Sheila Contreras

Biography

An associate professor in the Department of English, Contreras was director of Michigan State University’s Chicano/Latino Studies Program for seven years, including a PhD program and an undergraduate specialization. She has published in D. H. Lawrence Review, Reflexiones, and Interdisciplinary Literary Studies. Dr. Contreras’ research and teaching interests include Chicana/o and U.S. Latina/o literature, multi-ethnic literatures, comparative indigeneities, and women’s studies. She teaches in graduate and undergraduate courses in the Department of English, Chicano/Latino Studies and Women’s Studies. Contreras’ book, Blood Lines: Myth, Indigenism and Chicana/o Literature, published by the University of Texas Press, examines a broad array of texts that have contributed to the formation of an indigenous strand of Chicano cultural politics. The book questions established cultural perspectives on “the native,” which paradoxically challenge and reaffirm racialized representations of Indians in the Americas. Her latest project is entitled Mestizaje/Métissage: Post-Conquest Literary Cultures in the Americas.