Omaris Zamora

Omaris Zamora is a transnational Black Dominican Studies scholar and spoken-word poet. Her research interests include: theorizing AfroLatinidad in the context of race, gender, sexuality through Afro-diasporic approaches.

Her current book project tentatively titled, Cigüapa Unbound: AfroLatina Feminist Epistemologies of Tranceformation examines the transnational Black Dominican narratives put forth in the work of Firelei Baez, Elizabeth Acevedo, Nelly Rosario, Ana Lara, Loida Maritza Pérez, Josefina Baez, Cardi B, and La Bella Chanel. Zamora pays close attention to how they embody their blackness, produce knowledge, and shift the geographies of black feminism in ways that recognize the legacies of Chicana/Latina and Black American feminist theory in the United States, but tends to the specific experiences of AfroLatina women and their multiple genealogies. The manuscript proposes “tranceformation” as a continuous process that engages with the spiritual aspect of self-making and centers the body as an archive that creates and transmits an AfroLatina feminist epistemological theory.

Her work has been published in Post45, Latinx Talk, Label Me Latina/o, among others and has been featured on NPR’s Alt.Latino podcast. She fuses her poetry with her scholarly work as a way of contributing to a black poetic approach to literature and cultural studies.

She earned her Ph.D. in Iberian and Latin American literatures and cultures at the University of Texas, Austin.

Publications:

• “Transnational Renderings of Negro/a/x/*: Re-centering Blackness in AfroLatinidad.” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 68, 93 – 99, (1 July 2022).

• “Hispanic Heritage Month: The Importance of Afro-Latinx Identity in the diaspora.” New Jersey Star Ledger. 18 September 2022.

• “Before Bodak Yellow and Beyond the Post-Soul: Cardi B Performs AfroLatina Feminisms in the Trance.” The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research, 52:1, 53-63, (March 8, 2022).

Media Appearances/Speaking Engagements:

• “Cigüapa Unbound: AfroLatinx Feminist Epistemologies of Tranceformation.” Columbia University, Department of English and Comparative Literature. February 6, 2023.

• “Cigüapa Unbound: Blackness, Gender and Transnational Geographies of Marronage.” CUNY Hostos Community College, Latinx, Latin American and Caribbean Student Conference. May 10, 2022.

• “Post-Soul Afro-Latinidades.” Amherst College, Center for Humanistic Inquiry Fellows Symposium. April 7, 2023.

Previous Organizations: 

• University of Kansas

• Lehigh University

• Brooklyn College

Accomplishments:

• Ford Foundation PostDoctoral Fellowship

• The US Latino Digital Humanities (USLDH) Grants-in-Aid program Grant

• Wellesley College's Newhouse Center for the Humanities Residential Fellowship

Upcoming Projects:

• DominiRican Digital Humanities

• Dominicanyork: Life, Art, Fashion in Contemporary U.S. Cities

• Black Latinx Americas xLab

Social and racial justice is at the center of my work, which pertains to Black transnational freedoms by Black women in the African diaspora. My work pays special attention to the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality in the transnational context in the Americas, particularly the Spanish-speaking Caribbean via cultural production.

DominiRicanDH is a digital humanities project that tells a story that is often invisibilized–the tensions, solidarities, and re-imaginings of these inter-Caribbean diasporic communities through forming an archive of music, art, performance, and activism that highlights the diasporic Dominican and PuertoRican, as well as DominiRican diaspora communities in the U.S. DominiRicanDH aims to be a catalyst for recovery work in terms of re-narrating this experience to include DominiRicans in the Puerto Rican and Dominican national discourse and diasporic experiences in the United States and Puerto Rico. 

Led by Omaris Z. Zamora, Assistant Professor, Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies, School of Arts and Sciences, New Brunswick and Keishla Rivera-Lopez, Research Associate, Rooted and Relational Fellowship, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, CUNY

https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/what-we-do/scholarshipresearch-archive/art-culture-and-public-humanities