CLLAS invites the campus community to gather for a Lunch & Learn roundtable featuring new University of Oregon faculty whose research and teaching contribute to Latinx and Latin American studies across multiple disciplines.
This event offers an opportunity to welcome three new faculty members to UO and learn more about the questions, communities, and histories that shape their work. Together, their scholarship connects political history, immigration, racial justice, labor, youth mental health, and community care.
Dr. Rutger Ceballos is an Assistant Professor of Political Science whose research explores the relationship between American political development, African American politics, and American political thought, focusing on the contestation over labor and land regimes in the context of the Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction. His current book project, Managing Emancipation: Land, Labor, and the Reconstruction of the American Racial Capitalist State, examines how complex interactions between federal officials and newly emancipated Black workers reshaped the American federal state and restructured racialized labor and land regimes. In addition to his work on Emancipation and Reconstruction, Rutger has studied the history of labor organizing in the Pacific Northwest, left-wing political movements in the early 20th century, and the political thought of Frederick Douglass.
Dr. Arifa Raza is an Assistant Professor in the department of Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies. Her research examines the criminalization of immigrants through humanitarian laws, focusing on relief for victims of human trafficking and (im)migrant children. Her scholarship is grounded in her prior experience as a non-profit immigration attorney where she specialized in deportation defense and representation of detained individuals. Arifa is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled, Criminalization Through Protection: Central American Migrant Youth and the Politics of Childhood.
Dr. Blanche Wright is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in supporting the mental health needs of minoritized communities and the systems and providers who serve them. Unique for a clinical psychologist, she has pursued and obtained specialized training in public health and policy. Her overarching goal is to help close the research to practice to policy gaps in pursuit of equitable mental health care through community- and school- partnered research.
The roundtable will give attendees a chance to hear directly from these faculty members about their research, coursework, and the contributions they make to student learning and interdisciplinary conversations about Latinx and Latin American issues at UO.
Event Details:
📅 Thursday, May 14
⏰ 12 PM-1:15 PM
📍 Lyllye Reynolds-Parker Black Cultural Center
1870 East 15th Avenue, Eugene, OR 97403
Research Interests: American political development, African American politics, history of political thought, labor politics
Research Interests: Immigration and crimmigration, Critical Race Theory, carceral studies, comparative ethnic studies, human trafficking
Research Interests: Youth mental health, equity in mental health care, minority stress, family engagement, Latinx and immigrant communities, mental health policy