SUSANISIMA

Susana Vargas Cervantes is an interdisciplinary scholar, internationally recognized for her artistic and academic work at the intersections of alternative criminology, visual studies, and queer studies—in both Anglo North America and Latin America. Her research mines the connections between gender, sexuality, class, and skin tonalities to reconceptualize pigmentocracy as a system of perception.

She is the author of the book  The Little Old Lady Killer: The Sensationalized Crimes of Mexico's First Female Serial Killer (NYU Press, 2019) and Mujercitos (Editorial RM, 2015). After a Fulbright Visiting Fellowship at Columbia University, she joined Carleton University as an Assistant Professor in Communication and Media Studies. 

︎ MORE

BOOKS

︎ The Little Old Lady Killer

       NYU Press, 2019

︎ Mujercitos

       Editorial RM, 2015

︎ Aprehendiendo al delincuente

       UNAM-McGill, 2011

WRITINGS

︎ Scholarly
︎ Essays

SPEAKING

︎ Podcasts
︎ Text Interviews
︎ Presentations

CURATORIAL

︎ TATE BRITAIN

       Stan Firm inna Inglan

︎ JUMEX MUSEUM

       En Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni

︎ CCE

       Lo que se ve no se pregunta

OTHER PROJECTS

︎ Mesas de Diálogo

︎ Queering curatorial practices
︎ Seven to Eleven dreams

︎ A life in a liminal space


Mark

SPEAKING



Keynote 


︎”Postfeminismo, Neoliberalismo y Queerness: Reflexiones desde el Arte” Museo Cabañas, Guadalajara, Mexico, Junio 2023. 

︎Service Top: Bab Bunny Presentacion con Barbara Foulkes, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo y Museo de Arte de Zapopan (con Negraconda), Junio 2023. 

︎Author Meets Reader, with Lara Karaian, and Chris Smith, Carleton University, Ottawa, March 2022.

︎“The Little Old Lady Killer” Winter colloquium, Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Carleton University, Carleton University, Ottawa, 2022.

︎“A Photographic Rereading of Pigmentocracy and Performativity of Criminalized Subjects in Mexico” (Super)Natural, 17thAnnual Communication Graduate Caucus Conference, Carleton University, Ottawa, 2022.

︎  “Pigmentocracy and Performativity:  Intersections between Criminality and Visual Culture,” Materia Abierta, Mexico City, August 8, 2019.

︎ “Pigmentocracia y performatividad,” Vistas parciales para una jornada pública, Cabello/Carceller, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, February 12, 2019.

︎“Sopa de Zetas: nota roja y cultura popular” Segundo Coloquio de Cultura Popular y Cultura de Masas, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Mexico City, December 10, 2018.

︎“Alarma! Mujercitos y Hombrecitas desafiando la performatividad de género en un sistema pigmentocrático”  Quinto Coloquio Internacional Dimensiones Transgresoras. Travestis, Transgénero, Transexuales e Intersexuales: Lo Trans-Lúdico Contrastante,” Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City, October, 14,  2018.

︎“La mirada de una asesina serial” Experiencias, cuerpos y corporalidades en espacios de encierro, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-unidad Xochimilco, Mexico City, September 17, 2018.


Invited Lectures


︎Perreo, Corporalidades y Resistencias. Museo del Chopo, Junio 2023. 

︎ Columbia Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. Kitchen Sessions with Anna Puijganer.
February 4, 2021.

︎ Performatividad y Pigmentocracia. Instituto de Estudios Posnaturales
11 Noviembre, 2020.

︎
“Círculo de lectura: pigmentocracias, blanquitud y negrura en el arte con Susana Vargas
Museo Jumex 
22, 29 Julio y 5 de Agosto 2020.

︎ “Looking through Pigmentocracy” Passages, a symposium. Goethe in the Skyways, Minneapolis, September 27, 2019.

︎ “Tomar Postura,” with Yael Davids, Museo Tamayo, May, 2018.

︎ “Nota Roja y cultura visual en México,” Simposio Internacional Mal de Imagen, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico. December 2017.

︎ “Violencia,” Experiencias, cuerpos y corporalidades: miradas transdisciplinarias en torno a las cárceles, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City. November, 2017.

︎ Miércoles de Soma. Mexico City. August, 2016                   

︎ “Feist and Famine” with Minerva Cuevas, Dorothée Dupuis, Sandra Sánchez. Museo Tamayo. Mexico City. September, 2015.

︎ “Close-up,” with Catherine Opie e Ivan Acebo-Choy. Museo Jumex. Mexico City. August, 2015 

︎ “Inherent Vice,” with Manuel Solano, Guillermo Santamarina, and Christian Gómez. Galeria Karen Huber.  Mexico City. August, 2015                     

︎ “Queer pigmentocracy,” Pollination Pansies. Brussels. December, 2015           
︎ Something you should know. Artistes et producers aujourhd’hui. Curated by: Patricia Falguières, Elisabeth Lebovici, Hans-Ulrich Obrist et Natasa Petresin-Bachelez Paris, France. March, 2015.       


Selected Conference Presentations


︎“Alarma! Crime Photography in Mexico: an alternative to numbness and empathy,” Presented at Other Histories of Photography, Bogotá Colombia, September 2023. 

︎“What a Pickle, Can’t Tell If It’s a Man or a Woman!,” Seeing and Feeling Otherwise: Racialized Bodies, Gendered Aesthetics, and Queer Interpretive Practices, Modern Language Association, Seattle, 2020.

︎“Mujercitos: construcciones sexo-genéricas en la nota roja mexicana en los años setenta," Periodismo y género en la América Latina de los años cuarenta a los setenta, XVII Congreso Internacional de AHILA, Freie Universität Berlin. September, 2014. 

︎“Alarma!: Son hombres y venden sus caricias como si fueran mujeres,” Coloquio Nota Roja: Lo Anormal y lo Criminal en la Historia de México, El Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City, August, 2014.

︎“Qué lío! No se sabe si es mujer u hombre!,” Rethinking Race and Sexuality: Feminist Conversations, Contestations, and Coalitions, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Montreal. April, 2012. 

︎“What a pickle we can’t tell if he is a men or a woman,” International Forum for Emerging Scholars: Synchronicity, Contacts and Divergences in Latin American and U.S. Latino Art. 19th Century to the Present, University of Texas at Austin. October, 2012.

︎“Alarma!: Ya nadie quiere ser hombre? ¡Más mujercitos!,” La revista Alarma! en sus 50 años de vida: miradas, impacto y utilidad histórica”, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City. October, 2012.

︎“What a pickle we can’t tell if he is a man or a woman,” American Ethnological Society, Cuny University, New York City. April, 2012.        

︎“El que ríe al ultimo ríe mejor: Mujercitos en el Alarma de los años 70s en Mexico,” Intimidad y Espacio Público, Casa Lamm, Mexico City. February, 2011.

︎“He Who Laughs Lasts Laughs Best: Mujercitos en la Nota Roja en Mexico,” Media and Urban Life research group. Montreal. October, 2010.

︎“Emigrantes bisexuales de México a Canadá,” Northern Exposures: recent trends on Canadian Emigration, CISAN, UNAM, Mexico City. April, 2010.

︎“El que ríe al ultimo ríe mejor: Mujercitos en el Alarma de los años 70s en Mexico,” Sociedad: Medios y Crímen en Norte América, CISAN, UNAM, Mexico City. February, 2010.







Mark