Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon attended the 2025 National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico (Borikén) from November 13–16. She presented on a roundtable titled “Archiving Malflora: Latina/e Lesbian Memory Work as Decolonial Praxis,” along with four other members of Malflora Collective, her collaborative PEH project focused on preserving Latina/e lesbian histories. The roundtable focused on creative strategies for archiving community stories through zine-making, podcasting, and digital archival practices, while also contending with the fraught nature of online platforms.

Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon published a peer-reviewed article, titled “Tejano Drag Kings: Reclaiming Space, Place, and Culture Through Performance,” in WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, a top feminist studies journal. This article theorizes Tejano drag king performance as a critical source of resistance to state repression and cisheteronormative cultural standards. While drag kings in general, and Latino drag kings in particular, remain marginalized subjects in popular drag discourse, this article spotlights the work of Tejano drag kings and theorizes how their embodied performance and parody of masculinity serves as a vessel for feminist worldmaking. The article can be accessed here.

Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon, alongside her Mellon Publicly-Engaged Humanities (PEH) Research Assistant Mia Santoscoy ’26, attended the 2025 Lesbian Lives conference in New York City from October 24–26. They presented on a roundtable titled “Latina/e Lesbian Archival Praxis and Memory Work: A Plática/Roda de Conversa with Malflora Collective,” which included seven members of the Latina/e lesbian collective co-founded by Dr. Solomon with support from the Mellon PEH grant. In the roundtable, Malflora Collective members discussed the non-traditional and community-based archival practices that Latina/e lesbians engage in, arguing that their memory work is rooted in collectivity, lived experience, and cultural reclamation as a form of decolonial praxis. Together, they highlighted how noninstitutional archives and digital memory projects like Malflora Collective are crucial for preserving the stories of marginalized communities and fostering transnational solidarity in the face of cultural and political oppression.

On International Women’s Day, Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon released the first episode of her collaborative podcast, Malflora Podcast, which is a series of pláticas (community conversations) with Latina/e lesbian activists, writers, artists, and scholars. Malflora Podcast is published by Malflora Collective, a community project dedicated to preserving the lives and legacies of Latina/e lesbians. Dr. Solomon first conceptualized Malflora Collective as a 2024 Mellon Publicly-Engaged Humanities Summer Fellow. Since then, the project has grown to include a team of nine members, including Communication Studies/Latin American and Border Studies double major Mia Santoscoy ’26, who is currently serving as Dr. Solomon’s Research Assistant. In Episode 1 of Malflora Podcast, members from Malflora Collective introduce themselves and their work memorializing Latina/e lesbian history and culture. Listen here or on all major streaming platforms.

On December 9, Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon hosted the Lavender Literary Society’s discussion of Dr. Lydia Otero’s book, L.A. Interchanges: A Brown and Queer Archival Memoir. Solomon and Otero engaged in an intergenerational dialogue centered on queer and lesbian Chicane literature, history, and activism. The virtual event was coordinated by the American LGBTQ+ Museum and can be viewed here.