Evelyn S. Autry

Dr. Evelyn Saavedra Autry is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University. She earned her Ph.D. in Latin American Studies along with a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Georgia. Her scholarship bridges multiple fields of knowledge, centering Indigenous epistemologies in dialogue with decolonial and feminist pedagogies, literary and cultural studies, and feminist theory. Through this interdisciplinary lens, her work examines Andean women’s identity formations as sites of memory, resistance, and cultural resurgence. Her current book project, Archives of Coloniality and Indigenous Resurgence: Race, Gender, and Violence in Narratives of the Andes (under contract with The University of North Carolina Press), offers a sweeping, multidisciplinary study of Andean Indigenous women’s cultural representations from the colonial period to the present. The book traces histories of objectification alongside strategies of survival, resistance, and resurgence, constructing a genealogy of gender-based violence that exposes the enduring legacies of colonial power in Peru. At the same time, it challenges dominant frameworks that cast Indigenous women solely as passive victims. By integrating literary analysis, decolonial feminist theory, historical inquiry, and Indigenous epistemologies, the project rethinks how violence, memory, and resurgence are represented in cultural texts—and how these representations shape understandings of Indigenous womanhood. Dr. Saavedra Autry’s scholarship has been widely recognized. Her article “Singing Feminist Ch’ixi+Art Music from las Rajaduras: Renata Flores, Isqun, and the Fractured Locus” received the 2023 National Women’s Studies Association Paper Award. Her article “Insurgent Memories of War: Self-Representation by Female Ex-Combatants in Peru” was published in Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism and received the Paula J. Giddings Best Article Award in 2026. She is also the author of “Construcción de identidades femeninas andinas” (Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies) and “Testimonio, ficción y las batallas por las memorias en Insensatez” (Vernacular). Her earlier work spans colonial studies and the Peruvian avant-garde, including “Mitos fundacionales en los Comentarios Reales de los Incas” (Caracoles), “El pobre más rico: heterogeneidad y transculturación en el teatro quechua colonial” (Lamar Journal), and “Magda Portal: procesos de modernización, vanguardismo y compromiso” (Entre Caníbales). The latter has been recognized as an essential study in Magda Portal: Bibliografía Esencial. With over a decade of teaching experience at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, Dr. Saavedra Autry is deeply committed to feminist and Indigenous pedagogy. At Rutgers, she has designed and taught courses on contemporary feminist theory, decolonial and Indigenous feminisms, and social justice movements. Previously, at the University of Georgia, she taught Latinx Studies and Spanish, developing curricula for both in-person and online instruction. As an advocate for Indigenous studies and anti-racist education, she continues to design innovative courses that foreground decolonial thinking and feminist praxis, including Feminist Genealogies: Decolonial and Indigenous Feminisms, Indigenous Women, Art, and Resistance, Images of Indigenous Women from Abya Yala to Turtle Island in Literature, and Feminist Advocacy.

Publications:

• Autry Saavedra, Evelyn. “Transit Memories as Haunting: Women of Color-Led Activism and Protest in the Peruvian Diaspora.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies. Issue 48.1, with a publication date of May 2027.
• Autry Saavedra, Evelyn. “Insurgent Memories of Armed Struggle: Self-Representation by Female Ex-combatants in Peru.” Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, vol. 24, no.1, 2025, April 2025, pp.165–189. Recipient of the 2025 Paula J. Giddings Best Article Award.
• Autry, Evelyn Saavedra. “Singing Feminist Ch'ixi+ Art Music from las Rajaduras: Renata Flores, Isqun, and the Fractured Locus.” Feminist Formations, vol.35, no.3, 2023, pp.1-27. Recipient of the 2023 Feminist Formations / NWSA Paper Award.

Media Appearances/Speaking Engagements:

• “Transit Memories as Haunting: Women of Color-Led Activism and Protest in the Peruvian Diaspora.” Latin American Studies Association. Paris, France. May 2026.
• “Decolonizing the Hispanic World from Abya Yala to Turtle Island.” Department of Modern Languages & Literatures- Latin American Studies, Union College. Schenectady, NY. February 2026.
• “Decolonial Queer Genealogies: Chola Contravisual, Aesthetic Refusal, and Indigenous Feminism in Abya Yala.” National Women’s Studies Association. Atlanta, GA. November 2026.

Previous Organizations: 

• Rutgers University
• The University of Georgia

Accomplishments:

• Recipient of the 2026 Paula J. Giddings Best Article Award
• Recipient of the 2023 Feminist Formations/NWSA Paper Award
• Faculty Fellow at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis

Upcoming Projects:

• Book Project: Archives of Coloniality and Indigenous Resurgence: Race, Gender, and Violence in Narratives of the Andes. Under Contract with The University of North Carolina Press.
• RCHA Project: “Decolonial Queer Genealogies: Chola Contravisual, Aesthetic Refusal, and Indigenous Feminism in Abya Yala.”

My work offers a sweeping, multidisciplinary study of Andean Indigenous women’s cultural representations from the colonial period to the present. It traces histories of objectification alongside strategies of survival, resistance, and resurgence, constructing a genealogy of gender-based violence that exposes the enduring legacies of colonial power in Peru. At the same time, it challenges dominant frameworks that cast Indigenous women solely as passive victims. By integrating literary analysis, decolonial feminist theory, historical inquiry, and Indigenous epistemologies, my projects rethink how cultural texts represent violence, memory, and resurgence—and how these representations shape understandings of Indigenous womanhood