Winter 2020): 81-100.

“De Flora al Toa: Revolución, superhombre y naturaleza en Ciclón (1963) y Ociel del Toa (1965).” Hispanic Review, vol. 87, no. 4 (Autumn 2019): 459-81. 

“Olor a Barrio Chino: Estereotipos en La cola de la serpiente, de Leonardo Padura.” Dossier: “Cuba Joven.” LL Journal, vol. 12, no. 2 (Fall 2019).

“Una Habana profunda contada por su gente. Acercamiento a la novela La sombra del caminante, de Ena Lucía Portela.” LL Journal, vol.12, no. 1 (Spring 2017). 

“La condesa en volanta: Transporte y nación en La Havane colonial.” Isla Diseminada. Ensayos sobre Cuba. Hypermedia Press. (In press).

Courses Taught

  • 101 Beginner’s Spanish
  • 201 Intermediate Spanish I
  • 202 Intermediate Spanish II
  • 310 Advanced Grammar and Composition 
  • 320 Spanish Conversation
  • 417 Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Film Criticism
  • 419 Latin American Short Story