Brenda Lara on an interdisciplinary approach to Chicana feminism and hauntology scholarship

Brenda Lara joined the San Diego State University faculty last fall. Their background includes a bachelor's degree in philosophy, a doctorate in Chicanx and Central American Studies at University of California Los Angeles, and two years in University of California President’s post-doctoral program at UC Santa Cruz. Her scholarship now falls under jotería studies — a field named after the reclaimed term for queer Latinx, Chicanx, and Indigenous individuals — in both the English and Comparative Literature and Chicana/o Studies departments.

Lara specializes in Chicana feminism, borderlands theorism, jotería studies, archival research, and hauntology — ultimately considering themselves an interdisciplinary theorist. Hauntology involves research on hauntings, death studies, and spectral literature — or “anything in the realm of ‘spooky.’” They are teaching two classes this semester, an undergraduate course on Chicana literature and a graduate course on hauntology called Ghosts in the Archive.

When she was first exposed to hauntology in the early years of her doctorate program, Lara was hesitant about researching real-life deaths, especially when they hit so close to home. The story of Lora Romero, a Stanford professor who committed suicide in 1997, tested their ability to exist with one foot in both the academic and personal world. “I don’t want to look into this person who shares such a close positionality to me as a Chicana, a Latina, first-generation student, and first one from their family to go into graduate school as well.” Lara said. 

However, they could not ignore the pull of responsibility to learn and honor Romero’s story, sparking a passion for how culture and death contextualize each other. In essence, Lara fell in love with hauntology's ability to connect the past to the present and future, “the theory that essentially asks, ‘what are these things about the repressed past that keep coming back?’” 

Unafraid to treat death as an equal, Lara builds upon hauntology's questions in her studies with the sociological lens of how people deal with such horrible events in the first place — blending Chicana feminism into their hauntology. “Being a Mexican American, I grew up with a lot of ghost stories,” Lara said. Whether through La Llorona or witches and gnomes in the mountains, Lara learned early on how a folktale can act as a vehicle for processing pain and trauma. 

Lara uses this context to understand people’s lives and the acts of violence they live through, regarding their stories as folklore — with histories to impart and lessons to teach. This reflects in their research methods, where they make a conscious effort to treat people’s accounts and archives with the care and ethical considerations they deserve — searching not for an answer to a preexisting question, but meaning within a world of emotion.

Lara is currently working on a manuscript that explores the crossroads of Chicana feminism and hauntology, titled “Latinx Hauntings.” Lara is simultaneously working on a chapter for the jotería studies reader on Horacio Roque Ramírez and an article inspired by a recent panel she participated in about vampires.

The panel was held at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego and titled “Bloodsuckers: Queering the Monstrous Other.” This discussion occurred in tandem with Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya’s exhibition opening of “In the Garden of Earthly Delights: I Bend to Paradise.”

The exhibition followed a vampire’s journey to, from, and between humanity and monstrosity. The panel explored themes of capitalism and queerness, focusing on how “the vampire [acts] as a symbol of both queer and migrant resistance in the face of persecution.” Lara contributed her interdisciplinary perspective on Lat-Indigenous folklore, vampire mythologies, and hauntology to the conversation. 

As they move forward, Lara is focused on finding the balance between “writing good things, teaching good stuff, and continuing to learn from everyone around [them].” She deeply values a symbiotic relationship with students. “I teach what I know and I also want to know what students know so I’m learning as things are passing by,” Lara said. 

In marrying their varied academic approaches and positionality as a queer Mexican American, Lara fuses hauntology and Chicana feminism together into a uniquely interdisciplinary lens for understanding Chicanx culture.