Xhercis Méndez

Home institution

California State University, Fullerton

Research project

Conjuring (An)Other Humanity: Decolonizing Feminist Methodologies from Within Afro-Latinx Ritual

This project takes as its central case Afro-Cuban Santería to reevaluate the methods and frameworks through which gender researchers have been taught to observe, interpret, and analyze the lives and experiences of women and queer practitioners of color in non-western religious systems.

Profile

Xhercis Méndez is Associate Professor and Vice-Chair of Women and Gender Studies at California State University, Fullerton. She received a PhD in the Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture Program at SUNY Binghamton. Her research focuses on race, sex, gender and sexuality at the intersection of science and religion and brings together Women of Color and Decolonial Feminisms, Sexuality Studies, and Afro-Latin@/diasporic Religion, Philosophies, and ways of knowing in an effort to explore alternative grounds for the (re)making of social relations, histories, intimacies, and resistant possibilities.

In the classroom, Dr. Mendez is committed to diversifying not only academic spaces, but also the processes through which knowledge is produced. Her approach includes emphasizing a diversity of thought in the selection of readings, often including non-canonical texts produced by people of color. In addition, she works to create intellectual spaces where a diversity of experiences can find a voice, experiences that were largely marginalized within her own educational trajectory.

Course

HDS 3078: When the Orishas Trouble Gender: An Exploration of Decolonial and Nonbinary Feminist Methods (fall 2022)