about me

Kiana González Cedeño is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English at Michigan State University, with a certificate in Chicano/Latino Studies, Caribbean and Latin American Studies, and Women and Gender Studies. She received her bachelor’s degree in Spanish Language, Literature, and Culture from the University of North Florida with a minor in American Sign Language and Deaf Studies, and her master’s degree in Hispanic Literature from Michigan State University. Her dissertation project Entre Llantos: Literary and Embodied Representations of Lamentation in Puerto Rican and Boricua Popular Culture translocates theoretical frameworks around lamentation from the Ancient Greek and Mediterranean to a modern Caribbean context to reveal how Puerto Ricans have resisted and rebelled colonization through lament. As a Solidarity Fellow in the Mellon Diaspora Solidarities Lab, she is interested in the ways women mobilized their communities after ecological disaster and how they author restoration and survival. Her research interests include Puerto Rican/Latinx Popular Literature and Culture, Women of Color/Third World Feminism, Critical Race Theory, and Ethnic Studies. She was also Research Fellow with the Mellon Bridging the Divides grant at CENTRO: The Center for Puerto Rican Studies.