Language and Literature

Faculty and Staff

Luis A. Cortés


Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies and American Literature of the US & Freshman Sophomore English Coordinator

Department of Language and Literature
Sam Fore Hall 201B
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
+1 361-593-2514

Education

  • Ph.D. University of California San Diego June 2021 Literature
  • M.A. University of California San Diego March 2018 Literature
  • B.A. University of California San Diego June 2013 Literature - Honors: Highest Distinction

Research and Teaching Interests

  • Pinto Poetics
  • Captivity and Prison Narratives
  • Border Gothic
  • Necropolitics
  • Latinx Cultural Production
  • Chicanx Cultural Production
  • American Poetics and Aesthetics

Publications

  • Cortés, L.A. (2021). The Open Graves of Latina/os: Representations of a Latinx Horror in Pinto Poetics, Border Gothic, and Homeless Encampments in Los Angeles. UC San Diego. ProQuest ID: Cortes_ucsd_ 0033D_20274. Merritt ID: ark:/13030/m5q301kz. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7b07s8hw
  • Cortés, L.A. "Entombed Voices," MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (Accepted & Forthcoming)

  • Cortés, L.A. "The Betrayals of Passing.American Modernism (Re)Considered, edited by Jeff Birkenstein and Robert Haubert, Bloomsbury Academic, 2025, pp. 215-228

  • Cortés, L.A. "Our Absence: The Missing Latinx Students in the Selective University.” Race in the Multiethnic Literature Classroom, edited by Cristina Stanciu and Gary Totten, University of Illinois Press, 2024, pp. 142-158

  • Cortés, L.A. “Jimmy Santiago Baca. The Misfits.” The Journal of South Texas, Volume 38, Number 1, 2024, pp. 174-176

Presentations

International Refereed

  • "The Voice That Once Was A Woman," at The Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) annual conference on November 7th - 10th, 2024

National Refereed

  • "Haunting the Law: Spectral Bodies and Border Violence in Gabino Iglesias' Coyote Songs," at the Southern Humanities Conference, on January 29th - February 1st, 2026 (Accepted & Forthcoming)

  • "The Wretched West: Latinx Horror and the Death-Worlds," at the 59th Western Literature Association Conference, on September 21st - 24th, 2025 (Accepted & Forthcoming)

  • "Dead in Law: The Poetics of Judy Lucero," at the 39th annual conference for The Society for the Study for the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) on April 3rd - 6th, 2025

  • "Panel on Race in the Multiethnic Literature Classroom," at the 39th annual conference for The Society for the Study for the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) on April 3rd - 6th, 2025

  • "The Poetics of Prisoner #21918," at the Southern Humanities Conference, on January 30th - February 2nd, 2025

  • "I Must Not Speak: The Poetics of Living-Entombment," at the XVII Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Conference: The Right to Write, Speak and Be in Times of Banning, Censorship and Persecution on April 26th - 27th, 2024

  • "as i am not free: Resisting Legal Erasure," at the 38th annual conference for The Society for the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) on April 11th - 14th, 2024

  • "In the Flesh: Ritualized Mortification in American Prisons," at the Southern Humanities Conference, on February 1st - 4th 2024 

  • "Crossing Over: The Life and Death of the Narrative in Tattooed Soldier,” at the 37th annual conference for The Society for the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) on April 20th - 23rd, 2023

  • "Legal Living-Entombment," at the 52nd Annual Conference of the College English Association on March 30th - April 1st, 2023

  • "Fosas Comunes: Representations of Mass Graves in Tattooed Soldier," at the 50th Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture on February 23rd - 25th, 2023

  • “Murderous Myths: Talking Dead in The River Flows North, Tattooed Soldier and the poetry of Judy Lucero,” at the Southern Humanities Conference on January 29th, 2023

  • "El Infierno: The Necropolitics of the U.S.-Mexico Border," at the 34th annual conference for The Society for the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) on April 8th - 10th, 2021 & the 17th annual Interdisciplinary conference for the Graduate History Association of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst on April 9th - 10th, 2021

Local Nonrefereed

  • "Who May Live, And Who Must Die: the Poetics of raulrsalinas," Keynote Address at the 28th Sigma Delta Pi Student Symposium on November 14th, 2023

  • "Getting Students to Read," Keynote Address and Facilitator at the Center for Teaching Effectiveness on October 5th, 2023

  • "Voices Beyond The Grave," Keynote Address at the Center for Teaching Effectiveness on March 2nd, 2023

  • "Entombed Voices," Keynote Address at the 27th Sigma Delta Pi Student Symposium on November 17th, 2022
Luis A. Cortés