Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes

My main research interests are American and ethnic studies, queer/LGBT Hispanic Caribbean (Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican) studies, and U.S. Latina/o/x and Latin American literary, cultural, and performance studies. In my first book, Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora (University of Minnesota Press, 2009), I analyze portrayals of migration, sexual diversity, and gender nonconformity in Puerto Rican cultural productions (such as cartoons, dance theater, film, literature, and performance art) both on the island and in the United States, focusing on the lives and work of artists such as Luis Rafael Sánchez, Manuel Ramos Otero, Luz María Umpierre, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Rose Troche, Erika López, Arthur Avilés, and Elizabeth Marrero.

In my more recent book, Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance (University of Michigan Press, 2021), I focus on drag and trans performance and argue that drag can serve not only to question gender and sexuality but also to explore commodification, diasporic displacements and reenactments of home, ethnicity, the human/animal divide, monstrosity, politics, poverty, race, and anti-Black racism. Here I discuss the lives and work of artists and activists such as Javier Cardona, Lady Catiria, Kevin Fret, Monica Beverly Hillz, Erika Lopez, Freddie Mercado, Jorge Merced, Sylvia Rivera, and Holly Woodlawn, as well as the recent phenomenon of Puerto Rican participation in RuPaul’s Drag Race. I also look at documentary films such as Paris Is Burning (1990), The Salt Mines (1990), Mala Mala (2014, dir. Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles), and at the murders of Jorge Steven López Mercado and Kevin Fret. Translocas received the 2021 Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies from CLAGS, the Center for LGBTQ Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY); an honorable mention for the 2022 Frank Bonilla Book Award from the Puerto Rican Studies Association (PRSA); and the 2023 University of Michigan Press Book Award.

Currently, I am working on a book on contemporary performance in Puerto Rico and am writing on artists such as Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya, Awilda Rodríguez Lora ("La Performera"), Gisela Rosario (Macha Colón), Eduardo Alegría, and Mickey Negrón. I have also continued to publish on additional transloca performers such as Walter Mercado and Fausto Fernós.

I have served on the board of directors of the CUNY Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (www.clags.org), on the Modern Language Association's Committee on the Literatures of People of Color of the United States and Canada (www.mla.org), and on the Executive Committee of the MLA's Puerto Rican Literature and Culture Discussion Group (2001-05). I was the chair of the Lesbian and Gay Studies Section (now known as the Sexualities Studies Section) of the Latin American Studies Association during 2003-04 (https://lasaweb.org/en/). I am also a member of the Puerto Rican Studies Association (https://www.ricanstudies.com/), the American Studies Association, and the Caribbean Studies Association.

Multimedia

Listening to Puerto Rico Teach-Out: Lawrence La Fountain Stokes

Recent and Selected Publications

“Lisa M, ‘La primera rapera mujer de Puerto Rico y de Latinoamérica,’ and Early 1990s Feminist Puerto Rican Hip-Hop Culture.” Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 32.1 (2023): 133–155. Published online: 12 May 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569325.2023.2197549

“Reescribiendo «la gran familia puertorriqueña»: Tecnología, religión, percepción extrasensorial, violencia familiar y sexualidad en Las facultades de Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya.” Dossier “Arts et identité nationale à Porto Rico / Artes e identidad nacional en Puerto Rico / National Identity and the Arts in Puerto Rico” coedited by Sophie Large et al. HispanismeS: Revue de la Société des Hispanistes Français 20 (2022): 1-22. https://journals.openedition.org/hispanismes/17413

“Latina/o Studies at the University of Michigan: Negotiating Inclusion and Exclusion in the Midwest.” Building Latina/o/x Studies: Case Samples from the Midwest, ed. Lucía M. Suárez. Diálogo: An Interdisciplinary Studies Journal 24.2 (Fall 2021): 57-78. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/15/article/884108 (launched March 10, 2023)

“Boricuas cruzando fronteras: Autobiografías y testimonios trans puertorriqueños.” Special issue on “Des/generando la primera persona (queer): Autobiografías y memorias de la diversidad sexual en las culturas hispánicas.” Editors: Jorge Luis Peralta and José Antonio Ramos Arteaga. Clepsydra: Revista internacional de estudios de género y teoría feminista 21 (March 2021): 95-120. https://doi.org/10.25145/j.clepsydra.2021.21.05

Escenas transcaribeñas: ensayos sobre teatro, performance y cultura. San Juan: Isla Negra Editores, 2018.

Keywords for Latina/o Studies. Co-editor (with Deborah R. Vargas and Nancy Raquel Mirabal). New York: New York Univ. Press, 2017.

“Translocas: Migration, Homosexuality, and Transvestism in Recent Puerto Rican Performance.” emisférica 8.1 (2011). Electronic journal.

(Spanish version) “Translocas: Migración, homosexualidad y transvestismo en el performance puertorriqueño reciente.” Trans. by Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes. emisférica 8.1 (2011). Electronic journal.

(Portuguese version) “Translocas: migração, homossexualidade e transformismo na recente performance porto-riquenha.” Trans. by Pablo Assumpção Barros Costa. emisférica 8.1 (2011). Electronic journal.

“Gay Shame, Latina/o Style: A Critique of White Queer Performativity.” Michael Hames-García and Ernesto J. Martínez, eds. Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. 55-80.

Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails. Bilingual collection of short stories (Spanish and English). Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 2009.

Recent graduate courses taught: 

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Latina/o Studies

Queer/Cuir Americas

Performance and Politics in the Americas

Trans Latina/o American Drag

Recent undergraduate courses taught: 

Drag in America
Engaging Performance
Gender and Sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean
Introduction to Latina/o Studies
Literatures and Cultures of the Borderlands: The Politics of Language

Research Areas(s)

• Latin American, Caribbean and US Latino/Latina Literature and Culture
• Theater and Performance Studies
• Queer, Lesbian and Gay Studies
• Women’s and Gender Studies

Affiliation(s)

• Faculty: Department of American Culture (AC), Latina/o Studies (LS)
• Faculty: Department of Romance Languages & Literatures, Spanish
• Faculty Affiliate: Department of Women's and Gender Studies

Award(s)

• 2021 Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies for Translocas, CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies, City University of New York (CUNY).
• 2022 Frank Bonilla Book Award (Honorable Mention) for Translocas, Puerto Rican Studies Association (PRSA).
• 2022 Blanca G. Silvestrini Award, LASA Puerto Rico Section, for "Boricuas cruzando fronteras" (Clepsydra).
• 2022 Sylvia Molloy Prize for Best Article in the Humanities (Honorable mention), LASA Sexualities Studies Section, for "Boricuas cruzando fronteras" (Clepsydra).
• 2023 University of Michigan Press Book Award for Translocas.

Field(s) of Study

• Latina/o studies, Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caribbean studies, women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, lesbian, gay, and queer studies, theater and performance.