Born and raised in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, María Acosta Cruz received a B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton. She is Full Professor of Spanish at Clark University where she explores Hispanic Caribbean language and culture issues. Using ecocriticism, she looks at the impacts of socio-political history on nationhood, gender constructions, and Puerto Rican culture. Among her published works is Dream Nation: Puerto Rican Culture & the Fictions of Independence.
Maria Acosta Cruz
Professor, Language, Literature & Culture
- About
- Scholarly and creative works
- Awards and grants
Degrees
- Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, State University of New York, Binghamton, 1984
- M.A. in Comparative Literature, State University of New York, Binghamton, 1980
- B.A. in Comparative Literature, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, 1978
Affiliated Departments
Language, Literature & Culture
Scholarly and creative works
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Keynote Speaker. Presentation on ecocriticism and Puerto Rican culture for 60 high school teachers who teach early college (AP) classes.
Early College Experience programUniversity of ConnecticutMarch2024Sponsored by UConn Spanish Language and Culture Program, Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages -
Book Manuscript: Disaster Nation: An Ecocritical Study of Puerto Rican Culture Across Five Centuries. The ms is with Rutgers University Press.
The published book will be included in the Critical Caribbean Studies series edited by Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, Carter Mathes, and Kathleen López.2024 -
Keynote speaker at the Hispanic Studies Department of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, the most venerable and prestigious center of higher education in Puerto Rico. I presented the keynote address at conference Jornadas de Literatura Puertorriqueña in honor of a famous Puerto Rican writer, Magali García Ramis, who was herself part of the conference.
Jornadas de Literatura PuertorriqueñaHispanic Studies Department of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, the flagship campus of the UPRNovember2023Sponsored by University of Puerto Rico -
Peer Review. “Race and Nation in Three Canonic Texts of Puerto Rican Literature: Luis Palés Matos’s Tom-Tom of Kinky Hair and Black Things, José Luis González’s The Four-Storeyed Country and Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá’s Cortijo’s Wake”
LCWeb: Comparative Literature and CultureFall2023Purdue University -
“Sandra Cisneros. A conversation on writing, on the house on Mango Street, on activism, on the heart breaking over and over until it stays open“
April2021Sponsored by Four Libraries in Connecticut sponsored this event -
La nubosidad del cráneo: El enfoque decolonial en Encancaranublado y otros cuentos de naufragio (1983)
Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures2021Indiana University Press -
Fall, 2021 Review of essay “Representations of Puerto Rican Identity and Agency in Ricanstruction: Reminiscing and Rebuilding Puerto Rico”
CENTRO Journal, Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, CUNY2021 -
Manuscript Review: “Latinx TV in the Twenty-First Century” (525 pages)
University of Arizona PressSpring2021 -
Manuscript review “Beautiful States: Gender, Performance, and Nationalism in Colombia” by Stacey L. Hunt
NYU Press -
Book Review of Glass Eye, a novel by Yolanda Gallardo (Arte Público Press, 2019)
Revista Camino Real, which has an external and anonymous evaluation board. The Instituto Franklin de la Universidad de Alcalá is the only University Institute for Research on North America in Spain2020 -
Essay review “Viviendo happy: Una visión radical de la felicidad en negracubanateniaqueser.com, un blog de Sandra Abd’Allah-Álvarez Ramírez” for
Cincinnati Romance Review -
“Pulp Fiction and Puerto Rican History in War Against All Puerto Ricans”
Published in Small Axesummer/fall2020 -
Evaluation of book proposal and one chapter of Responses to Femicide in Puerto Rico
Palgrave Macmillan -
Disaster Nation. Puerto Rican Culture from 1508 to 2022: An Ecocritical Study.
Submission under consideration by Rutgers University Press.
Awards and grants
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Barbera Fellowship
LLC
Mar. 26, 2024 – Mar. 26, 2025 -
Research grant
Higgins School of Humanities
Dec. 18, 2023 – Dec. 18, 2024 -
Higgins School of Humanities
Honorarium for virtual speaker for Spanish 237
Oct. 24, 2023 – Oct. 24, 2023 -
mini-grant
Higgins School of Humanities
Mar. 24, 2023 – Mar. 25, 2023 -
Faculty Development Fund
Clark University
Mar. 8, 2023 – Mar. 10, 2023