Esther Leah Gabara

Associate Professor in the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies

Education

• Ph.D., Stanford University 2001

• Helena Rubenstein Fellow in Critical Theory, Independent Study Program, Whitney Museum of American Art 1998 - 1999

• M.A., Stanford University 1997

• B.A., University of Pennsylvania 1993

Overview

Esther Gabara works with art, literature, and visual culture from modern and contemporary Latin America. Central issues in her research are the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, theories and practices of non-mainstream modernisms, and representations of race and gender. Her teaching in the departments of Romance Studies and Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University covers visual theory, Latin American modernism, photography, Pop Art, Mexican feminism, and contemporary art and cultural production in the Americas. Currently she is working on a book manuscript, "Non-Literary Fiction: Invention and Interventions in Contemporary Art of the Americas," preparing an exhibition on Pop Art in the Americas, and researching the contemporary articulation of the colonial relationship between Latin America and Spain through the prism of art, economics, and immigration.

Expertise

Contemporary Latin American art, Mexican visual culture & politics, Latin American modernisms, contemporary urban cultural production in the Americas