Natalie Kubasek
Natalie Kubasek, a Ph.D. candidate in English with a concentration in American Literary Studies, has received the Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship.

Kubasek joined the English doctoral program in Fall 2010 after earning a master's in English from Simmons College, in Boston, Mass., and her bachelor's in English from Whittier College, in her hometown of Whittier, Calif.

In 2011-12, she garnered a Latino/a Graduate and Professional Student Fellowship sponsored by UNM's El Centro de la Raza and the Title V Resource Center.

Kubasek's research focuses on Chicano/a literature, and as a CRS Hector Torres fellow, she plans to conduct research for her dissertation on Chicana feminism and cultural production, with an emphasis on theater and performance art, which, Kubasek maintains, is a rich yet untapped area of Chicana cultural production. The fellowship will help her locate and access primary documents and resources housed in archives across the southwest; she also plans to locate and interview authors, performers, and playwrights significant to the development of Chicana theater.

The Hector Torres Fellowship, a $10,000-$15,000 stipend, was inaugurated by the University of New Mexico's Center for Regional Studies in memory of the English Department's slain colleague, Hector Torres.

The Center for Regional Studies Hector Torres Fellowship supports graduate research and scholarship in the English Department directly related to Torres' fields, as well as the mission of the Center for Regional Studies. Areas include Chicano/a literary and cultural studies; theory (i.e. Marxism, post-structuralism; deconstruction, psychoanalysis; and globalization); film studies; and scholarship related to the mission of the CRS, including history, archival research, literature and other interdisciplinary fields related to New Mexico, the US-Mexico borderlands, and the greater Southwest.

Media Contact: Carolyn Gonzales (505) 277-5920; email: cgonzal@unm.edu