Marcela A. Di Blasi

Marcela Di Blasi is an Assistant Professor in Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies. Her current book project, Between La Viejita and The Virgin in Chicana/o Coming of Age, argues that older Chicanas employ the language, symbols, community, and rituals of religious faith as a source for political engagement, social imagination, and aesthetic inspiration throughout Chicana/o literature since 1940. Di Blasi finds that as older religious women move from the periphery to the center of Chicana/o coming of age stories, they challenge the form of the genre by incorporating experimental forms drawn from religious faith, ultimately occasioning new forms of representation in order to depict the lives of older Chicanas in the service industry. As a part of her commitment to advocate for students of color and first generation college students, Di Blasi serves as designated Post-doctoral mentor for the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellowship at Dartmouth. Her published work appears in Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies. Di Blasi completed her Ph.D. at New York University in 2016, her M.Phil. at Cambridge University in 2010, and her B.A. at Williams College in 2008.