Alicia Gaspar de Alba, or Profe Gaspar, as her students call her, is a scholar activist professor, poet, writer, Chicana lesbian feminist from the El Paso-Juárez border. With a PhD in American Studies from the University of New Mexico (1994), she has taught at UCLA in the Chicana/o Studies Department since 1994, and has joint appointments in English and Gender Studies. From 2013-2019, she served as Chair of the LGBTQ Studies Program; and, from 2007-2010, she Chaired the Cesar Chavez Department of Chicana/o Studies. La Profe has published 12 books, among them, award-winning novels, poetry and short story collections, and academic texts. She is the organizer of several important conferences and symposia at UCLA, including:
- Otro Corazón: Queering the Art of the Aztlán (February 2001)
- The Maquiladora Murders, Or, Who Is Killing the Women of Juárez? (Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 2003)
- Sex y Corazón: Queer and Feminist Theory at the Vanguard of the New Chicana/o Studies (Feb. 12, 2010)
- Otro Corazón 2: Queering Chicanidad in the Arts/A Valentine to Tomás Ybarra-Frausto (Feb. 3, 2017)
- “You Imagine Me, and I Exist“: The Afterlives of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Nov. 22, 2019)
Areas of Specialization
Gender and Sexuality Studies, Chicana Lesbian Theory and Literature, Chicana Feminisms, Queer POC Theory and Literature
[Un]Framing the “Bad Woman”: Sor Juana, Malinche, Coyolxauhqui and Other Rebels with a Cause (U of TX Press, 2014)–winner of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education Book Award
U.S.-Mexico Border Studies, El Paso/ Juárez Femicides, Feminicidios, Barrio Popular Culture, Chicanx Art, Aesthetics of Place
Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera, edited with Georgina Guzmán (U of TX Press, 2010)
Cultural Studies, Literary Studies, Bilingual Creative Writing, Poetry, Short Fiction, Memoir, Mysteries With a Mission, Noir
The Curse of the Gypsy: Ten Stories and a Novella (Arte Público Press, 2018)
Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Ph.D. 