Bio:

B.A. Education, University of New Mexico, 2009
M.A. Spanish, University of New Mexico, 2011
Ph.D. Spanish, concentration in Chicana/o Literature and Culture, Arizona State University, 2016

Dr. Laura Elena Belmonte is an Assistant Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies whose research focuses on Chicana and Mexicana feminism, border and transnational studies, and Chicana/o/x spiritual and political activism. Her research is deeply intertwined with her experience as a child of immigrants, living in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, and experiencing spirituality as a dignifying and decolonial praxis within the Latina/o/x faith community with whom she worships. As a literary and cultural studies scholar, Dr. Belmonte’s work centers the study of the cultural and literary production of Mexicanos, Chicanos, and/or Mexican-Americans and focuses on these cultural expressions in the U.S. and along the U.S.-Mexico Border, thus her work is also transnational. As a Chicana scholar, Dr. Belmonte dedicates her research efforts and publications to exploring the borderlands and border-crossings, the violence perpetuated at these sites, and decolonial praxises through spirituality and activism that reinforce incredible resilience and dignity that marginalized communities bring forth in their borderlands’ expressions. She is currently working on a book about the manifestation of border violence in literature and cultural production that is tentatively titled Borderland Brutalities: Violence in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands in Literature, Culture, and Art.

Courses

Introduction to Chicana and Chicano Studies

Chicana and Chicano Cultural Studies

Literatura MexicoAmericana

Escritoras Chicanas

Cultural Expressions in Chicana and Chicano Studies

Immigration and Assimilation

Chicanos and Latinos in a Global Society

Publications 

Belmonte, Laura Elena. “El eufemismo y las convenciones sociales violentas en The Mummified Deer y The Women of Juarez.” Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures. Vol. 4, No. 1, Fall 2019. 

• Hyperlink it to this url:https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/chiricu.4.1.03

Belmonte, Laura Elena. “‘Reina de la Sabiduría’: La teología mariana feminista de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz y su sermón escondido en Ejercicios devotos.” Ámbitos Feministas Vol. 8, Summer 2019. 

Belmonte, Laura Elena. “El mestizaje espiritual y Xicanista representado en la literatura chicana contemporánea mediante las obras de Estela Portillo Trambley, Helena María Viramontes, Ana Castillo y Stella Pope Duarte.” Circunloquios: Revista de investigaciones culturales 2.1, 2015.