Claudia Holguín Mendoza, Ph.D.
Julio Torres, Ph.D.
Myrna García, Ph.D.
Monday, May 12, 2025
Free & Open to the public
Lecture made possible by the generous support of the N.W. Harris Lecture Fund.
Dr. Claudia Holguín Mendoza is an Associate Professor of Spanish Linguistics at the University of California, Riverside. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Dr. Holguín Mendoza specializes in the sociolinguistics of race in the Mexican borderlands and Greater Mexico as well as critical pedagogies for the teaching of Spanish as a Heritage language. Her research across disciplines explores approaches of critical sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, as well as Latinx studies and education. She publishes in both English and Spanish, and her work has appeared in journals such as International Multilingual Research Journal, Hispania, Studies in Hispanic & Lusophone Linguistics, Identities, and Frontera Norte. Dr. Holguín Mendoza is the founder of the Critical Sociocultural Linguistic Literacy (CriSoLL) project for higher education and K-12, an antiracist pedagogical approach that centers on students’ affective needs and identity formations. She is also co-founder of the interdisciplinary Teach in Spanglish project. Her research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mellon Foundation.
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Free & Open to the public
Lecture made possible by the generous support of the N.W. Harris Lecture Fund.
Dr. Julio Torres is Professor of Spanish in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese with courtesy appointments in the School of Education and Department of Language Science at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include heritage/second language acquisition, multilingualism, cognition, and task-based language learning. His research has appeared in journals such as Studies in Second Language Acquisition and The Modern Language Journal as well as edited volumes and handbooks. He is the co-editor of the volume Aproximaciones al estudio del español como lengua de herencia with Routledge Press. Prof. Torres is the recipient of the 2014 Russell Campbell Young Scholar Special Recognition Award for the field of heritage language education and the 2020 School of Humanities Teaching Award at the University of California, Irvine. He also works as a teacher educator with K-16 instructors in designing task-based instruction and curriculum for heritage language students.
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Free & Open to the public
Lecture made possible by the generous support of the N.W. Harris Lecture Fund.
Dr. Myrna García (she/hers/ella) is Associate Professor of Instruction in Latinx Studies at Northwestern University. She holds a doctorate in ethnic studies from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s degree in education from Fordham University. As a scholar, she asks questions about the politics underlying history and archives used in its writing. Her research explores the activism undertaken by members of the Chicago chapter of the Center for Autonomous Social Action (CASA), one of the most important immigrant rights organizations to emerge from the Chicano Movement. Dr. García finds joy teaching and supporting student researchers. Moreover, she serves on the Aquí en Chicago advisory committee at the Chicago History Museum. She champions the historical preservation of the Latinx community. Building on prior experiences as a classroom teacher in New York City, Dr. García leads partnerships with educators and teaching artists to foster creativity and transformative learning.