Kristie Soares is Assistant Professor of Women & Gender Studies and Co-Chair of LGBTQ Studies at CU Boulder. Her research explores queerness in Caribbean and Latinx communities. Her current book manuscript – Joyful Protest: The Political Work of Joy in Latinx Media defines joy as a politicized form of pleasure, one that not only produces gratification but also unsettles social norms of gender, sexuality, race, and class. The book examines Puerto Rican and Cuban diasporic media from 1960-present. It contends that when cultural producers insert joy into media texts—ranging from music, to public activist demonstrations, to sitcoms—they resist the dominant stories told about Latinx joy over centuries of colonialism and imperialism. She is also currently working on an oral history project that explores the role of Latinx disc jockeys in the development of disco and dance music in 1970s New York.
