Mabel Moraña received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the Washington University faculty in 2005, she taught at the University of Pittsburgh, where she also served as chair of the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures. Her many visiting appointments have taken her to such institutions as the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotà, Harvard University, the Universidad Andina Simón Bolivar in Quito, and the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Professor Moraña is the author of six books, most recently Políticas de la escritura en América Latina (Caracas, 1997), Viaje al silencio. Exploraciones del discurso barroco (México, 1998), and Crítica impura (Madrid, 2004). She has edited and co-edited a number of essay collections, including El salto de Minerva. Género, intelectuales y poder en América Latina with Maria Rosa Olivera-Williams (Madrid, 2006); Ideologias y Literatura. Homeaje a Hernán Vidal with Javier Campos (Pittsburgh, 2006); and Carlos Monsiváis ante la critica with Ignacio Sánchez Prado (México, 2007). A two-volume collection coordinated with Enrique Dussel and Carlos A. Jauregui, Coloniality at Large. Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate, is forthcoming with Duke.

Prof. Moraña specializes in Spanish American colonial literatures, particularly colonial Mexico; nationhood and modernity; cultural criticism and cultural theory; and contemporary Latin American narrative. In addition to her courses on colonial literature and Latin American cultural criticism and cultural studies, she teaches courses on the nineteenth century, on the baroque and neo-baroque, on women’s literature, and on violence and representation in Latin America.