Faculty

Biography

Beth Jörgensen's research has focused primarily on Mexican literature of the twentieth century. Her book on the writing of Elena Poniatowska was the first comprehensive study of the work of this influential Mexican author. The co-edited volume The Contemporary Mexican Chronicle: Theoretical Perspectives on the Liminal Genre brings together reflections on the practice of chronicle writing by prominent Mexican journalists and critical and theoretical studies by scholars in the field.

Her study of nonfiction literature, published as Documents in Crisis: Nonfiction Literatures in Twentieth-Century Mexico, encompasses the genres of autobiography, memoir, historical essay, testimonio, chronicle, nonfiction novel, and ethnographic life writing, and examines both canonical and marginalized texts from twentieth-century Mexico.

Her current research engages the theories arising from disability studies in order to explore the representations of disability in Mexican literature and culture. It looks at fiction written by authors who do not claim a disability identity, and at diverse forms of writing (life-writing, blogging, poetry, fiction) created by or in collaboration with persons with disabilities. Her co-edited volume Libre Acceso: Latin American Literature and Film through Disability Studies (2016) offers a comprehensive introduction and thirteen original essays in this emerging field in Latin American studies.

Research Overview

Courses Offered (subject to change)

• CLT 101C:  Disability Studies: Rethinking Difference and Diversity (Fall 2015)
• CLT 200:   Topics in Critical Thinking: Discerning Difference - Literary Representations of Disability (Fall 2019)
• SP 157:  Spanish in ... (Summer 2018)
• SP 200:  Advanced Spanish Composition (Spring 2016)
• SP 204:  Coming to Terms: Spanish American Literature, from Tradition to Innovation (Spring 2019)
• SP 206:  Spanish-American Cultures (Spring 2014)
• SP 207:  Spanish in ... (Summer 2018)
• SP 256:  Contemporary Spanish-American Prose (Fall 2013)
• SP 257:  Spanish American Theater and Poetry (Spring 2012)
• SP 260:  (Re)Writing Gender in Spanish-American Literature (Fall 2016)
• SP 261:  Facing Facts: Nonfiction Literature in 20th-Century Spanish America (Spring 2018)
• SP 262C:  Disabling Discourse: Disability in Spanish-American Literature (Spring 2017)
• SP 262F:  Identity Signs: Spanish-American Coming of Age Stories (Spring 2015)

Selected Publications

Books and Monographs

• "Globalized Food and Pharma: The South Bites Back in Lina Meruane's Fruta podrida." Special issue on Disability and the Decolonial Turn: Perspectives from the Americas. Ed. Roberto Sirvent. Disability and the Global South. 6.1(Spring 2019): 1622-1639.
• “Diario del dolor de María Luisa Puga: texto híbrido, sujeto contingente.” In María Luisa Puga y el espacio de la reconstrucción. Ed. Alejandro Puga, et al. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 2018. 147-162.
•  "La narrativa personal de la discapacidad: La teoría articulada en primera persona." In Inclusión, integración, diferenciación: la diversidad funcional en la literatura, el cine y las artes escénicas. Ed. Susanne Hartwig. Peter Lang, 2020. 71-88.
• With Susan Antebi, editors. Libre Acceso: Latin American Literature and Film through Disability Studies. State U of New York P, 2016. SUNY Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture.
• Documents in Crisis: Nonfiction Literatures in Twentieth-Century Mexico. State U of New York P, 2011. SUNY Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture.
• Translator. The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution. By Mariano Azuela, introduction by Ilán Stavans, Modern Library-Random House, 2002. Translation of Los de abajo. México, 1915.
• With Ignacio Corona, editors. The Contemporary Mexican Chronicle: Theoretical Perspectives on the Liminal Genre. State U of New York P, 2002. SUNY Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture.
• The Writing of Elena Poniatowska: Engaging Dialogues. U of Texas P, 1994. Texas Pan American Series.

Articles and Book Chapters

• "Negotiating the Geographies of Exclusion and Access: Life Writing by Gabriela Brimmer and Ekiwah Adler-Beléndez." Libre Acceso: Latin American Literature and Film through Disability Studies, edited by Susan Antebi and Beth E. Jörgensen, State U of New York P, 2016, pp. 63-79. SUNY Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture.
• "Teaching Gaby Brimmer: A Disability Studies Approach." Teaching the Works of Elena Poniatowska. Spec. issue of Diálogo, vol. 17, no. 1, Spring 2014, pp. 23–31. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/dlg.2014.0015.
• "Chronicle and Diary, Politics and Self-Portrait in Elena Poniatowska's Amanecer en el Zócalo." Número dedicado a Elena Poniatowska. Spec. issue of Textos Híbridos: Revista de Estudios sobre la Crónica Latinoamericana, vol. 2, no. 1, Jul. 2012, pp. 4-21. eScholarship, escholarship.org/uc/item/0bn0d2wr.
• "Rossana Reguillo: Deconstructing the Culture of Fear." The Boom Femenino in Mexico: Reading Contemporary Women's Writing, edited by Nuala Finnegan and Jane E. Lavery, Cambridge Scholars, 2010, pp. 131-48.
• "Jorge Ramos Reads North from South." Mexico Reading the United States, edited by Linda Egan and Mary K. Long, Vanderbilt UP, 2009, pp. 278-95.
• "Actos de atención: Intersecciones en el pensamiento social de Weil, Castellanos y Poniatowska." Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, vol. 31, no. 3, Spring 2007, pp. 413–29. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27764132.
• With Margarita Vargas, editors. Twenty-Five Years of Scholarship by Feministas Unidas: Positions on Gender, Writing, Ethnicity, Identity, and Mother/Sisterhood. Spec. issue of Letras Femeninas, vol. 32, no. 1, Summer 2006. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/i23022437.
• "Making History: Subcomandante Marcos in the Mexican Chronicle." Memory and Nation in Contemporary Mexico. Spec. issue of South Central Review, vol. 21, no. 3, Fal 2004, pp. 85-106. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40039892.
  
• "Speaking from the Soapbox: Benita Galeana's Benita." Latin American Literary Review, no. 55, Jan.-Jun. 2000, pp. 46-66. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20119823.
• "Light-Writing: Biography and Photography in Tinísima." The Other Mirror: Women's Narrative in Mexico, 1980-1995, edited by Kristine Ibsen, Greenwood P, 1997, pp. 57-72. Contributions to the Study of World Literature 80.
• "Margo Glantz: Tongue in Hand." Reinterpreting the Spanish American Essay: Women Writers of the 19th and 20th Centuries, edited by Doris Meyer, U of Texas P, 1995, pp. 188-96. Texas Pan American Series.
• "Framing Questions: The Role of the Editor in Elena Poniatowska's La noche de Tlatelolco." Voices of the Voiceless in Testimonial Literature, Part I. Spec. issue of Latin American Perspectives, vol. 18, no. 3, Summer 1991, pp. 80-90. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2633741.
• "La intertextualidad en La noche de Tlatelolco de Elena Poniatowska." Hispanic Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, 1989, pp. 81-93.

Teaching

Literatures and cultures of Spanish America from the period of independence to the present; women writers and nonfiction literatures, fiction, theater, and poetry; disability studies

Honors and Activities

• University of Rochester Goergen Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2016
• Prize for Best Book on Mexico in the Humanities for 2010-2011, awarded by the Mexico Section of the Latin American Studies Association for Documents in Crisis: Nonfiction Literatures in Twentieth-Century Mexico
• Chair, Board on Academic Honesty in the College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering
• Executive Committee, Mexican Forum of the Modern Language Association, 2013-2017
• Editorial Board, "Ambitos Feministas. Revista Crítica Multidisciplinaria de la Coalición Feministas Unidas" (Modern Language Association Allied Organization)
• Editorial Board, "Textos Híbridos: Revista de Estudios sobre la Crónica Latinoamericana"
• Past president, Feministas Unidas
• Past president, Iota of New York of Phi Beta Kappa