Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies; Faculty Associate of Latina/o Studies Program
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About
Dr. Andrea Bolivar is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of Latinx studies, Transgender Studies, and Feminist Studies. Her book manuscript, “We Are a Fantasy:” Trans Latina Ways of Knowing, Being, and Loving (New York University Press, under contract), ethnographically examines the experiences of sex working transgender Latinas in the Chicago metropolitan area. It centers sex working trans Latinas’ epistemologies and ontologies, especially concerning five interrelated themes: fantasía, life/death, the body, immigration, and race--particularly Blackness and anti-Blackness. Further, We Are a Fantasy demonstrates how sex working trans Latina ways of being and knowing not only defy racist-cisgenderism more broadly, but also offer potentialities beyond transnormativity and normative Latinidad. Dr. Bolivar’s work is published in journals such as Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Feminist Anthropology, Latinx Talk and edited volumes on queer nightlife, Latinx ethnography, and feminist anthropology. Dr. Bolivar obtained her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis, and held an LSA Collegiate Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She has received the Junior Faculty Outstanding Scholarship and Engagement Award from ALLA (Association of Latina/Latino/Latinx Anthropologists), and the Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty from the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. As the first in her family to graduate high school, Professor Bolivar is committed to supporting diversity in academia.
