Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro presented a paper titled “Aesthetics in the flesh: Las Brown Berets and Chicana Resistencia” at the 11th Annual El Mundo Zurdo conference, hosted by Trinity University in San Antonio from November 6–8. This year’s theme was “Hope Sin Fronteras: Reclaiming Fluidity, Empowering Communities, and Enacting Resistance.”

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro co-published a brief essay titled “Algunos pensamientos sobre las señoras” in the Spanish-language feminist blog, Indisciplinadxs Linguistica Feminista. This essay/blog entry provides a framework for understanding linguistic, historical, and contemporary perspectives on the identity label “señora” within Latine/x and Mexican American communities. This work emerges from Del Hierro’s larger project, Señora Power, a multi-disciplinary project committed to writing Chicana feminist consciousness into public history.

Assistant Professors of Sociology Adriana Ponce and Amanda Hernandez, Assistant Professor of Political Science Alexander Goodwin, Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma, and Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro published “Teaching with Color: Thematic Hires and the Politics of Teaching in Texas,” in the journal Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. This article joins a growing conversation in the humanities and humanistic social sciences on ways faculty of color shoulder the burden of thinking about our shared futures as racialized, intersectional, and collaborative. You can find the article here.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro presented “Chicana Feminism Now: Teaching Chicana Feminists Texts in 2024” at the National Women’s Studies Association in Detroit, MI from November 14-17. Her talk argued for the increased relevance of Chicana feminist literature and methods, presenting two case studies of English courses taught at Southwestern in Fall 2023 and Spring 2024.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro was featured in the Place-Based Justice Network’s November Spotlight for her project Señora Power. In collaboration with Dr. Sophia Martinez Abbud, an Assistant Professor at Utah State, and Dr. Gaby Barrios, an independent scholar in Los Angeles, Dr. Del Hierro developed Señora Power, a multi-disciplinary project committed to writing Chicana feminist consciousness into public history. With particular attention to the coalescence of Chicanx culture and identity in Los Angeles and Houston from the early 20th century to the late 1980s, the initiative tracks the radical work and resistance of señoras prior to the civil rights movement. To execute this recording of personal and scholarly nuances towards archival knowledge, the final products of Señora Power  translate to the creation of a podcast discussing the various señora figures; a website to illustrate the project overview, hold podcast episodes, and provide breakdowns of each episode; and create physical pamphlets to be distributed in Houston and LA community centers to increase accessibility to Chicanx knowledge and history.