ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
ARLENE TORRES

Associate Professor, Latina/Latino Studies Program

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

Arlene Torres is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Latina/Latino Studies, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In January of 2004 she was appointed Director of the Latina and Latino Studies Program at UIUC. As a cultural anthropologist who focuses on the study of race and ethnicity, Torres has conducted research in the Anglophone and Hispanic Caribbean and in the U.S. Her most recent work focuses on the racialization of ethnic groups in museum settings. As a public intellectual, Torres serves as a member of the Advisory Board and consultant to a national project on race, "Understanding Race and Human Variation: A Public Education Program" supported by the American Anthropological Association, the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

Torres is currently on administrative leave for the 2007-2008 academic year. She is working on the completion of a manuscript focusing on race and racializing practices in Puerto Rico. She will devote most of her time to a second research project focusing on RACE and representation in the museum context. Torres will resume her duties as Director of the Latina Latino Studies Program in the fall of 2008.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND:
Ph.D. Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 1995; A.M. Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 1987; A.B. Sociology and Anthropology, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 1982

COURSES:
Introduction to Latina/o Studies
Advanced Topics in Latina/o Studies
Latina/os Challenging the Anthropological and Literary Landscape
Class, Culture and Society
AfroLatin American, the Caribbean and the U.S.
RACE

PUBLICATIONS:
Norman E. Whitten, Jr. & Arlene Torres (eds.) Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean. Volume I. Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1998a
Arlene Torres and Norman E. Whitten Jr. (eds.) Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean. Volume II. Bloomington: Indiana University Press1998b

"The chapters in these volumes excel in describing the diverse cultural responses of black populations to unique local and national contexts. . . . Whitten and Torres have produced a valuable collection destined to become a standard reference work on black cultures in Latin America and the Caribbean." —American Anthropologist

“Collecting Puerto Ricans” In Kevin Yelvington (ed.) Afro-Atlantic Dialogues: Anthropology in the Diaspora. Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press 2006
"From Jíbara to Anthropologist: Puerto Rican Ethnography and the Politics of Representation" Identities Vol 5(1)107-122 1998
"La gran familia puertorriqueña: 'ej prieta de beldá – the Great Puerto Rican family is really really black." In Torres and Whiiten (eds.) Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean Volume II. Bloomington: Indiana University Press1998
Norman E. Whitten, Jr and Arlene Torres "The Black Americas 1492-1992." In The NACLA Report. 26(4)1992