Notable Achievements

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Raquel Moreira has published the article “Invoking ethnic identity in the service of right-wing rhetoric: an analysis of 2022 Latina republican candidates in South Texas,” with Dr. Arthur Soto-Vásquez of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in Communication, Culture, and Critique. The essay examines campaign ads from three Latina GOP candidates in South Texas, in which Moreira and Soto-Vásquez identified the strategic deployment of conservative ethnic identity that disavows racialized identity through anti-immigrant rhetoric. Instead of moderating anti-immigration discourse, as has been suggested by observers on how to attract Latine voters, these candidates instead redirect the immigrant threat narrative towards other subgroups of Latines. The article can be found here.

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Raquel Moreira

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies

Expertise

Feminist and queer of color critique; performance studies; normative and marginalized femininities in media

My teaching and research focus on the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality in media and performance communication contexts. I enjoy helping students make connections between critical theory and their everyday lives, including their own role in seeking and actualizing a better world for all. Having taught media and feminist studies for about 10 years now, I am constantly learning with and from my students and the evolving contexts around us. 

My research informs my teaching, as my primary scholarly focus is feminist and queer of color critique of artistic performances and media texts of all sorts. In my book, Bitches Unleashed: Performance and Embodied Politics in Favela Funk (Peter Lang, 2020), for instance, I collect an assembly of texts (personal and media interviews, live and recorded performances, social media posts, music videos, etc.) to both challenge and re-envision the potential of embodied politics from a transnational feminist perspective. I have published portions of this research in Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture (2020 Monograph of the Year Award from NCA’s GLBTQ Communication Division), Women’s Studies in Communication (2018 Feminist Scholar of the Year from the Organization for Research on Women and Communication), and more.

  • Biography

    My teaching and research focus on the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality in media and performance communication contexts. I enjoy helping students make connections between critical theory and their everyday lives, including their own role in seeking and actualizing a better world for all. Having taught media and feminist studies for about 10 years now, I am constantly learning with and from my students and the evolving contexts around us. 

    My research informs my teaching, as my primary scholarly focus is feminist and queer of color critique of artistic performances and media texts of all sorts. In my book, Bitches Unleashed: Performance and Embodied Politics in Favela Funk (Peter Lang, 2020), for instance, I collect an assembly of texts (personal and media interviews, live and recorded performances, social media posts, music videos, etc.) to both challenge and re-envision the potential of embodied politics from a transnational feminist perspective. I have published portions of this research in Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture (2020 Monograph of the Year Award from NCA’s GLBTQ Communication Division), Women’s Studies in Communication (2018 Feminist Scholar of the Year from the Organization for Research on Women and Communication), and more.

  • Publications

    Scholarly Book

    Moreira, R. (2021). Bitches Unleashed: Performance and Embodied Politics in Favela Funk. Peter Lang, 2021. *Bonnie Ritter Outstanding Feminist Book Award

    Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

    Moreira, R. (2020). “To Be a Slut Is to Be Free”: Women in Favela Funk, Racialised Femininity, and Celebrity Media. Celebrity Studies. DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2020.1847673.

    Moreira, R. (2019). Bicha Travesti Worldmaking: Linn da Quebrada’s Disidentificatory Performances of Intersectional Queerness. Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture, 4(3), 303-318. *Monograph of the Year Award

    Moreira, R. (2017). Now that I’m a Whore, Nobody Is Holding Me Back!’: Women in Favela Funk and Embodied Politics. Women’s Studies in Communication, 40(2), 172-189. * Feminist Scholar of the Year Award

    Peer Reviewed Book Chapters

    Moreira, R. (2020). Funk Isn’t a Trend; It’s a Necessity: Favela Funk’s Vernacular Discourse and the Struggle for Cultural Legitimation. In Ahmet Atay, Yea-Wen Chen, and Alberto Gonzalez, Memory and Intercultural Communication, Peter Lang.

    Moreira, R. (2020). De-Whitening Intersectionality through Transfeminismo. In Shinsuke Eguchi, Bernadette M. Calafell, and Shadee Abdi (Eds.), De-Whitening Intersectionality: Race, Intercultural Communication, and Politics, Rowman & Littlefield. *Anita Taylor Book Chapter Award

    Chrifi Alaoui, F., Moreira, R., Pattisapu, K., Shukri, S., & Calafell, B.M. (2014). I am Not Maria/Samira: On the Interchangeability of “Brownness” in U.S. Pedagogical Contexts. In Sonja M. Brown Givens and Keisha Edwards Tassie (Eds.), Claiming a Seat at the Table: Feminism, Underserved Women Of Color, Voice, and Resistance. Lexington Books.